Comments on: Tiger, Longhorn search for desktop answers

Overstuffed hard drives make it hard to find the data you want. Can Apple and Microsoft cut through the clutter?

[Jonathan]

Dude the war is over...and searching for a solution

Microsoft won. Period. They just left apple crippled instead of totally running them through. This war of words is a sad attempt to kick the giant in the kneecaps to get attention. That being said it?s a foregone conclusion that MS has copied Apple and Apple has copied MS. (Think Fast User Switching.) It works both ways and isn't limited to just Apple vs. MS. Beyond the continuing, and baffling, war between the two I'm at a loss to figure out who has the better search system. The amount of info that is available on MS's search features and WinFS is vague at best, I think intentionally so. It's difficult to get a handle on who has the better implementation. I'm starting to believe after reading over Apple's method of searching that MS most likely has the better method. Their implementation will be relational database driven through a stripped down version of Yukon. This has some fairly major implications both good and bad. Databases are always preferable to a standard index format which, if I'm reading Apple's site correctly, it is. A database with an associated engine allows searching beyond the local computer. Putting calls out to a network of computers or trees on an Active Directory becomes trivial with the appropriate hardware in place. From what I understand this is what Longhorn will be able to do. Do a call for searches beyond the local PC. The implementation seems WAY more robust then what Apple is hinting at. Also, again, if I'm reading this right the implementation of Apple's method will be similar to how I do a search in iTunes. I don't know about you guys but I have aprox 12,000 tracks in iTunes and it gets SLOOOOOOW when I start typing out things. Here's hoping Apple does some serious tweaking with how they read the index.
That being said there is something to be said for ANOTHER service running on Windows. I'm sorry but this possibility of highjacking this slimmed down version of Yukon and using it for nefarious purposes seems too much of a concern to be ignored. Such a system would be a major tool to a hacker or spammer. In addition to that its just one more service that we have to worry about breaking. What happens with WinFS's Yukon service decides to up and die on a box in the office? Is that going to kill the entire box? Part of the box? Will the OS be able to restart the service? Will a network wide search be smart enough to know that "hey! That winFS box is down and I can't read it!" and return results stating such a thing?
Too many questions at this point and way to few answers. But at least Apple is going to have answers sooner then Microsoft. I'm just not sure if we are going to like the answers they provide.

[Filip Remplakowski]

Yeah whatever!

Apple has a much better desktop layout in 10.3 and I'm sure
that their search engine will work better than microsoft's. At
least the os is stable enough to complete such tasks you'll be
restarting your pc and i'll be way ahead in work. iTunes is still
one of the best programs on windows and i'm sure that a lot of
pc users will agree with me on that. I find it amusing that most
of the Apple bashers are pc users who haven't owned a mac
before (especially one running osX)... they might have fiddled
with one in a store but what can you judge within a few
minutes... own one before you start complaining (yes I own a pc
for CAD purposes). As for the Konfabulator similarities Apple
had the idea back in their early days this idea has also been
copied on windows before Konfabulator, but Apple had the idea
of mini applications first. CNET writers should really do some
research before writing their articles, because I feel really
embaressed for you when reading some of you articles

[elements2]

Tried it and like it.

Having just switched from Linux (before that Windows 2000) to
Mac OS X, I can honestly admit that I cannot imagine anyone
needing to use Windows anymore.

I am more than happy with using OS X to get my work done. My
top reasons are efficiency, personal satisfaction with the OS
features, and reduced (ok, complete removal) of e-mail virus
worries.

If you haven't tried it, then you are missing out. When it was
time to upgrade my PCs, I decided to replace them all (home and
work) with a single Powerbook. It just works.

[marlow714]

Apple is the copier!

I saw posted some time ago some screen shots of an drama queen Apple display that said something like "Redmond start your copy machines". On the same page it talked about the new Tiger OS and how it will innovate searching on the computer. Strange how this came out about year after MS released what longhorn will do.

[sandman619]

Timelines

The article also points out that Spotlight's search technology is
built on the same technology that is already used in iTunes and
Mail. For years. Articles have been written about the expansion
of the search into the OS for over a year. And these features
pre-date Panther's release, also over a year now.

Using both platforms, I do notice how the both work. While it's
difficult to pin-point who copied who, Apple seems to get the
tech out first in many instances.