Windows Vista Flip3D – a ‘Second-Rate Copy’ of Apple Mac OS X Expose?

In an earlier article, we showed you how some of the features of the upcoming Windows Vista Beta 2 looked suspiciously like their Mac OS X equivalents. Now the good guys at AnandTech have put one Vista feature through its paces – Flip3D, which like Expos?ries to help users see every open window at once – and have found that not only is it ‘heavily influenced’ by Mac’s Expos?it’s inferior to the program it copies.

Unlike Expos?which presents all open windows evenly around the main window once activated, Flip3D works like a Rolodex. Through rotating the mouse wheel or repeatedly pressing the TAB key, the user can flip through the active windows. Problem is, though, because of the way the windows themselves are organized, not every part of each window can be seen at once (just have a look at the screenshot). Also, having to use the mouse wheel isn’t very smooth and is less easy than using the mouse. Finally, the AnandTech testers say that this view of the windows creates aliasing, which makes Flip3D both “ugly to look at and ugly to use”.

In conclusion, they have this to say:  “Microsoft simply would have been better off not implementing Flip3D than using this. We like Expos?and a version of it in Windows would be very nice, but Flip3D is a second-rate copy at best, and ultimately does not function nearly enough like Expos?o be useful.”

Back to the drawing board, Microsoft?

In an earlier article, we showed you how some of the features of the upcoming Windows Vista Beta 2 looked suspiciously like their Mac OS X equivalents. Now the good guys at AnandTech have put one Vista feature through its paces – Flip3D, which like Expos?ries to help users see every open window at once – and have found that not only is it ‘heavily influenced’ by Mac’s Expos?it’s inferior to the program it copies.

Unlike Expos?which presents all open windows evenly around the main window once activated, Flip3D works like a Rolodex. Through rotating the mouse wheel or repeatedly pressing the TAB key, the user can flip through the active windows. Problem is, though, because of the way the windows themselves are organized, not every part of each window can be seen at once (just have a look at the screenshot). Also, having to use the mouse wheel isn’t very smooth and is less easy than using the mouse. Finally, the AnandTech testers say that this view of the windows creates aliasing, which makes Flip3D both “ugly to look at and ugly to use”.

In conclusion, they have this to say:  “Microsoft simply would have been better off not implementing Flip3D than using this. We like Expos?and a version of it in Windows would be very nice, but Flip3D is a second-rate copy at best, and ultimately does not function nearly enough like Expos?o be useful.”

Back to the drawing board, Microsoft?