Now we’re expecting the release of the latest OS’ from Microsoft and Apple, Windows 7 and Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Normally they’d include some new features and some major improvements into these releases (with the Mac OS X releases coming yearly as new versions but I don’t mind one bit). But these are positioned as incremental (a.k.a minor upgrades) which slightly lowers my expectations. This may be reasonable due to the fact that Vista and Leopard were slightly disappointing and didn’t feel exactly like they were getting what they thought they were getting, with some or lots of features being cut from Vista and Leopard (this may not be entirely true, if you think what I said is wrong, email me.), Specifically Vista’s 6 confusing and unnecessary editions being placed on the market and Vista, being marketed poorly and the Vista compatible lawsuit, might of hindered it’s impact and gave people a bad impression of Vista that continues even to this day.

So what’s new? Making everything run, boot and install faster, that is one of the main focuses of both Windows 7 and Snow Leopard, removing unnecessary services, reducing the initial space it takes up and also reducing how much memory it uses and introducing new boot technologies, including one in Windows 7 that allows it to boot up in 15 seconds (it’s not included in the current Windows 7 beta but I think it may be included in the upcoming release candidate version, again, I’m not sure). This has been what everyone has been clamoring up for the past year or so, an OS that doesn’t take up that much space and boots up in a short time. The space these OS’s take up currently is absurd. Both Windows Vista and Mac OS X takes up to around 7.00 GBs of space with everything included and people with small hard drive space have had trouble adopting them because it would be a hard drive space hog with all of the stuff included on it, now that problem may be history. Also the speed enhancements are nice because people with slower computer will be able to use the system like the developers indented. I predict that those with older Pentium 4 processers will be excited beyond belief.

Also new is the new multi-touch stuff that they’re adding, ever since the iPhone popularized multi-touch beyond belief, everyone’s been trying to create or hype their next touch-based product (I’m looking at you Microsoft Surface). But I’m surprised that their including multi-touch into both Windows 7 and Snow Leopard, really. This brings a lot of possible for both systems because you can resize and move windows, documents, slide between individual screens, move back and forward between pages, scroll through pages easier, highlight text, it’s even useful for a new generation of games (which you can already download and play on the iPhone but for Windows and Mac OS X, this is new). The upcoming multi-touch monitors that are being released and prepped for Windows 7 and Snow Leopard will bring multi-touch to the masses, expect them to cost a lot though and make sure that you really need one before buying one, the multi-touch looks cool but think about what you’ll use it for.

The most surprising thing I’ve seen is the new versions of QuickTime (X) and Windows Media Player (12) supporting a vast array of codecs beyond WMV (for Windows Media Player), MOV, MPG4 (for QuickTime) and raw AVI (for both players). From what I’ve used, they now support a vast array of modern codecs that you had to manually download and install before to get the Media Player to be compatible with most media files and play them out of the box. I truly appreciate them for including support for nearly every video codec and file there is, really saves me a lot of trouble whenever I reinstall my OS or one of my codecs mysteriously stop working. This has been long wished for but they were afraid that something was blocking them from including it, but they’ve been able to find a way to create their own way to play DiVx, MP4, WMV, AAC or whatever codecs these Media Players don’t currently support.

Still, even though their file managers are the same, their interfaces the same and also some things remain the same. These operating systems do have different features that separate them from being entirely similar. So these are not Service Packs or anything because these usually contain fixes to bugs already in the operating system as well as some new features specific to that operating system. These are bringing something to the table that we have mostly not seen before or we requested that it be put in there. It may be something new like native support for a file system or something entirely new altogether. It still shows that they’re interested in putting new stuff that’s revolutionary and cool and it also sorta increases the value of it, here’s what each OS will contain.

Still despite it mostly being speed enhancements and new behind-the-hood technologies, there is nothing mostly different between good releases. Still, based on what I’ve tried, they are better then their initial predecessors and it should be on every geek’s wish list. Basing from what I tried of Windows 7, it’s better then Windows Vista and I’m sure that Snow Leopard will blow away Leopard. Still, I think these companies may be saying that they’re sorry and that they want you to fall in love all over again (For Leopard users, they may be happier that the system will be faster then ever before) and from everyone elses experiences and some people demanding they release Windows 7 now. I feel that these will be more then succ
essful and it might be enough to make people forget about the wobbly launches of Vista and the downsides of Leopard. Still, there’s nothing majorly different between them, but I feel like you should upgrade when they come out in 2009 or 2010, whether you’re on Mac or PC.