Microsoft intros Windows 7 beta, Songsmith app at CES - Page 4

Ballmer has to be one of the least photogenic people I've ever seen.

Well, it's an old thread now but you clearly didn't read what I wrote.

1) - AppleInsider is (mostly) for Apple news
2) - They publish Windows stories, but not all of them.
3) - The reason being it has to be relevant to the Mac/Apple.
4) - This product is only related to Apple in that it's assumed to be competitive to GB
5) - The assertion (by the author only) that it *is* competitive to GB turns out to be false.
6) - Another, much bigger, more relevant story (Palm pre) wasn't covered.
7) - This story generates more hate, and therefore more hits.

Conclusion: ApppleInsider seems more concerned with generating heat than it is with covering the industry properly in this case.

Keyboard cover?

The ports are all the same as a MacBook Pro / PowerBook G4.

It IS an Apple notebook.

I'm guessing they must have just finished watching High School Musical when this idea came.

And here is a Windows Fanboy (because you truly have to be a fanboy to continue to use it) touting Windows 7 and Songsmith without ever having used it.

Be nice- He looks like one of the evolved humans in Wall-E.

Well, it HAS a MagSafe Plug...so...

I was being nice by simply referring to him as Not Photogenic.

From a marketing standpoint alone, having him as a spokesperson is a serious issue, I mean, he couldn't find a sweater that fit? Do they not pay him enough?

Hands-down the best line ever from a Microsoft ad happens midway through that trainwreck...

"Microsoft, huh? So it's pretty easy to use?"

You have got to be kidding me! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Clearly that came from the same marketing people who brought us "McDonalds, huh? So it's good for me?" and "Wal-Mart, huh? So that means top quality and excellent service?"

Oh my god, if this were a spoof of cheesy computer ads, this would be sheer brilliance, but the fact that it's real is beyond bizarre.

Here's a couple for the road.



... and his dad...




... and his grandfather...



... well, maybe not that last one.

When you come across something like Songsmith and that video, you can't help but mention it. I only said Microsoft seems to be aiming at Magic GarageBand, not GarageBand itself, but only one aspect of the program. I mean, really, they are at *least* remotely similar aren't they? A backup jam band for your vocals, with swappable styles? As for #4 and #5, I didn't say whether or not I thought Microsoft's aim hit its mark - we leave that for the reader to decide. As for #6, refresh the home page!

It's funny how some say that Microsoft has the right to use any computer even if it's Mac, yet why would they cover the logo with a flower then? Leave it like the way it was intended to be then.

No, next year Steve Jobs gets day one and Bland Ballmer will be kicked back to day two.

Looks like Microsoft must have another application in the pipeline called AdSmith which they used to come up with that commercial.

Lately every time there has been an Apple event MS comes out with their tripe about Macs being SO expensive.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1786

Seems to me they don't want us buying them, and here they are using them in their own video. Kinda ironic, dontcha think?

ha, good one.

Apresciate you all reading what I have to say. Fan boys and fan girls listen up. If you don't like micrsoft then get your head out of your ass and buy a mac. Stop crying like children. Also I do know punctuation but I'm typing on an iPhone and didn't want to spend the time correcting everything. The ad is directed towards children and people who like to sing in their car. If you use songsmity or garage band for real music purposes then you should quit while your behind. The music industry doesn't need you. Anyway thanks for all the replies I appreciate it. I don't know what someone said about me being angry or something, another replied 'no you shut up'. All very interesting analysis'. Thank you again for your time.

Actually real musicians do use GB to make songs.

Go to Apple.com and see for yourself.

Just saying..

I have been playing with Windows 7 beta for the last hour now. Not really understanding the hype - it seems like a polished version of Vista, rather than something completely new.

The new Windows taskbar takes a leaf from the OS X Dock by being graphical not textual and allowing you to put shortcuts in there for things not currently running. The file manager has an enhanced sidebar similar to Finder. The desktop gadgets can go all over the screen now, not just in sidebar, but they don't have a nice way to whisk them all away like Dashboard. Overall I think it is a good incremental improvement to Windows, but probably not enough to make any Mac or Linux users defect.

A lot of the foundation was already rewritten with Vista: audio stack, networking stack, video model, drivers in user-land rather than kernel, etc. So in a sense, Windows 7 is a polished and improved version of Vista. Windows 7 main focus now is performance and stability with a few additional features. Because Windows has been fully 64-bit since XP 64-bit, they don't have to focus in this area. Fully 64-bit means a 64-bit kernel that requires 64-bit drivers.

Basically, new and improved features include:

* Support up to 256 logical processors
* Support for multiple heterogeneous graphics cards from different vendors

* Improved audio stack with multiple audio streams
* Improved desktop composition engine (memory usage is now constant regardless)
* Improved and optimized for SSD hard drives
* Improved power management (longer battery life)
* Improved memory usage (a new install takes 400-500MB instead of 800MB-1GB)

* New built-in Bluetooth 2.1 support
* New DirectX 11, Direct3D 11, Direct2D, DirectWrite, some hardware acceleration for GDI
* New multi-touch support
* New Windows Media Center with ClearQAM & CableCARD HDTV Tuners support
* New BluRay playback support
* New Windows Media Player 12
* New built-in playback support for MP4, MOV, 3GP, AVCHD, ADTS, M4A, WTV, H.264, MPEG4-SP, ASP/DivX/Xvid, MJPEG, DV, AAC-LC, LPCM, AAC-HE
* New home networking method using HomeGroup

* Improved UAC prompts and management
* Improved and expanded taskbar and additional desktop features
* Improved notification system
* Improved Windows Explorer
* Improved Windows Search with Federated Search (search Flickr, YouTube...within Windows Explorer)

* Mount and boot from Virtual Hard Disk (VHD)
* And other business and enterprise oriented features and improvements

The way I understand it, Windows 7 is to Vista as Windows XP is to ME. XP was a polished version of ME except that it didn't crash every 25 seconds. I'm downloading Win 7 Beta (x64) now, going to try to dual-boot on my xHack.

ME and XP came from completely different paths. That comparison between xp and 2000 can be made though. ME was the last entry in the traditional "GUI on DOS" line. XP was the first consumer operating system to come from the Windows NT line.

But they we're only 64-bit if you had the 64-bit version, which most weren't. Then their were driver issues galore, though thatt finally seems to have been mostly dealt with by Vista SP1. Apple's approach to systematically migrating aspects of the system to 64-bit while making it backwards compatible to 32-bit systems is much more intelligent method.

edit: pipped by BenRoethig.

Apple didn't make a dime off iTunes. iTunes was (and still is) given away for free. Or are you implying that SoundJam also came up with the idea of the iPod and the iTunes Store.

And Apple didn't "take" the idea from SoundJam. Apple hired the 3 guys that wrote SoundJam. (Which was essentially the whole company.) That's why iTunes resemble SoundJam. At the time, SoundJam was one of the most popular (if not the best) audio player for Macs. The other being Audion. If I remember correctly, Audion was the other audio player (for Mac) that was considered for iTunes.

i'm running it on my dell, it feels just like a polished up turd (vista). its not bad, not good, probably better than vista on some levels. but out of the box the damn thing won't let me download files from my windows home server, some ACL security setting for Intranet won't let me do anything...have to dig around to figure this one out. Stupid.

Other than that it looks ok, seems to be Vista II.

64-bit support was quite sporadic when Vista 64-bit was released. It has since gotten much better. Apple's method certainly made the transition to 64-bit support easier with Tiger and Leopard. However, they were still using 32-bit drivers.

It's extremely important that Apple and its hardware vendors update to 64-bit drivers. Otherwise, they might have a problem like Microsoft did with very little 64-bit drivers at launch.

What?! John is HOT!!!

Also, just joined after years and years of reading. :-P

LOL

I'm actually laughing out loud. I was reading the forums and my friend was watching over my shoulder, I was reading some of the comments and decided to watch the video. I couldn't blink. So I started tearing and my friend tells me that is was so bad that I started crying then I read this comment. I must be tired because I'm crying and laughing and I think I'm going to die!

:-P

LOL

Seriously, you guys are so silly here.
:-D

Don't forget the Seinfeld ads that came and went (down the toilet) so fast.

It's important to mention Windows 7. It's what Vista should have been. Apple's been blasting Vista out of the water in the court of public opinion. Windows 7 may have fixed enough things to remove ammo from Apple's marketing arsenal.

Songsmith is kind of a mediocre attempt to be Garageband-like and then go off in another "innovative" direction. I didn't see or read about any podcast creation stuff in it. And it certainly can't do music lessons like Garageband '09. But its something to add to Microsoft's "Windows Live" suite of apps so they come one step closer to competing with iLife.

I agree. I've installed Windows 7 via Fusion, and it's what Vista was supposed to be. What's sad is that they'll be charging people who installed/use Vista for what should be nothing more than a Service Pack [IMHO].

Songsmith is the '09 version of Bob. It won't last...

How did you download it? I've tried safari and firefox and it doesn't download. I just get the spinning circle of greet dots. I don't have access to a pc, do I need one to download it?

Surely the greatest use of Songsmith to date, and quite possibly the reason the internet was invented: Runnin' with the Songsmith

When I saw that ad for songsmith I thought it had to be a parody or something. I think I now know where the vista team got banished to.

Bullcrap. I am closely working on 4 Vista computers... my office desktop, my laptop, my wife's laptop and my home desktop. Hardware ranging from old P4, through AMD 64 X2 to 2 different C2D platforms. It is rock solid on all of them, actually more stable than XP was. No problems at all. Even dodgy freeware apps thet were able to crash XP on occasions seem more reliable on Vista and will - at worst - stop responding and close themselves down rather than crashing whole OS.

MS has to improve only on negative publicity Vista got in it's early days, though even that was more due to bad effort of hardware manufacturers and simple fact that whole Windows market - both users and developers - were spoiled with more than half a decade of same and reasonably solid OS. New features are also welcome if they are really useful. More optimization never hurts as well... but luckily for them, stability and compatibility they have already hammered out since Vista's introduction.

Sure. Ladies and minors first..?