15 February 2006
Back in October last year Steve Jobs, the Apple CEO, introduced the new iMac... along with Front Row, Apple's Media Software. Jobs is a great presenter, but there was one slide that stood out. He showed the new Apple Remote (6 buttons) with two others for Windows Media Centre (40-somthing buttons). This, he said, typified what Apple was about... power and simplicity.
Although I have no doubt that Apple does strive for these things the comparion was unfair to Microsoft, whose Media Centre does way more than Apple's Front Row. (Note: I'm not saying that you couldn't design a vastly better remote, just that Jobs was, forgive me, comparing Apples with Oranges).
But yesterday something came along that brings the message home in a real way. By way of Signal vs. Noise we see that Jonathan 'Wolf' Rentzsch has been comparing the toolbars for Apple's Safari web browser, and the recent beta for Internet Explorer 7... a much better comparison. Notice anything?
Posted by Nick Warren at 9:02 AM
