Engadget: "Time Machine restores best, not first"

being a tvwm fanatic in my college days - yes, I was a bit surprised that it's UN*X roots weren't acknowledged a bit more at the keynote.

umm...just read Ross' article and I'm sorry - System Restore just never cut it for me. I'm really impressed with the execution of Time Machine and that's without getting my hands on it of course. I'm a SCM nut so if you ask me, the closest anyone ever came to Time Machine was ClearCase. I'd always wanted to see someone figure out how to plug ClearCase universally instead of a bunch of VOBs. Apple seems to be successful in making ClearCase look "less computery" for sure!

Something that wasn't mention is I immediately thought of Gelernter's Lifestreams project referenced to me eons ago by a past friend of mine - his spirit is with us!

More thoughts here...

http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/2006/08/apple_apple_mac.html

Finally, someone nails it on the head: Thomas! Let's be honest here, throughout the whole MS / Apple / Linux debacle, everyone single OS has been influenced by the features of the other - so we shouldn't be suprised to see similar features in all the systems. It's called competition ;-) As Thomas says, whilst Apple may borrow generously from other sources (as do the others!), their integration, user experience and refinement of existing ideas makes Apple what it is - just like their own original software efforts.

As I see it, the innovation Apple offers is not just in terms of new things but in the way they implement and redefine existing ideas to make them user friendly and less computery.

The best part of Time Machine is that it gives you a preview of the document(s)/image(s)/file(s) you wish to restore.

I don't know about you but I'd rather see the actual lost photo rather than have to find the right DMC_1***.jpg file based on the name alone.

Yes I know that some backup software does provide you with a preview but you have to select the file before it does that. More time wasted.

What people are forgetting in the whole "been there, done that" argument is this:

Time Machine isn't simply a backup fuction (like, for example, restore points in Windows XP...) It's also not simply a versioning system, like CVS. No, it's a combination of the two, presented in such a way that it is usable by everyone, not just geeks. Not only can you restore your entire system to a previous point in time (like restore points,) but you can restore an individual document to any of a number of previous versions (like CVS,) and you can do all of this visually: actually *seeing* the previous versions of Word documents, image files, etc.

- Chris

I may be wrong but I assume Time Machine will require an external Hard drive or an available server connection with available space. But this has to be expected, just like any other regular back up system.

Of course its a "Been there" concept, but it looks to have been refined by Apple, isn't that (quality) what matters the most?

I only hope this app isn't why the Mac Pro's are available with up to 2TB of storage ;) My poor little Powerbook's 80Gb drive is already bursting at the seams, I can't even imagine if it was holding records of everything from the past two years!

These posts are getting old - obviously backup existed before, so what are we talking about this for?

Apple typically adds their own flare to features and apps that existed prior to Apple's work. This is just Apple extending those features to the OS level and hopefully improving the user experience.

Has this never happened before? Nothing new here.

I agree with the original assessments from show goers - that interface is cheeeee-sy. The whole space theme and the tilted control buttons at the bottom of the screen are reminiscent of something Microsoft would put out.

Apple, please de-cheese this thing before release. Or at least make the appearance customizable.

Exactly. I was surprised to see both well respected sites like LifeHacker and Windows sycophants like Paul Thurrott dismiss it as "prettier, but pretty much the same thing" as what is available on Vista, or just a "copy" of what MS has to offer.

Well, no. Backup and restore have been around of course for a while, sure. Intuitive, well designed, and user friendly backup and restore is what Time Machine is offering, and that goes well beyond "prettier".