Is Microsoft turning into Apple?

"The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste." So said the famously candid former Apple chief executive Steve Jobs in an interview in 1995. "They have absolutely no taste and what that means is - I don't mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way - in the sense that they don't think of original ideas and they don't bring much culture into their product. They just make really third-rate products."

Nine years earlier, a young Bill Gates told an audience that during 1984, Microsoft expected to gain half its revenues from use on Macintosh software. The camera pans to Jobs laughing as the crowd applauds wildly.

The rivalry between the two technology giants is long and complicated, including a lawsuit filed by Apple in an attempt to stop Microsoft using interface elements it deemed too similar to those used by the Lisa and Mac in 1988 (Apple lost). During Wednesday's Windows 10 event led by Microsoft's key players, several elements of the new operating system felt familiar.

It's free!

The first and most notable of these was the fact Windows 10 will be offered as a free upgrade for Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and Windows Phone users for 12 months from release. Microsoft has always required its customers to pay for Windows, so the new change of direction has some speculating the company is attempting to make up for ground lost by the universally-disliked Windows 8. Comparatively, Apple's iOS updates for iPhone and iPad have always been free, while 2013's OS X Mavericks was the first free upgrade for MacBooks and iMacs.

Continuity and Continuum

Apple's Continuity feature designed is designed to enable seemless transition across Apple devices. For example, an email started on an iPhone can then be picked up on an iPad, while Macs can now make calls via an iPhone.

Windows' newly-announced Continuum is particularly useful for users with convertible devices wishing to switch between tablet and desktop modes, swapping between touch-friend and mouse-optimised, removing the need to change to another physical device.

Spartan and Safari

Project Spartan is Microsoft's first new web browser for 19 years, and has been designed to “enable greater reliability and better discoverability” via integration with digital assistant Cortana. Its reading list feature, which saves pages to be read later, reader mode and offline mode have been available in Apple’s Safari for quite some time. The way Cortana ‘learns’ from the way you use the way and predicts your likely behaviour could also be seen as advancement on Apple’s Spotlight contextual search, which considers location, related books or apps and further information when returning results. Whether Apple chooses to integrate Siri into future browser upgrades remains to be seen.

Skype and iMessage

Microsoft’s Joe Belifiore explained how Windows 10 will detect if the contact you’re texting has a Skype account and divert the message through it, much like how Apple’s iMessages are automatically sent to other iOS devices over regular text messages, coupled with the FaceTime aspect of video chatting.

While Apple became the world's first company to be valued at $700bn (£446bn) in November last year, Microsoft is believed to be the world's most valuable company in history due to inflation. Microsoft's peak market capitalisation of $613bn in 1999 would equate to $875bn in 2014, according to CNBC. The rivalry looks set to continue for some time yet.