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For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Sunday, August 03, 2003

Another feature Apple's stealing from Windows
Someone should compile a list of the features Apple is stealing from Windows, as Apple fans seem to take a misdirected delight in every OS X feature they mistakenly believe Apple invented first. There are plenty of these in OS X now, and the next version--code-named Jaguar--really raises the "not invented here" ratio dramatically. Here's one I hadn't heard about until recently: Panther will include built-in compression capabilities, which raises two issues in my mind. First, Microsoft did this first in Windows 98 SE, with Compressed Folders (it actually debuted a year earlier for Windows 98 customers that bought Plus! for Windows 98). Second, Apple is killing yet another successful third party product, StuffIt, in its ever-decreasing market, which is not a wise idea. What, you want more? I got more. One of the coolest third party utilities I ever bought for OS X was an applet called LiteSwitch X that makes task switching in OS X more like than in Windows, with a screen-centered display of the currently running applications which pops-up when you use ALT+TAB (Apple + TAB). I paid about $20-30 for this utility, as I recall. Well, fear not, Windows-style application switching will be in Panther. One more Windows feature, one less third party application.

[ Posted at 9:51 AM | Permalink ]