At the recent Apple WWDC, Apple CEO, Steve Jobs revealed the next version of OS X: Leopard.

It was pretty amazing for a while….until a massive feeling of déjà vu hit me!

I had seen it all before!

It was Windows Vista™, and not just that, it was a very poor cousin to Windows Vista™!

It is Windows Vista RC1, (build 5600).

OS X Leopard!

This is it?

No wonder he had those scathing words for Microsoft when Vista was released!

He knew he had nothing; that the cupboard was bare.

Look at the ‘new’ functionality announced for Leopard:

• 3D desktop. Been there, done that. This is the best copy he could cough up after a 2-year lead-in time to copy Windows Vista™? A blatant rip-off of Windows Vista DreamScene
• Cover Flow. Flip-3D by any other name.
• 64-bit Functionality. So yesterday! Even Windows XP had a 64-bit version.
• Quick Look. Apple’s implementation of the dynamic Windows Vista Live Icons and Live Preview technologies
• Boot Camp. I believe a boot menu has been included in every version of Windows since Windows 95. Then again, I could be wrong: it may have been since Windows 98.
• Spaces. You can drag and drop between up to four tiled windows on your desktop. Really! Let me stop before I …….
• Dashboard. Steve, Steve, stealing so many ideas from the Windows Sidebar! Have you no shame?
• iChat. We do not have iChat, and I certainly do not miss any of the stated capabilities.
• Finder. Slices, dices, but the best feature is reserved for those who have a .mac address. Windows Search

Using the Finder in conjunction with the .mac address allows searching of other Apples on your network.

Hello?

Are you kiddin’ me?

I need to go outside my home network, into the Internet cloud, in order to come back to search the computer sitting right next to me?

That is a ‘Good Thing’?

Methinks the iPod halo and the iPhone thing might have forced the loops at 1, Infinite Loop to take their eyes off the ball since this whole announcement smacks of the desperation of a company that has lost it’s mojo.

I’m not the only one who sees this as Apple performing the sincerest form of flattery:

Mary Jo Foley: Leopard looks like…Vista™

Paul Thurrott: Cupertino, Start Your Copiers!

Actually, Paul had an on-the-mark prescient post back in August of 2006 at the last Apple WWDC. I excerpted some of his works in my serial infra dig post here about the shamelessness of the Mac fanboi cadre.