Highly vocal activists within the Mac community continue to protest the Great Interface Coup of 1999. For the apolitical Mac users among you, the masses are decrying the way that Uncle Steve's new "Brushed Metal" interface seized control of QuickTime with little to no warning, and then went on to take over Sherlock 2 as well. From those formidable seats of power, "Brushed Metal" has had no trouble conquering new Apple software such as iMovie, forcing out the traditional and much-beloved Mac OS interface.

Interface purists spanning the Mac-using globe have protested the overthrow, citing numerous ways in which the new look, while flashy, violates several of Apple's own sacrosanct Human Interface Guidelines. Perhaps you've noticed that in QuickTime Player windows, there's no title bar to speak of, the close box is tougher to see, and the resize and Windowshade buttons are missing completely. The windows also waste a ton of screen space, the playback controls are less intuitive than before, and the pull-out Favorites drawer is a big honkin' mess. Perhaps worst of all, the new interface is inconsistent with the old, making some Mac windows work differently than others. "Brushed Metal" represents the subversion of functionality for the sake of style, and Mac users (who pride themselves on using a computer with style and function) aren't too pleased.

But when politics is concerned, actions speak far louder than words. According to an Independent News article, "tens of thousands of people" have downloaded the "Brushed Metal"-killer patches written by Raul Gutierrez. (We love the description of QuickTime Player Window Fixer 1.0: "This patch makes the QuickTime Player window look 'normal.'") Not a fan of "Brushed Metal"? Cast your vote against oppression by downloading and installing Raul's patches. It's unlikely that Steve and company could ignore such high download numbers, and given Apple's newfound willingness to listen to customer feedback in recent years, it's not impossible that Steve will accept certain changes to "Brushed Metal" in order to restore the functionality that didn't survive the coup. All we ask is for a kinder, gentler "Brushed Metal" that works the way Mac windows should. The People have spoken!

Let's face it: Microsoft's various tactics and ploys over the years have stomped Netscape into the dust, and nothing that comes out of the "Redmond Justice" trial will change that. By many reports, Internet Explorer has far bypassed Netscape Navigator as the most-used browser on the Web. Netscape was forced into the unenviable position of selling itself to AOL, and we haven't seen a major revision to Navigator for... well, geez, when did 4.0 come out? It's been a couple of years, almost, hasn't it? The Browser Wars are pretty much over, and all the trial's going to do is determine whether or not Microsoft committed war crimes to win.

And so, having crushed Netscape underfoot and eliminated the browser threat, Microsoft is now free to try to conquer other markets in which it's been lagging. How about, say, the Internet streaming media market? Real Networks still rules the roost in that market, and you just know that's chafing Billy-Boy's buns something fierce. Heck, since Apple refused to buckle under to Microsoft's threats and "knife the baby," QuickTime's a pretty solid contender for the Streaming Media Title, too. That's two competitors for Microsoft to try to eliminate-- and, interestingly enough, Bill's first big step appears to be the strategy that's worked so well for him in the past: he's copying Apple.

That's right-- according to a CNET story we found linked over on MacNN, Bill's pushing streaming media as the best thing since sliced bread (or, more accurately, Microsoft Bread™ 99), and to that end, the Windows Media Player architecture is getting some new hooks. Microsoft now wants to "provide the infrastructure that lets content companies provide streamed multimedia." Can anyone say "QuickTime TV"? Also future versions of Windows will come bundled with-- er, sorry, we meant integrated with-- "software that will make video editing easier." Gosh, that's innovative! Cough*iMovie*Cough. And lastly, Gates shows he truly has his finger on the pulse of what the consumers want: the new version of Windows Media Player will "feature a revised graphical interface that looks like a television with a brushed metallic face." Leave it to Bill to copy the one feature of QuickTime that most Mac users would love to see disappear. (On the other hand, it's not like Windows has a unified, intuitive, and consistent interface in the first place, so we can't imagine that Windows users will get too upset.) Does this all seem somehow familiar? Think MSIE and Netscape. Here's what we assume to be the Gates Magic Formula: copy the competition really well, bundle the copied product with Windows to leverage the OS monopoly, and sit back and wait for sheer momentum to win the day. Now that's a solid business plan.

You talk, it types-- and this time we're talking about your Mac. Well, maybe not your Mac, but at least some Macs. IBM's the first company to release a continuous-speech voice dictation product for the Mac, and it's about time. According to the company's press release, ViaVoice Millennium Edition 1.0 for Macintosh will be in stores "this week," in plenty of time for generous gift-buyers everywhere to snag a copy of the $90 software to give to their favorite Mac user. (Thanks to faithful viewer Steve Greenwood for the heads-up.)

Overall, the product looks pretty solid; the price is nice, the performance (based on the pre-release demos we've seen at Macworld Expos past) is decent, and the included headset microphone even comes with colored inserts so you can match them to your Mac. Sure, it looks like the Mac version may miss a few features found in the Windows equivalent, but over time, we bet that'll change. We have only a few concerns, really. The first is that there's no USB version of the product yet, as promised at the last Expo-- which means iBook users are left out in the cold for now. The second is the steepish system requirements. The press release says you need at least a 233 MHz PowerPC, Mac OS 8.5.1 or higher, 48 MB of RAM, 200 MB of disk space, a CD-ROM drive, and an audio-in jack "compatible with Andrea NC-71 microphones." Worse yet, IBM's ViaVoice for Mac page ups those requirements a bit, stating that you actually need a 266 MHz processor instead-- and in fact, you have to have an iMac, a Power Mac G3 or G4, or a PowerBook G3. Even worse, if you've got a Power Mac G3 or PowerBook G3 made before August of last year, apparently you're out of luck. That may leave a lot of Mac users out in the cold.

Our last concern isn't really a concern; it's more like a personal reason why we won't be producing AtAT using ViaVoice. Basically, we don't write in a linear fashion. Dictating requires the ability to plot out complete sentences in advance, and our scatterbrained approach often involves stopping in the middle of writing one sentence to change a word two paragraphs back. Random access writing's the best, and while we'd be tempted to use IBM's 30-day money-back guarantee to try out this cool new product, we doubt we'd end up using it for much. (There's also the little fact that not one of our many Macs actually meets the system requirements, but that's a whole other issue.) But those of you with actual attention spans and the ability to think in complete sentences, hey, go nuts.