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Comment by jcapote | Hacker News Reader

"We used OS X for a day."

Don't be unfair. The eye-candy seems lifted from Compiz, so, obviously, they have used some Linux for about a day or two too.

RTFA, it specifically says that the quote about Win 7 copying OSX floating around the net for the last few days is wrong. It also goes further and says the MSoft employee offering up that quote didn't even work on the Windows 7 design team and then points to several sources about the real design inspiration.

Exactly what does this article address? All it does is declare (by fiat) that the quote floating around the internet is wrong, and then link to articles that are completely irrelevant in describing 'inspiration'. To summarize each link:

1) AP - Discussion on the victory (Office Ribbon) that led to Julie Larson-Green being made head of UI Experience

2) WSJ - Fact-less story about how Windows 7 is fixing the failings of Vista. No discussion about UI-inspiration. The closest was a hint to "quieting the system" that is directly addressing the UAC-faults that everyone griped about with Vista.

3) Fast Company - An overview of features that is devoid of anything but marketing information

The only thing 'useful' in this blog post was a link to the Windows 7 Design Blog. And in there, it describes how they highlighted items to improve, Except there's no reasoning behind why they thought these items were necessary, and the requirements they did identify seem to lead directly to their final solution... an indicator that the requirement was actually thought of after the solution.

Debunking, this is not. It's a collection of irrelevant posts and a link to an encyclopedia. It does not address the point it attempts to make and is frankly, a waste of time to read.

Exactly. Also, it cannot help that most people that have used both systems immediately think of the concepts that appear in the Mac operating system. I have noticed improvements in the Windows 7 interface where they have enhanced the Mac OS style interfaces, and that employee should not have been discussing a product on which he did not even work unless he was in marketing; however, the similarities are enough to make most people think it is more than coincidence.

As for my issues with Windows 7, removing the email client, requiring users to sign up with Windows Live just to use their Windows Live Mail address book (when the Windows Address Book is perfectly fine), and making interface changes that require more clicks to accomplish the same tasks are my reasons for not caring for the changes... not some incremental innovations that appear similar to other operating systems if those other operating systems have good interfaces.

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