Archive for February, 2009
Why the EU will not force MSFT to remove IE from Windows
It seems to be all over the news these days: companies are joining the fray left and right in the European Union’s investigation to determine whether Microsoft’s bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows violates anti-trust laws. Just this week Google became another voice in the suit initially begun by the top execs at Opera, a browser that holds around 2% of the overall market share (no wonder they’re upset!). Mozilla is also part of the suit as an “interested 3rd party.” Ultimately, it seems that the EU is more interested in protecting competitors than protecting true competition. As has been proven by Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, if you create a better product, people will actually use it!
But here’s the real problem with this case: if Microsoft is forced to remove IE from Windows, then you face numerous problems, first of which is…how do consumers initially gain access to the Internet? No IE = no browser. Buying a computer through an OEM would allow bundling of that company’s preferred browser, which would help in alleviating some of the difficulty there.
A second issue points directly at Apple. If Apple is allowed to bundle Safari with their OS, how can you possibly tell Microsoft that they can’t bundle IE with Windows? This point is further supported by the fact that most Apple OS X users prefer Firefox over Safari and make it one of the first applications they install after buying a new Mac. Clearly bundling Safari with OS X hasn’t hurt Mozilla at all. I imagine this will be further illustrated once Google releases Chrome 2.0 with support for OS X. Not to say that Safari isn’t popular–it is–but it doesn’t discourage most users from using alternate browsers. Alternatively, you actually can completely remove Safari from OS X if you like–I just tried it. But…why would you want to??
Opera is a pretty small fish in a very big ocean–who is most likely just jealous that most people prefer other browsers over theirs. This suit will get more face time in the news during the coming weeks and months, but in the end, expect everyone’s pockets to be just a little lighter. Not much else will change.
Palm Pre: smartphone evoloved
Posted by Matt in Palm, Smartphones on February 22nd, 2009
Palm Inc. released a new video about their upcoming smartphone, the “Pre” and I have to say it makes other smartphones look pretty much…dull. I haven’t owned a smartphone or PDA since my Palm Tungsten T|5 back in the early 2000s. I miss having super quick and easy access to calendars, contacts, and more right at my fingertips. True, cell phones are made for contact lists, but there’s just something about having a nice large screen with easy touch access. I could describe this new device in detail, but I’ll just let you watch the video instead. Needless to say, as soon as this thing hits the Verizon network, I’ll be picking on up right away. Even if it means waiting in line for days.
Meet the Pre (click the “Meet the Pre” button about a quarter-way down the page.)
Font smoothing in Windows (and why Mac users don’t like it)
Yesterday, a friend of mine posted a twit remarking that font smoothing in Windows 7 was not done properly and how Microsoft still hadn’t gotten it right. I hadn’t noticed any obvious issues of this nature in my usage and testing on Windows 7, so I was instantly curious to know why he thought as he did and if Microsoft, after all these years, still hadn’t mastered something as simple as font smoothing. So I set out to do the research.
Joel on Software has a great article thoroughly explaining the reasons behind the differences, but for those who want the digest version, I’ll give it to you here.
Apple and Microsoft use the same process for rendering fonts, a technology called “sub-pixel rendering.” The reason the two operating systems render text differently (specifically in web pages) is due to the algorithm behind the font rendering engine. Each character within a font is set to take up a certain amount of space measured in pixels–thus an “A” takes up more horizontal space than, say, an “I.” In addition to that, each typeface has it’s own style of letterform–that is each letter is designed to look a specific way and may, in some cases, slightly exceed the given letter-space when font smoothing is applied.
Apple, the company with a philosophy that the artistic and stylistic aspects of just about anything trumps everything else, wrote their font smoothing algorithm to allow type to exceed it’s allocated space, giving fonts more character at smaller sizes. This makes for a smoother looking font, but also is sometimes blurry and can be hard on the eyes. Microsoft on the other hand took a more practical approach and decided that each character must fit exactly within the available space and therefore “chisels” the characters to fit within that space. This creates a less-smoothed font, but makes things far easier to read on-screen. In fact, you can see this difference directly on a Windows machine by putting a Safari for Windows window and an Internet Explorer or Firefox window side-by-side. You’ll see what I mean.
So the question is now: Which company is correct?
The short answer is both. Apple’s OS will provide a more unified look between computer screen and printed output. This is yet another reason (whether they realize it or not) why designers often prefer OS X over Windows. Microsoft gives users a more readable on-screen experience at the expense of some character style (although at large font sizes, these differences become less noticeable.
All-in-all it’s pretty much just a matter of personal preference. Neither way is necessarily wrong–it’s all about what you like.