“Apple Computer is predicting that rivals will mimic Mac OS X Tiger, but one developer says it’s the new Mac operating system that is doing the copying,” Ina Fried reports for CNET News. “Arlo Rose is outraged at the similarity of Apple’s Dashboard, previewed earlier Monday by Apple CEO Steve Jobs, to his Konfabulator, a $25 Macintosh program. Both programs allow easy access to small programs called Widgets, which can perform a number of useful little tasks.”
“‘It’s insulting, is what it is,’ Rose said in a telephone interview. ‘They could have at least offered to work with us or to buy it.’ Apple, for its part, maintains that Dashboard is the company’s own creation, noting that Widgets have long been a part of Mac OS X and the NextStep OS,” Fried reports. “‘The goal isn’t to be like anything else,’ Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller said in an interview. ‘It’s not his stuff. What we’ve done is ours.'”
“Rose and co-creator Perry Clarke released Konfabulator in February 2003. ‘There really wasn’t anything like it when we came out.’ Now, Rose said, a number of copycat programs are on the market,” Fried reports. “By treading closely on outside developers, Rose said, Apple risks killing the incentive to write Mac software. ‘Why should developers want to work on their platform?'”
Full article here.
Moo.
ha, ha, ha, I am pissing in my panties.
Ever heard of Desk Accessories? Arlo Rose = Hypocrite. This was not an original idea of his and Apple isn’t stealing anything from him. It’s just sour grapes on his part because Apple didn’t write him a check…
‘They could have at least offered to work with us or to buy it.’
Yep, he’s just pissed that he didn’t get a check. Unfortunately for Rose, this concept has been around for a long time and he certainly wasn’t the one that invented it.
There are a lot of similarities between Dashboard and Konfabulator, like the “Widgets” are written in JavaScript…
So right.
link
Hmmm, I use Konfabultor a lot. I paid for a license and registered too. I thought it was great that a couple of guys came out with something like this that was Mac first and Apple only (even tho they are porting to windows now I heard). This sounds like Apple thought it was cool and just snapped it up. I heard something similiar happened with Watson and Sherlock. I love Apple but they really shouldn’t step on somebody like this if they want to continue to have people develope really really cool things for the mac. Unless I am wrong (please let me be wrong) we should call Apple on this. They have the cash to have paid for something like this and should have given the developer his due. At this point, Dashboard sure sounds like Konfabulator to me. Oh BTW will Konfabulator widgets work in Dashboard?
There’s a difference between one developer copying another, which is fine, because it makes the market more competitive, and the platform vendor integrating a product into the OS, which destroys all competition.
It’s just rude of Apple to have done this. Desk Accessories these are not. They even stole the name.
So what? Yeah, it’s a total rip off. Apple should give Arlo a free copy of OS X or a coupon for some sushi at Cafe Macs or something.
Arlo should have gotten a patent or two, or focused on an area not directly in the shadow of Apple’s tree (Desk Accessories)
Besides, the Konfab developers should be able to make short work converting their sprokets to Dashboard and get some real exposure!
ahem.. guys? didn’t Longhorn have something called a Sidebar.. which would hold such useless information as.. weather, a big freakin clock, new mail etc.
EVERYONE’S DOING THIS…
all those widgets are ugly, even the apple created ones…who cares and who needs them, nothin new here, just another bunch of crappy desk accessories.
Let me just preface my schpeel by announcing that I don’t think Apple is perfect. They’re just a bit better than, you know who
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
But anyway, I’m confused by this…
[“By treading closely on outside developers, Rose said, Apple risks killing the incentive to write Mac software. ‘Why should developers want to work on their platform?'”]
When Microsoft hoses another smaller Sw company – like taking code from a competing: media software format; memory manager; etc., and stuffing it into their software – no one bitches, everyone cheers that M$ is stronger for it.
I guess there’s different rules for Apple.
–
[Desk Accessories these are not. They even stole the name.]
And, I’m confused by this claim.
Oh BTW, I agree with ‘tom’, “Who cares?” Why is Apple – whether they have intentionally stepped on toes or not – doing this?
Desk Accessories were a hack to accommodate the low memory configs in early Macs. Some DAs were very, very cool. I even remember a spreadsheet DA that would let you fold columns and allow almost full Ss features. Forget them name. And a couple of cool game DAs. But…
Is RAM in short supply these days? Is VM in short supply?
I don’t ‘get’ this ‘feature’.
Anyone?
I was waiting on that argument. I wish Apple would have just paid them off and keep the negative PR to itself.
Actually, I think Konfabulator looks much better than Apple. Then again, even when I get Tiger I’ll want to turn them little uglies off. I can’t afford any more real estate for my desktop and Santa says I haven’t been good enough for a 30 inch monitor.
I disagree, Rob. I feel Konfabulator’s pain. Apple should have given these guys something real besides a swift kick in the nads. Maybe before 2005 everyone will kiss and make up, and Konfabuator will pocket some cash. It’s just the right thing to do.
Hey Arlo Rose…This is from 1981…
http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Desk_Ornaments.txt&sortOrder=Sort by Date&detail=medium&search=desk accessories
Stattoo ( http://www.panic.com/stattoo ) is a much more elegant solution than these gawdy looking things.
the one advantage to these widgets is that they are interactive.
A bit of history here.
Arlo Rose and Greg Landweber developed Kaleidoscope by hacking undocumented features of OS 7-9. Apple and Kaleidoscope were at odds with each other from the beginning, and Kaleidoscope died with OS X. Apple was never happy at having the themes of its latest OS mimicked by Kaleidoscope schemes, including numerous versions of Aqua which Apple legal took care of.
To be as generous as possible to Apple, it is much easier to design a user interface that is consistent and easy to learn if you do not allow the user to customize it. It didn’t help that running the early versions of OS X was taxing on the hardware then. There are enough complexities in OSX that I doubt if modification of the look of the OS to the extent that Kaleidoscope did is economically possible unless Apple provides certain facilities for that in the OS.
While my sympathies go with the developers, if you can’t copyright or patent your work, even if it is just the “look and feel,” then its lifespan is limited. That said, some members of the press will call Apple a bully for stomping on Arlo Rose, whether it’s justified or not.
People complained about Sherlock ripping off Watson, but who uses Sherlock? I love Watson and I hate Sherlock because Sherlock never works right and Watson almost always does. I tried to start using Sherlock when I upgraded to Panther, but the TV listings never worked right so I had to to Yahoo TV Listings, the Weather listings in Sherlock never found the weather listings over the net or lost my settings and just kept searching and searching with no results; and I was of to weatherchannel.com. Kofabulator need not worry, if Sherlock is any indication.
meat of moose: Maybe before 2005 everyone will kiss and make up, and Konfabuator will pocket some cash. It’s just the right thing to do.
I doubt it — but it’d be pocket change for Apple though not for Arlo. It would be sad if Arlo gives up coding for the Mac.
It’s nice to see that the creator of NetNewsWire is taking things in stride unlike the Konfabulator guy…
http://www.macminute.com/2004/06/28/rss
meat of moose,
The widgets don’t occupy any desktop real estate; they take advantage of Expos� and only appear when you press a hotkey, which is a more elegant implementation of what Konfabulator does, except that I find Apple’s widgets terribly gaudy. That being said, I paid for a Konfabulator license because I like the widget philosophy, little applets that do one thing well, but I stopped using it for the reason you stated, they cluttered the desktop. I found only the ones written by Arlo and Perry useful, and well implemented, but I actually think that Dashboard is more elegantly conceived. I really do sympathize with them, and think that Apple could have handled this better, and it’s disturbing to me that Apple seems to have adopted this pattern. Witness the thing with Watson/Sherlock, and Proteron’s Liteswitch, which Apple implemented as their own Cmd-Tab application switcher. Regardless of the fact that these developers took advantage of OS X’s native abilities, Apple comes off like a bully, muscling out developers who came up with a good idea that Apple didn’t include in the first place. Even if they are well within their rights to do so, I dislike the fact that they acted like Microsoft in these cases.
I really hope that independent developers create widgets that take advantage of Dashboard, but the many who contributed Konfabulator widgets may have been soured by this.
Rob,
Arlo Rose may not have originated the idea, but Dashboard really does look like a rip-off of Konfabulator, even down to the term “widgets”. A more elegant rip-off, but a rip-off nonetheless.
dashboard is a total rip, but its pretty worthless anyway. konfabulator just gets in the way. but if you cant look away from your computer screen to find out what the weather is check it out. 64 bit operating system! no one should care about dashboard
Apples current widgets are nothing more than a proof of concept. They fully expect others to develop the real juicy ones.
Also, expect them to change before Tiger is released.