Get Extra for your OS: Story line of GUI, Microsoft and Apple

Douglas Engelbart, an American engineer working at the Stanford Research Institute, dreamt up the idea of a mouse driven graphical user interface back in 1960s. Researchers working for Xerox in Palo Alto California were inspired by Engelbart's work, and they went on to create a machine called the 'Alto' in 1973. Eventually the Alto project led to the 'Xerox Star 8010 Document Processor' which was released commercially in 1981 for US$17,000 (about $40,000 in today’s money). Although interesting historically, only a handful were actually manufactured.

1981 Xerox Star. The first commercial GUI computer.

1981 also saw the release of the IBM PC. At that time the market for personal computers was highly fragmented with dozens of manufactures competing in both in the home and business markets. The first IBM PC was too expensive for the home market, but it proved a huge hit with business. "You can't get fired for buying an IBM" said many, but the PC quickly developed a more important attraction - open standards. Failing to realise the importance of the operating system, IBM purchased one from Microsoft. As a result other manufacturers were then able to copy the IBM hardware design and ship their 'Clones' with copies MSDOS purchased directly from Microsoft. As a result, even without IBM's approval or participation, their PC became an open standard with virtually unstoppable economies of scale. By 1990 IBM Compatible PCs captured an 80% market share, today it runs at greater than 95%.

One of the many IBM PC compatibles that flooded the US market

IBM PC & Clones Market Share

Although IBM PCs running MSDOS dominated the market, Apple will be forever remembered as the innovative company behind the first mass market GUI based computer.

Steve Jobs, co owner of Apple Computers, visited Xerox in 1979 and left extremely impressed by the Alto. Over the next several years he hired many Xerox engineers, and invested many millions of dollars developing a marketable GUI based computer. In 1983 Apple finally released the $10,000 'Lisa'. It was far too expensive, failed completely, and Jobs was forced to resign - but a year later Apple was able to launch the much cheaper and highly successful Macintosh. Although Jobs took the idea of mouse and graphical user interface from Xerox, there is no doubt that his team at Apple contributed a very great deal to development of the GUI (eg: Overlapping Windows, Dialogue Box, Trash Can).

Before GUIs, users relied on complicated key combinations and typed commands to control computers. Steve Jobs focused on bringing computers to the masses by making them friendly, fun and easy to use - and he succeeded.

1984 Apple Macintosh, first home GUI computer:

1984 Mac GUI:

Screenshot of the included MacPaint

The development of the GUI made the Apple Mac popular for Graphical Desktop Publishing, but the IBM PC clone was still able to maintain market dominance. Meanwhile Microsoft worked on a GUI of it's own, and in 1985 it released an add-on to MSDOS called 'Windows 1.0'. However, this first version of Windows came with no useful compatible applications and its general functionality was limited by legal challenges from Apple. After defeating the law suites (Bill Gates defended them with the claim “hey you copied from Xerox”) it was able to release the much improved Windows 2.0 in 1987. That same year, two important programs written to work with Windows 2.0 were released: Microsoft Excel and Desktop Publisher Aldus PageMaker (the latter had previously only been available on the Apple Mac). Some computer historians date the release of PageMaker, the first appearance of a significant and non-Microsoft application for Windows, as the beginning of the success of Windows.

1987 Windows 2.0

It is interesting to compare the GUIs at this stage.

Windows could run applications side by side and had minimization and maximization buttons. Although the $10k Apple Lisa supported multiple applications, up until Operating System 7 in 1991 the Macintosh could only run one application at a time.

Apple applications shared a common menu bar in a fixed location at the top of the screen - a design which remains today. Windows, by contrast, demanded each window maintain its own interface. The Apple approach saved screen space and made applications easier to write, but in future years it has suffered two major disadvantages. First, applications running in a window on a big screen could appear a long way from their menu bar. Second, applications had reduced interface flexibility, eg advent of 'Skins' and the new Office 2007 Menu system. Today, the Microsoft approach is the standard used by non Apple GUIs such as Linux etc.

Apple used the common menu bar at the top of the window to launch applications, but Microsoft instead chose a 'Program Manger' application that contained icon shortcuts to programs and other folders. The Microsoft approach allowed for the hierarchical organisation of large numbers of applications / shortcuts (which was not possible with the simple Apple Menu), but it also contributed to clutter and complexity as the user opened folder after folder in search of his target. In 1995 Microsoft completely replaced the Program Manger technique with the 'Start Menu'.

Apple adopted a friendly icon based approach to browsing the hard drive but Windows employed a vertical tree based application called File Manager. The vertical tree approach is much more effective, but novice computer users often struggle to understand it. This difference is one of many that reflects a divergence of design philosophy in those early days - while Steve Jobs of Apple concentrated on making his system friendly and aesthetic, Bill Gates and the brilliant geeky programmers living on caffeine at Microsoft concentrated on power and technicalities.

To see the difference in aesthetic design compare two early text editor applications from Apple and Microsoft.

1985 Text Editing on Apple & Windows

Steve Jobs named his first computer after his daughter Lisa because it was so easy to use. Looking at the screenshot above one wonders if Bill Gates could have used the same name for Windows 1.0, not because it was child’s play to use, but rather because it looked as if Steve's daughter ran his graphic design.

It should be said that although Apple and Microsoft were among the first to market, all the remaining vendors were also working on GUI at this time as well. The screenshot below shows an interesting example from a British company called Acorn. This GUI had something approaching a task bar showing active applications, an idea that would make its way into the Windows and Apple GUI some years later.

1991 RISC OS 3.0, A GUI with task bar

Another interesting GUI comes from NeXT. After Steve Jobs was forced to resign from Apple, he founded NeXT and started developing very trendy, powerful and expensive Unix workstations. His first GUI is pictured below, it shows a 3D effect on the windows, icons and menus. Two years later Microsoft adopted a 3D look as well.

1988 NeXT GUI with 3D looking Windows and Icons

Both IBM PC Hardware and the Microsoft Windows GUI suffered one huge disadvantage compared to the Macintosh – they needed to retain complete backwards compatibility with older software. As a result it wasn’t until the advent of the powerful Intel 386 processor and the release of Windows 3.0 that Microsoft’s GUI really took off.

1990 Windows 3.0

1991 Apple’s System 7

1992 Microsoft Windows 3.11

Of course, the popularity of Windows went hand in hand with the availability of Windows applications. Perhaps Microsoft’s most remarkable feat was to leverage the GUI skills acquired whilst developing Windows in the production of Spreadsheets and Word Processors.

The screenshot below shows the first version of Excel released in 1987 for Windows 2.0 which completely outclassed the market leading Lotus123 spreadsheet both in terms of GUI and core functionality. Almost overnight Lotus started loosing market share and within a few years it was little more than a memory.

1987 Excel 2.0 for Windows

1988 Excel 2.1. The start of the grey borders and 3D effect.

1991 Excel 3.0. The first application to use a modern toolbar

By contrast, in 1991 Word Perfect released Word Perfect 5.1 for DOS and Word Perfect 5.1 for Windows. Word Perfect was the biggest application of it's day, but the company failed to adapt quickly enough to the popularity of the GUI. The screen shot below shows the famous but complicated 'Reveal Codes' feature which was rendered essentially obsolete by WYSIWYG editing.

1991 & 1992 Word Perfect

The table below shows the market share of Microsoft Word relative to its competitors. By 1993 WordPerfect was beaten, by 1997 Microsoft had captured a greater than 90% market share.

The Macintosh version of Word took market share away from competitors such as MacWrite even more quickly and more decisively. This is interesting because it’s inconsistent with the often repeated theory that Microsoft’s dominance stemmed only from insider knowledge of the underlying platform operating system. Insider knowledge was no help to Apple, first their MacWrite word processor's market share was burned by Word Perfect, then it was vaporised by MS Word.

Although Windows 3.1 was extremely popular it’s MSDOS heritage left it with several major flaws, not least of which was stability. For business users, who required less compatibility with legacy applications, especially games, Microsoft offered an alternative operating system called 'Windows NT'.

In 1995 Microsoft released an enormous upgrade that finally gave the home user a stable sophisticated modern mostly 32 bit operating system with protected memory and preemptive multitasking (features that would take another seven years to reach the Apple Mac).

1995 Windows 95

As well as huge under the hood improvements Windows 95 offered a radical new GUI. Microsoft introduced the 'Task Bar' which accomplished three things:

(1) The prominent 'Start Menu' at the far left of the Task Bar simplified launching programs or accessing OS features such as Control Panel. Instead of hunting for icons on the Desktop or in Program Manager all features were available in one easy to find place. Microsoft were proud of the Start Menu and it featured heavily in their advertising campaigns for Windows 95. Although the Start Menu has been a great success, novice users have never found it as easy to customize or navigate as the desktop and often continue to store some programs or documents there.

(2) Most early GUIs, including ones from Apple and Microsoft, minimized running programs to icons on the desktop where they could be lost amongst similar looking icons, or hidden from view by windows running on top of them. The task bar rectified this problem by putting all running programs into one highly visible place.

(3) The Task Bar also featured a system tray where users could see the clock and system applications.

Today the task bar with start menu, running applications and system tray is the standard used by both the latest Microsoft & Linux GUIs. It’s notable that while Microsoft was prepared to completely junk its Program Manager and replace with a Start Menu, Apple only reluctantly and gradually added a task bar to their system over the next several years. This fits with a generally aggressive tendency to innovate, assimilate, copy and redesign which is a major factor behind Microsoft’s success. Such extreme willingness to change is highly unusual, and is surely one of the principle factors behind Microsoft's position today as the worlds largest software company.

Windows 1995 perhaps marked the beginning of a new era at Microsoft in which it began to dumb down functionality in order to make products easier to use or better looking Apple style. For example, in Windows 95 Microsoft started hiding the tree inside their file open dialogues. Novice users can be confused by the tree, but it is a very powerful feature and hiding it reduces functionality.

Windows 3.11 File Open showing tree

Windows 95 File Open - With tree removed Apple Style

By Contrast: A Power User's File Open - Not Microsoft, Windows XP Era - The user selects "My Documents", C:, D:, "My Computer", "My Network Places", a Favourite etc and then the tree is shown going forward from that point.

Shortly after Windows 95, Apple released System 7.5. This release had the codename Capone, which was a reference to the gangster who put fear in Chicago – Chicago being Microsoft’s codename for Windows 95.

1996 Mac System 7.5.3. Notice the bottom 'control strip', the beginning of the Apple task bar

Apple may have nicknamed their operating system Capone, but in truth their market share had peaked at 12% in 1992 and had been in decline ever since. The advent of Windows 95 only heralded an acceleration of that process. See the pink line on the chart below – notice the increased rate of decline after 1995.

By 1997 Apple were is crisis and Steve Jobs, who had left years earlier to found NeXT, was brought back to rescue the company. Shortly after his arrival a new operating system was released.

1997, Mac OS 8

A year later in 1998 Microsoft released 'Windows 98'. It offered improved stability and hardware support but had few GUI changes. No screenshot is shown here.

Also in 1998 Steve Jobs of Apple Mac introduced the iMac. Although technically unimpressive both in terms of hardware and operating system it featured a new translucent plastic exterior, originally in Bondi Blue, but later many other colours. The iMac proved phenomenally successful, selling close to 800,000 units in its first five months and significantly boosting the company's revenue and profitability. Thanks to the iMac, fiscal 1998 was Apple's first profitable year since 1993. The iMac is now considered an industrial design icon of the late 90s. In 2001 the launch of the iPod further contributed to the popularity of the Apple brand and it’s PCs.

1998 The Stylish iMac Drove Sales

2001 Mac OS X

In 2001 Apple Mac released a brand new fully 32 bit modern operating system with a Unix-like core. This new version did not offer backward compatibility with older software but it has still proven a great success. To me, Windows 95/98, with it's angular 3D grey borders and controls, feels very bleak and dated compared to this new Apple GUI. Most people would say that aesthetically this OS put Apple well ahead and it took several years until the release of Vista for Microsoft to begin catching up.

In terms of GUI functionality, however, some users were much less impressed. Microsoft had long dominated OS and Application GUI design, but the near dead Apple still resisted too obviously copying. Perhaps Steve Jobs felt he could not be seen to be copying Microsoft; but BMW would never balk at fitting innovations such as anti-lock braking systems to their cars just because Mercedes got there first. For example: Microsoft had three buttons on the right of each windows for maximization, minimization and close. Apple added three buttons to the left but bizarrely altered their behaviour (Mac users generally have to close applications with Apple-Q). The bottom Dock came with huge icons and greatly reduced functionality compared to Windows 95/98. Apple also passed up a chance to abandon its unorthodox common top menu bar, single button mouse, lack of a delete key, treeless path browsing, underpowered application install/uninstall etc.

Apple is accused by many of emphasising form over function. Given that Apple's primary market is the home user or SoHo Designer this is natural - but some accuse them of taking the process much too far. Microsoft called OS X a "toy". However, it became an increasingly popular toy.

2001 Windows XP

A significant upgrade to the Windows system also came in 2001 with the release of Windows XP. This version offered a fully 32 bit core, many new security features and a convergence of home and business versions (no more Windows NT).

The GUI changed as well - an attempt was made to make the product generally warmer and more friendly. For example, colourful icons and descriptions appeared in inside folders ('Web Folders'). Interestingly, almost all large corporate users and home ‘power users’ disabled this new feature. Although Windows XP felt somewhat smarter and more modern than it’s predecessors, looking at the screen shot below, some will wonder why Microsoft didn’t try and make it a little less colourful and a little more stylish.

Here is my desktop (I still run XP on most of my machines):

2005 OS X Tiger

Notice the 'system tray' or 'menu extra' icons running at the far right of the top menu bar.

2007 Windows Vista

As I write this in December 2007 Vista has just celebrated its first anniversary. It is thought to be the worlds largest software project to date - estimated at 10,000 employees working for five years - perhaps a $10billion spend.

Apple Mac’s share of the home market has increased substantially in 2007. It’s clear that the Apple brand is going from strength to strength with increasing awareness and trust in its stylish products. Many people now believe: (a) Apple is better looking (b) Apple is easier to use (c) Apples crash less and don't get viruses (d) PC’s are for geeks who don’t mind tearing their hair out for days on end fighting with config files and driver patches etc.

Look at the average home user’s Windows PC and you usually find a mass of icons running in the system tray and programs such as Norton Anti-Virus crippling the machine. Personally I often find friends of mine have a PC problem they need help with – for example, a few weeks ago a friend couldn’t play CDs. It took me half an hour to figure out the problem - put one in the machine and three programs were trying to play the CD simultaneously resulting in strange clicking noises. The mass of poor quality software available and installed on PCs often makes them very unreliable and frustrating devices.

Vista did not solve these problems – in fact it made them worse. Vista turned out to be nightmare of software and hardware compatibility issues. Even famous application such as Windows Live Messenger, iTunes, Visual Studio 2005 and Outlook 2003 failed to run fully or at all under Vista and had to be patched. Although users were encouraged to upgrade an existing install of XP to Vista, doing so was fraught with problems and should probably never have even been allowed. Even brand new laptops running Vista and shipped by Sony turned out to be unstable. These enormous problems hugely fuelled the perception that Windows is unreliable and Apple Mac is a better choice. Apple even capitalized on the Vista problems by running advertising campaigns deriding Vista (eg "Apple - It just works").

The new Aero interface won some fans but it was no Mac OS X killer. To show off the transparency effect Microsoft increased the border size on all apps wasting screen space. Only Windows Media Centre really demonstrated the power of the fast GUI technology introduced into Vista - yet even that carried a glaring flaw:

Windows Media Centre - Good looking GUI buy why only show only 7 channels at a time? (significant functionality has been relinquished for the sake of aesthetics).

Microsoft said Vista was easier to use, but users having to relearn many GUI and OS features did not always agree. Complex settings were buried deeply to avoid accidental change which could annoy power users trying to find them. Microsoft started removing menu bars on applications making them look a little sexier (Apple Mac Style), but also harder to use. Jealous of Apple's reputation for style and ease of use, Microsoft is fighting back but so far the results combine the worst of both worlds - underpowered from Apple and ugly from Microsoft.

Vista Photo Gallery: Wal-Mart GUI? Notice the valuable vertical screen space sacrificed to over sized top and bottom control bars. Steve Jobs and the stylish crowd at Apple always laugh at the ugly special buttons and stickers PC Laptop manufactures insist on adding to their machines- pretty much like this interface below.

Microsoft realised, rightly, that a security model to protect home users running as administrators required an innovative new approach not found on other operating systems. However, the many pop-ups and permission denied messages ended up aggravating users. Instead of one pop-up per task, several could be generated. Worse, users found even legitimate administrator access requests blocked on some occasions. IE7 ran in a new 'protected mode', yet many harmless controls still required prompts leaving many users feeling no further forward.

In summary Windows Vista suffered two major complaints:

(a) Unreliability - Unreliability also contributed to the Windows reputation for complexity (ironic because Vista attempted to be more user friendly). However, the painful memories will fade as time passes, service packs are released, and popular applications are fixed to work with it.

(b) Power Users Feeling Disenfranchised - Many Power Users who could disable Microsoft's previous user friendly GUI innovations (such as Web Folders, File Extension Hiding, Treeless Start Menus, Office Assistants, Adaptive Office Menus, even Microsoft Bob) are feeling increasingly disenfranchised by Microsoft's latest GUI designs.

Here is a quote from www.zabkat.com where a replacement for Microsoft's Windows Explorer called Xplorer2 is sold:

For a long time leading to the release of Vista, I was afraid that it would be the end of xplorer². As it turned out, quite the opposite has happened. All of a sudden the most popular search keyword is "vista explorer replacement" driving early adopters to my website... Where the hell is the menu bar in Vista's explorer? That must be the nadir of improvement ideas... But I can't complain :)

Mac OS X Leopard

Unlike Windows, which sees a major release every three to four years, new releases of Apple's OS X are much more incremental. Each yearly release usually carries a few headline improvements and lots of little tinkerings. After the many problems Microsoft experienced with Vista it is also now considering adopting a more frequent and less groundbreaking release schedule.

Designed to compete with Vista one of the things most noticeable about Leopard upon first glance is the amount of new eye candy. The desktop is empty of icons - the first OS to make that move even though it's been an obvious step since Windows 95. The new Dock (or Task Bar) shown exploding on the right of the picture above, allows for a folder of documents / programs, thereby addressing some of the shortcoming of not having a start menu (Power Users can remove all the application shortcuts from the Dock and add the Application folder to the Dock). The new 'Finder', which is the Apple equivalent of Windows Explorer, is also shown in the picture above. It has a new iTunes style cover flow mode which takes the user about as far from the old fashioned tree as one can imagine.

Apple did not have time to rethink the security model, as Vista did, in this release. Other major omissions compared to Vista in this release include Media Centre and HD DVD support.

Conclusion - Designers vs Geeks

Apple retains a devoted following because:

Steve Jobs has demonstrated the crucial role aesthetics and design play in public appeal. Just as huge PC Manufacturers such as IBM and DELL have failed to entice the public with designs as attractive as the iMac, Microsoft has not succeeded in making Windows as trendy and stylish as it is technically effective. Steve Job's top down management style delivers a clarity of vision and aesthetic standard few technology companies can match. Microsoft's Windows Mobile OS was blown away by the very first release of the stylish iPhone with its vibrating touch screen interface. Even without a sophisticated email service or a 3G interface consumers loved it. Indeed, in its first full quarter of sales the iPhone's market share is said to have climbed past Microsoft’s entire line-up of Windows Mobile smartphones in North America. Apple's superior design is not just hype. First the iMac, then the iPod, then the iPhone, then Apple TV Take 2 - how can the tech giants fumble so often and so obviously? Microsoft, Google, Motorola and many other technology firms desperately need to shed their geeky cultures - think Ferrari vs Star Trek.

The enormous number of software applications that run on Windows is both a strength and a flaw. Few software companies have the skills required to build sophisticated consumer applications that can be installed and run flawlessly across millions of machines. Much of the software installed on Windows PCs is badly written and hard to use, and it damages the Windows brand. Similarly the wide range of hardware devices that run on the Windows platform is both a strength and a flaw.

Unlike Apple who were able to create a brand new GUI based operating system, Microsoft have maintained backward compatibility which makes their products more complex.

Compared to Microsoft, Apple have simplified products to enhance their appeal to the home user. Old Examples: Program Manager, Shortcuts, Tree Views, Application Install. A recent example: the way iTunes stores music. Although novice users will appreciate the low hassle way in which music is stored, many power users complain about limitations.

Finally it's much easier to feel passionate about a product with a small market share. The invention of panes of glass had an incredible impact on the standard of living by allowing light without cold into buildings. Nevertheless, the pane of glass is now so common, and so much an accepted part of our lives, that these days only the most philosophical are likely to be heard espousing the marvellous benefits of windows :-).

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As a final though I leave you with some interesting screenshots showing the evolution of an Apple and Windows application over the years. It’s exciting to watch the aesthetic progression of our GUIs and to wonder what future years will hold. My only fear, as a power user, is that Microsoft will put Apple style ease of use and aesthetics ahead of functionality - I hope they can always remain at least on a level pegging.

1991 Mac

1997 Mac

2002 Mac