The week in your words: not so secret seven

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 31 Oct 2008 at 16:29

In a week which saw Windows 7 launched to rabid dislike, iPhone users hold Google Earth in the palm of their hand, and e-voting shown the door by the Government, we take a look back to see what our readers have made of it all.

Windows 7 launched

The pre-beta code of Windows 7 was aired this week, and while the world's tech media was busy stuffing itself with muffins at the launch event, forums were filling with the sort of vitriol usually reserved for Jonathan Ross's Help the Aged keynote. Everybody agreed Windows 7 was a rip off, only nobody seemed to know what of.

"So, basically Microsoft is implementing all the stuff that has made OS X nice for so long," says RichyS, very much assuming that nobody else finds Mac OS X the technological equivalent of trying to tame a rabid dog with a pork chop. "Here's hoping they get rid of UAC with all the other annoying nag boxes that pop up in Vista."

all4nothing, however, thought he saw traces of Microsoft's plagiarism elsewhere: "Anyone else think that the new interface has a more than passing resemblance to the Gnome/Fedora desktop?"

In a word, no. But this witty aside wasn't going to be enough to quell this ridiculous uprising.

"Yawn. Microsoft's stuff once again is a bundle of prior art. Yep, those guys sure know how to innovate. Ten years of not using Microsoft products and loving every minute," argues Sergio, who seems to believe not knowing anything about something constitutes a valid argument. Sarah Palin would be proud.

peterm, however, had decided to wait until he had actually seen the operating system before making his judgement on it. It's so wacky, it just might work: "I will welcome Windows 7 as long as it is more stable straight out of the box and does not behave like Vista which requires a re-boot every day or so.

"Also I can't afford to yet again replace my hardware to the high end PC or laptop that seems to be required for Vista to run."

Google Earth stuffed into iPhone

Speaking of expensive hardware, this week saw Google release a version of the gloriously pointless Google Earth onto the iPhone, offering even mobile users the chance to grow bored of it in two minutes.

"Interesting to see what Google's priorities are, I would have preferred they fix some of the annoyances and missing features in some of their current products, some of which are in amazingly still in 'beta' after a number of years," notes mviracca.

Actually, Google's priority is taking over half the internet with a big hug, this is just an amusing side-project. big_D was equally suspicious of that beta tag though.

"A lot of people won't install beta software and most corporates won't go near anything that is in beta... Google will either have to bite the bullet and actually look at finishing and actually releasing their products, or it will have to be content to not be a major player in the corporate arena."

gooberzo wasn't overly phased, though: "Beta just means 'we won't offer any support, because we can't be arsed'. It doesn't mean they are potentially broken apps like MS or Adobe Beta stuff. I bet Android is called Android Beta too, for the same 'not our problem' reason."