Snow Leopard vs. Windows 7: The War of the Wallpapers

I like Windows better. I always thought Macs were just plain on all there stuff. Like the person saying that Macs wallpapers are like back when windows 98 was around. So true. Windows 7 has done better and Mac people keep coming to complain about windows and saying Mac is better. It is old news. Move on.

The bottom-line is that, regardless of how attractive or unattractive Mac wallpapers are, the issue is pretty well irrelevant. 25 years after its introduction, the Mac still has less than double-digit market share, which means that more than 92% of people will never see the wallpapers on a Mac.

So, like, who cares?

Fanboys are funny.

Focus on commonality, i.e., everyone here owns a Xbox360 and not a PS3 or Wii, right?

Which trait does each of you admire most in the other?
Gates: Jobs' taste.
Jobs: Bill's honesty.

ex ped: What Jobs actually answered when asked that question was Microsoft's ability to work well with partners.

here i found this site. they bundle up all the images that are on both the leopard and windows in one easy zip.

Snow Leopard and Windows 7 Backgrounds – Skatter Tech

Eventually, all Wallpapers by Windows make the startling transition to a single, devastating shade of blue.

Mac lemmings will say anything to convince themselves that macs are the best things that have happened to them. Only a mac person would feel comparing insignificant things like the quality of desktop images should have any bearing on our perceptions of OS quality.

Personally I see that either Apple or Microstuff wallpaper is in the eye of the beholder. If I want to sit and look at my monitor, it gets boring, may as well have real art work on the wall. My pc, is for work, don't need anything that distracts from getting something done. If no one likes what is provided by the companies, go make your own, or download from a web site, my gosh its only a background, and who has the best taste, go to France and as a Frenchman, then go to Spain and ask a Spanard, you will get two totally differnt views, lighten up people.

What? Windows 7 has some beautiful Wallpapers. For example check out some of the stunning scenery pictures here which includes all the Windows 7 Wallpapers.

This is a bit biased. You put the best of the apple wallpaers against the worse of windows 7. The rest of most of leopard walpapers are disappointing and just "normal". Windows 7 as some real beautifull pictures and original ideas.

The Apple desktops (like their interface) are simply stunning. The Windows desktops also fit in with their interface. Pity.

I am using Windows 7 right now because I have a Technet subscription which means I don’t have to wait until October. The real question why would you want to use the wallpapers any OS comes with when you can get high res ones from sites like http://interfacelift.com that look far better on any LCD screen?

The Apple image is stunning! It's a wonderful example of understated minimalist beauty, it's serene and relaxing that is the whole point. The MS is certainly colorful, but as a piece of art it's pathetic. I can understand why some people would choose either one but I can state that as a trained artist that generally Apple has this area wrapped up hands down. Although MS has improved a good bit in recent years where aesthetics are concerned. Apple leads and MS follows here.

I personally think the new Windows 7 backgrounds are far more impressive than anything I have seen on either platform before.

Seems that Microsoft is the one that is thinking differently now. The Snow Leopard wallpapers look like something Microsoft would have used for Windows 98.

Personally, I base all my PC buying decisions on the default desktop artwork.

A picture is worth a thousand words, and it surely doesn't take that many for this article to illustrate how tacky and ludicrous the Microsoft offerings are compared to what Apple offers. Bill was right.

I think the point of this article is not to compare wall papers but to compare the taste of these CEO's and its reflection on how their products reach people culturally.
You can add as much technical gumbo as you want to a computer, the fact is 90% of consumers aren't highly technical and want something easy to understand and relate to, as well as something that looks good. Steve Jobs has good taste.. a sense of culture and a connection to the arts. That is what Gates is admiring in his comment. All the best companies do what Jobs has done.. and that is turn their product into an image.
If you don't believe me.. think of how many people you know who had the option to buy an iPod or a similar less expensive product from a competeing company, but chose the iPod; in large part just so they could "say" they have an iPod.
Apple aims their products at where the market AND the Social scene are going.. not where they have been.

As a sociological contribution to the study of desktop aesthetics, check out http://www.fotolog.com/desktop … a photo sharing site with the "desktop" group being shared desktops …

The Apple stuff is so 19th century mostly.

Microsoft's , on the other hand, are so good that you don't want to use the computer for nothing other than showing the background!

So you picked the cheesiest MS wallpaper and nice simple tasteful one from Snow Leopard than mention Steve Jobs' taste, how witty !
Funny how Engagdet ran a story praising MS Windows 7 wallpaper and criticising Apple's new collection of wallpapers for Snow Leopard, and Engagdet are usually as idiotic about Apple as you are.
You are part of the reality distortion field which translates into English as a group of professional liers.

Eh, the first dozen MS ones are awful and way too busy to be a useful desktop. The nature scenes are pretty nice and I like the inclusion of the architectural shots.

The Mac also offers similar nature shots. The graffiti shots are awful and too busy like the "whimsical" ones offered my MS. The inclusion of well known paintings surprises me as it seems unoriginal for a company as "creative" as Apple.

All these comments can be summed up in one sentence: "Beauty in in the eye of the beholder"

The Win7 wallpapers were commisioned from professional illustrators and as such are oringial works of art. The Snow Leopard wallpapers are all totally expected…classic artworks that have been available as wallpapers for years and professional photography we've seen hundreds of times. TO THE AUTHOR, you really used a bad example to make your point about who has better taste.

I was expecting a more insightful, in-depth article. Instead I got a wall paper comparo and I even have to click away from the article to compare the rest assuming I want to. I feel cheated for clicking this from cnnmoney.com.

Everyone dose realize that you can simply download backgrounds from either OS off of Google or another search engine right? I already found them posted on various sites in a desktop-sized format. What matters is which OS works better, not how it looks.

Furthermore, wouldn't someone who is seriously concerned about design make their own background? I use my own work as my Windows desktop; I can't remember the last time I even thought about using a preset…

I'm pretty sure most everyone (even busisnesses) replace the pre-installed wallpapers with their own, so why does this matter?

I'd say the taste gap began to close when Leopard met us with that hideous space warp background, black everywhere seemingly being the "new black". I still keep the older blue ones around.

Wow. Insightful piece.

To those who like the MS desktop backgrounds best: This is exactly what Bill Gates was talking about when he said “I would give a lot to have Steve’s taste.”

In general, the MS desktop picture collection is an amateurish shotgun approach to presenting art. I'm not talking about the individual pictures here — many of which are fine — but the overall effect of the collection, how the individual pictures relate to one another and the story and "feeling" they leave with viewers. This collection reinforces what we already know — someone calling the final shots for Microsoft branding isn't a visual person.

Picture editing is an art form unto itself. This collection may have been assembled by someone with little visual training or awareness of the subtle impact pictures can have on a corporate image. Or, it could have been compromised by a final selection committee that was vainly trying to appeal to the widest variety of customers by choosing many different types of art. The reality is that while some of the individual MS desktop pictures are good images, few rise to the level of defining art standards. Worse, when viewed together as a collection, they simply do not make a cohesive statement that reflects Microsoft's corporate image or values. Instead, they just come across as a random, schizophrenic collection of images.

…On second thought, maybe the collection DOES make a cohesive statement: "MS is a company that simply does not understand the core concepts of a graphic user interface." This really is what many Apple customers think of MS anyway…This should not come as a surprise, since the visuals with Microsoft's various print and video advertising campaigns often are "just a bit off" as well.

Apple's collection is more sophisticated, unified and consistent with past collections. Over the years, even the organization of Apple's collections and the order of appearance have a flow that takes a viewer through emotional highs and lows.

Apple's current collection signals that someone at the company really understands "art" and the tastes of its clientele. The editing also shows that Apple knows how to use images to reinforce a key core value — graphics.

I'm a long-time Mac user but fair is fair: Snow Leopard and Windows 7 both have beautiful and ugly wallpapers.

I'm an OS X fanboy through and through but if you liked at these from a pure design standpoint the MS ones are way better. I mean you can't really say ones taste os better than someone elses as it's really subjective. The MS ones seem more vibrant, fun, and creative. The Snow Leopard seem classier and more traditional. I prefer the windows ones.

I think it's a bit silly to attribute every.single.decision at these companies to one individual. Yes, Steve Jobs is known for being a control freak (with good taste), and there are stories of his insistence in making decisions like which song to use for an iPod touch commercial. But I don't think there is any substantial evidence, or even a reasonable rumor, that he adds his two cents to wallpaper decisions.

I could even be wrong in this particular instance, but the big picture is the more important point. Apple and Microsoft are made up of thousands of employees. Jobs and Gates, like all other people, only have so much time in one day.

The "Wow" still goes on – most of the MS images look like Fisher-Price artwork.

The Win7 desktop is a nice whimsical image on its own, but it's a crap desktop graphic. That seems to be what many are failing to grasp here.

Wow, this is the exact opposite of the comments on Gizmodo which all seem to think the Windows 7 images kick ass and the Snow Leopard ones are just the same old style as every release before. You also didn't mention the regional selections in Windows, with dozens of countries having local images in the regional theme.

One of my favorite Gizmodo comments said:
"Those [Snow Leopard] wallpapers look like things I'd expect Microsoft to release, and Microsoft's look like things I'd expect cool people to release… "

Doesn't matter to me. I always replace my wallpaper (Mac and PC) with these.

The Windows wallpaper actually looks a fair bit better than the Mac wallpaper in this version. It's just a lot more fun and looks like they were done by real designers, whereas the Mac wallpaper looks pretty standard, like the kind you find on those free wallpapaer sites. Just MHO.

So will Snow Leopard let you choose a color for a plain background? Windows has allowed it for years but OS X currently only comes with *drum roll* TEN colors.

I still prefer the Xwindows background from the old days. They got it right back then…a nice plain non glaring color background…I think it was a muted green or blue screen.

While tastes are very individual, this specific article is right on the money. Out of total of some 30 images for Win7 and 35 for Mac, Vast majority of MS ones were useless, while vast majority of Mac ones were very appealing. To each their own, but it is extremely difficult to argue the difference here, with a straight face.

MS Windows' images don't show up; whereas, Apple's did. Is this indicative of the separation?

Even the two pages shows bias toward Mac. All of the Snow Leopard images there have descriptions whereas the Windows 7 images are just posted.

OK, so MS has some truly hideous wallpapers – I mean if I saw some of those on the desktop of someone I was working with, I'd have to wonder about them as a person. Some of MS scenics are on par with Apple scenics.

But at the end of the day, I don't use a wallpaper. Slows down the computer, and with my habit of leaving things on the desktop, it makes it harder to find things.

Other than a few goofy ones at the beginning I see nothing real lacking taste in MS' pictures. Some are quite nice. I'm still going to use Snow Leopard because of the OS, not the pictures–you can load your own anyway so who cares.

What a biased and garbage post. Stop wasting our time.

I like the MS ones better than the Mac ones. I use use PC/MAC/Linux so i'm not partial to any one system.

You didn't do a good job of representing the full set of either…windows has some pretty nice ones in their collection and a ton more online that theme the whole os nicely…apples list is nice but there's some junk in their set as well…

I have seen wallpapers for both Mac Snow Leopard and Windows 7, but this article seems to be unfairly biased towards Mac – since windows 7 comes with some really beautiful wallpapers and this article seems to have picked the worst of the bundled wallpapers. The author is trying to use wallpapers to prove his personal point of view.

I prefer the pictures of my grandkids.

The Creative Bits website can't handle all of the traffic. It keeps crashing while loading. So annoying!

Is that Steve Ballmer flapping his feathers in the clouds? Did he not know that cloud computing was metaphorical? Should MS name its new OS, Icarus, instead?

Uh… the Mac wallpaper is hideous. Not that the Windows one is much better, but… I've got all the Windows 7 wallpapers and you pretty much chose the ugliest one of the bunch. There are some truly breathtaking landscapes available. This article seems biased from the get-go.

i really like both of them I'm a Mac but I liked MSs better