Apple uses Leopard Preview to take passive-aggressive shot at Microsoft

June 25, 2007 by Dr. Macenstein
Filed under: Apple Fanboyism, Humor, News 

Posted by iGor

Steve Jobs is truly a master at delivering jabs and Microsoft (or as he affectionately calls them, “Our friends in Redmond“). While some are subtle, others can be more direct. Remember when Apple hung up those WWDC banners this last year which read “Redmond, Start Your Photocopier”? That was pretty straightforward. Steve was flat out saying that Microsoft’s developers would try to steal as many features from Leopard as they could before launching their Vista operating system.

Well, now it seems Steve and Co. (or, Our Friends in Cupertino) are at it again, this time using Leopard itself to take a more subtle pot shot at Microsoft. Faithful Macenstein reader The Temp sent us a link that showcases one of Leopard’s newest features, the Shared Group in the Leopard’s new Finder sidebar.

When Steve demoed the feature, we noticed that when browsing computers on your network, the new Finder now displays a visual representation of the type of computer you are connecting to. For instance, if you connect to an iMac, an iMac’s icon appears. A black MacBook, a black MacBook will appear. Pretty cool.

Well, a foreign developer has posted an image which can only be described as passive aggressive behavior at its finest. Apparently when connecting to a Windows PC, the icon that shows up is a rather unstylish beige monitor (in the past Apple has frequently lambasted Windows PC’s as being merely ‘”beige boxes”) with the infamous “Blue Screen of Death” on its display.

What could Apple be trying to say here? :)

[UPDATE:] From the MacRumors forums, an enlarged copy of the Windows share icon.

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Comments

52 Comments on Apple uses Leopard Preview to take passive-aggressive shot at Microsoft

  1. Alan Smith on Mon, 25th Jun 2007 10:28 am

    2. That is hilarious! Great is al I can say.

  2. Arlo Ruffey on Mon, 25th Jun 2007 11:31 am

    3. What could be more perfect? Most of the PC setups I come across have monitors exactly like that one.

  3. Rob Schultz on Mon, 25th Jun 2007 11:32 am

    4. Ha! Very creative right hook from our friends at Apple!

  4. Anonymous on Mon, 25th Jun 2007 11:37 am

    5. um let me think… what could Apple be saying? That pc’s not only look like crap but work just the same, always giving off that nasty smell.

  5. Arlo Ruffey on Mon, 25th Jun 2007 1:19 pm

    6. I think it’s just a command line. You know those P.C.ers never really liked the Graphic User Interface that they used to liken to “Fisher Price” toys.

  6. Ronald Gerr on Mon, 25th Jun 2007 4:17 pm

    7. ahhahaa
    but how can anyone point the finger at apple, infact they pretty much got the perfect illustration of a PC

  7. Afshin Zavareh on Mon, 25th Jun 2007 4:58 pm

    8. I can’t really tell but is that a “Blue Screen of Death”? ;)

  8. Afshin Zavareh on Mon, 25th Jun 2007 5:04 pm

    9. Sorry, just noticed that you are refering to the blue screen of death at the end of your post … sorry!

  9. Eureka on Mon, 25th Jun 2007 5:29 pm

    10. Hilarious!
    But why the blue screen of death of Windows 9x?
    Why not the beatiful and detailed BSOD of Windows XP?
    Anyway, I love it!

  10. Speedmaster on Mon, 25th Jun 2007 8:22 pm

    11. LOL, well-done! ;-)

  11. Anonymous on Mon, 25th Jun 2007 11:11 pm

    12. Ah! It’s Apple’s way of covering their backside in case the network connection fails, it’s due to the PC at the other end turning blue.

  12. Neil Anderson on Tue, 26th Jun 2007 1:43 am

    13. Yep, see that one multiple times per day at work.

  13. Paul Koenig on Tue, 26th Jun 2007 2:44 am

    14. I wonder how long before the Redmond lawyers file a copyright infringement claim.

  14. Bill Brasky on Tue, 26th Jun 2007 10:33 am

    15. Man, Mac people are douche bags.

  15. David on Tue, 26th Jun 2007 10:34 am

    16. Perfect way to get PC users to switch to your computer; insult the computer they currently use, as well as anyone who uses it. =)

  16. Reep on Tue, 26th Jun 2007 10:35 am

    17. Pathetic. Grow up and go outside. Damn geeks.

  17. Neil on Tue, 26th Jun 2007 10:37 am

    18. yea man! windows sucks! i really like the pretty graphics and the shiny case that my mac comes in. hardware schmardware

  18. Kevin Rose on Tue, 26th Jun 2007 10:37 am

    19. How can most people on Digg be so darn stupid and emo?

  19. Yoman on Tue, 26th Jun 2007 10:38 am

    20. I haven’t gotten a BSOD in over 3 years.

  20. Jon Tyler on Tue, 26th Jun 2007 10:39 am

    21. A lot of love in this room. But, you’d BETTER love something that rarely breaks down, but costs as much as a Volvo.

  21. kpfeif on Tue, 26th Jun 2007 10:39 am

    22. I really don’t care which OS I use – I use all three. Nevertheless, I run XP at work and at home. I haven’t seen a BSD for years. Years. Meanwhile, some of the stupid eye-candy demoed at the WWDC looks a lot like Apple trying a “hey, we do that, too” after Vista came out.

    It goes both ways, boys.

  22. Jason Hartgraves on Tue, 26th Jun 2007 10:40 am

    23. As much as they like to giggle to themselves about how independent and hip they are, it’s them Mac fans that are the mindless drones of Apple.

  23. Jon Tyler on Tue, 26th Jun 2007 10:41 am

    24. A lot of love in this room. It’s true that a Mac usually doesn’t give the BSOD…(or its equivalent) but then, you’d expect that from something that costs as much as a small car.

  24. James on Tue, 26th Jun 2007 10:42 am

    25. This is just insane, Im a mac user, but why do Jobs keeps banging on Microsoft, if there is no comparison with the two OS … damn, quit it, its just idiotic.

  25. jimmy on Tue, 26th Jun 2007 10:45 am

    26. no they aren’t just douche bags, they are just insecure and need lots of reassurance that they made the right OS choice… it’s pretty funny that Apple always talk so much crap about MS, and MS just ignore it, much like an adult ignores a pesky 13 year old…

  26. Rowlings on Tue, 26th Jun 2007 10:46 am

    27. Yoman: “I haven’t gotten a BSOD in over 3 years.”
    ==============================

    Let me guess, you bought an iMac 3 years ago?
    :)

  27. Madman on Tue, 26th Jun 2007 10:48 am

    28. Mac and PC lemme see here: Can do what on both
    Create Document – check
    Edit Photographs – check
    Create Website – check
    Make a movie – check
    View porn – check
    Play Games – uhhh well that feature is coming for the mac… uh I want to get a better video card… uhh I can’t upgrade what on my Mac
    Watch HDTV (You know HD tv not digital tv) PC yes mac not yet
    gimme a break… oh wait what’s that you say the iPhone is going to what.. crash and burn no way man… another apple failure HA HA HA HA!!!!

  28. #& on Tue, 26th Jun 2007 10:51 am

    29. meh i use openbsd

  29. Edward on Tue, 26th Jun 2007 12:26 pm

    30. madman, you forgot one;

    OS Crashes – Check.
    Windows= Blue screen of death.
    Mac = Black screen of death.

    and seriously, I haven’t seen a BSOD on my PC since I installed XP.
    It’s annoying as Hell having to reboot for minor driver upgrades, I’ll admit, but that’s my only real bitch.

    Seriously folks, it’s not PC vs Mac anymore, it’s PC vs BSD.

  30. Jake on Tue, 26th Jun 2007 12:48 pm

    31. Sorry Madman,
    I watch HDTV on my G5 all the time… at least I used to before I got my Bravia XBR2. Just use EyeTV 2 and an EyeTV Hybrid USB tuner. It works great. Full 720p/1080i on my 23″ ACD.

  31. Anonymous on Tue, 26th Jun 2007 12:49 pm

    32. There’s no need, right? You can have your opinions but this is uncalled for. I happen to love Macs, but I’m starting to think everyone who works with Apple is just a bunch of little bullies.

  32. non_zero on Tue, 26th Jun 2007 1:10 pm

    33. It’s funny, guys. Stop taking everything so seriously.

  33. MAD Bonez on Tue, 26th Jun 2007 2:23 pm

    34. Apple r wankers

  34. Cyber Guru on Tue, 26th Jun 2007 5:34 pm

    35. HAHA! Apple PWNS the PC!

    Again and again. Quality pwns quantity every time.

    If you like beige boxes and BSOD’s then, sure, I can see your viewpoint.

  35. robbyt on Tue, 26th Jun 2007 6:11 pm

    36. I bet that it will see linux boxes as windows computers too.. because in apple land, there’s only windows and mac.

    sort of like how the democrats ignore the greenparty.

  36. Razrstubl on Tue, 26th Jun 2007 7:13 pm

    37. I’ve used both, and I definitely prefer Macs. The way I explain the personalities between the two…

    Macs = mammal (warm, fuzzy, fun to play with)

    PCs = insect (cold, unfriendly, makes funny noises)

  37. Dee Dee Warren on Tue, 26th Jun 2007 7:18 pm

    38. THAT IS HILARIOUS!!!!!

  38. Steve on Tue, 26th Jun 2007 7:20 pm

    39. The BSOD even looks better in OS X.

  39. Raul Santos on Tue, 26th Jun 2007 8:27 pm

    40. I lol-ed.

  40. glj12 on Wed, 27th Jun 2007 12:00 pm

    41. Its not really Mac vs PC, its more in terms of software, not hardware. All hardware is reliant on the manufacturer (whether or not if they made a good product). In reality, it is Windows OS vs Mac OSX, (or Windows vs Linux, since the latest x86 OS for Mac is basically UNIX).

    PC’s are great because you can actually mod them, and uh… do well, anything to them. I feel that Mac’s are emo, lonely, introverts who do not want their end-user to mess with them. Perhaps that’s a good thing. ;)

  41. Cameron on Wed, 27th Jun 2007 1:18 pm

    42. Ahuh. See, I’m a microsoft guy. I happen to like their products. Apple always talks about how easy to use their computers are, and a big argument between the Mac OS and the Windows OSes (OS’s? I don’t know.) is rebooting. I’ve stayed at friends places and I’ve used their macs, and I made a count. I had to reboot their macs more times than I’ve ever had to reboot my PC. We may have an obnoxious blue screen (Which hasn’t happened to me since Windows 98. I think it’s a non-issue now, and you guys need to really get over it.), but you guys have a beachball of doom. And that little beachball of doom is more heinous than any current windows product.

    And is there really that much of a difference between Macs and PCs? Yeah, the OS is a bit different, but they do the same thing. Macs come loaded with that iLife crap, PCs, unless you build your own, come with AOL installed. What’s the real difference now?

  42. the Spoon on Wed, 27th Jun 2007 7:46 pm

    43. I smell a lawsuit, I’m sure the bsod is copyright.

  43. wasim on Wed, 27th Jun 2007 8:18 pm

    44. to cameron, dude i also used microsoft OS from long time and i used tiger also i really have to say Bluescreen of death is not yet fixed even in vista, i got BSOD while installing printer driver strange fact but true, and Xp reboots are always higer than any OS i ever met i mean wat are u cracking or wat, is like u been payed by bill for making nice comments, why we fight for and against these companies i just like good products and apple deserves some respect…

  44. Cameron on Thu, 28th Jun 2007 2:05 am

    45. Wasim: I can’t speak from experience for Vista, I’ve only owned it a month. (Was trying to install Ubuntu as a secondary partition. Didn’t work… Recovery discs were lost… Ah, well. Just went out and got Vista.) And yeah, we’ve got reboots. But are those really so frustrating? The only reason you have to ever reboot, really, are large changes to the system, or updates. And the updates reboot your computer at a set time, as well. You can set it to it on it’s own at an unobtrusive time. And no, I’m not crackin’, and damn, I wish that I were getting paid (Please? I’ll totally up my comments to like… MS IS TEH AWESOME!!! LOL! BUY IT!).

    And Apple -does- have good products, I said that. But so does Microsoft.

  45. SomeoneWhocares on Fri, 29th Jun 2007 2:11 am

    46. For all you ppl who like to bash the pc (and vise-versa) I just fixed 3 computers (all windows) from the blue screen… btw I run a mac and windows side by side (had to reinstall windows 4 times in a month due to errors on the system.. My mac still runs as smooth as ever (had mac about a year (only reinstalled once due to a rookie error when I first got it) used windows for 15 yrs before my mac (had to system clean at least 2 times year… I only say this because this is my experience with both systems and each system has a role for what they are designed for… U like games (use a PS2 instead it wont crash at the most critical point in the game) Animation and graphics and sound… Go Mac… Business apps and such IBM (hence internation business Machine) or windows for that matter.. Personally it boils down “to each their own” there are always those on both sides of the coin…

    Finally the subtle screen that the developer put in I find quite ingenious to use in the icon and this Icon was developed on a Mac i pretty sure on that… No one at MS ever thought of putting an Apple logo on their icons…. call it free advertising.. (Blue Screen seems to be a common trade mark on windows these days…)

  46. m,c`mm on Fri, 13th Jul 2007 9:42 pm

    47. funny

  47. Nick on Tue, 17th Jul 2007 1:22 am

    48. Steve needs to really grow a pair… and his fanbois of course.

  48. Gigi on Thu, 1st Nov 2007 3:42 pm

    49. Hey guys… I’m so impressed by the pea you have in your heads. I’m an IT of 600 PCs and everything’s running very well here. Continue to use your women computers !

  49. jeg on Thu, 1st Nov 2007 5:42 pm

    50. Hey, you should say “windows”, and not PCs : there are many pc without this shit of windows !

  50. Denis on Thu, 1st Nov 2007 10:33 pm

    51. What I find the most frustating about this is that no one ever mentionned the fact that Microsoft does not sell computer screens. I own a PC and I have a very nice LG Flatron screen that is only a inch deep… Old macs also are beige box. As for the blue screen I have to say like a lot others : I never had one with windows XP. I had Vista for at least 6 months and the only blue screens I’ve got were with GTA : San Andreas. But this game if full of bugs, damn Rockstar people who can’t make a good port.

  51. Dremm on Thu, 1st Nov 2007 10:54 pm

    52. The icone is really funny, but when I install Leopard recently, there wasn’t any difference with the blue screen of Windows.

    Mac is cool but Windows got is strength too and maybe is you knew how to use it, you might say the same.

    For the last 3 years, I’ve been running both Mac and Windows and they both rarely crash.

  52. dujelly on Wed, 5th Dec 2007 2:42 pm

    53. I would not insult anybody,
    but I think you’re all discussing a very miserable thing in respect to freedom

    let’s start use your neurons to discuss about freedom and things like drm, or simply shut the fuck up and find another business

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