“Mac developer Dan Wood knows what happens when Apple Computer has the same idea he does. A couple of years back, his small firm, Karelia Software, released a set of consumer Web services known as Watson. Some months later, Apple added a very similar set of utilities under the Sherlock 3 moniker,” Ina Fried reports for CNET News. “Now Wood is worried that history is about to repeat itself–or, as he puts it, that lightning is going to strike twice.”
“Karelia has been working on a program called Sandvox, a set of tools designed it to make it easier for people to publish their own rich Web site with photos, audio and other features typically not found on personal Web sites. ‘”For years, Macintosh users have been clamoring for an easy, elegant way to get their content–photo albums, Web logs, just basic sites–published on the Web,’ Wood said in a statement. ‘We created Sandvox because there were no other applications that ‘got it.” But having seen the evidence that Apple is readying something called iWeb that it will likely announce at Macworld this week, Wood is apparently concerned that perhaps Apple “got it” too. So he decided to release Sandvox in a public beta form on Monday… This time around, Wood doesn’t think Apple took the idea from him,” Fried reports.
Full article here.
More Sandvox info and link to the public beta download here.
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Sheesh, that looks awesome.
I wish Apple would make an effort to work with existing developers better. I dont see this product being something that the developer could be angry about Apple competing with them on, but Watson was definitely some bad overlap.
I wish Apple would buy outright the rights to delicious library and incorporate it into OSX.
http://delicious-monster.com/
As well as Coverflow
http://www.steelskies.com/coverflow/
Karelia has no room to complain, RealMac Software came out with RapidWeaver a while back now, http://www.realmacsoftware.com/rapidweaver/index.php
I will give credit to these new application developers, they are both nice products and I wish them the very best in their efforts.
These guys come up with great ideas for easy to use software, but it is a tough market to compete with software created by Apple.
Apple should make its own scanner software, especially OCR. The programs I’ve seen out there just don’t have the simplicity and integration to make scanning painless.
Apple did better then buy Delicious Monster, the creator works for Apple now.
http://www.mikematas.com/2005/07/moving-to-apple.html
This looks like a very intuitive program. I was bummed about the Watson overlap as well…doesn’t look good…but this basic web design software should take off for Karelia.
Andrew Hamilton
Hamilton International Productions
http://www.hiproductions.com
Videographers in Las Vegas
This is nothing new, other programmer and companies have been trying to do the same thing.
Basically a webpage turns into a pagelayout program. Each “item” has handles to unlock and link stuff like photos and text.
so there will always be the risk of others meeting the same need.
Since Apple’s probably not GIVING away iWeb, there will probably be plenty of people who buy Sandvox. So good luck to Sandvox AND iWeb.
Mike Matas did not create Delicious Library – at least not by himself. He worked on that along with Wil Shipley, formerly of The Omni Group, now of Delicous Monster. Mike Matas does mostly interface & graphics stuff. That’s what he’s doing at Apple now.
Dan Wood has a lot of respect within the Mac community. Watson was a fine program. It hasn’t fully died yet and I still open it once in a while hoping what I want still works in it. Is Sun (aren’t they the ones who bought it?) just going to sit on it? Or are they really planning on doing something with it?
Those who do not seem to be understanding of Dan Woods concerns perhaps need to take another look at the challenges for Mac developers. We need to support good mac developers and not just say, “Well, that’s the way life is! What’s the problem?!” Dan Wood has been a particularly good one for us. I would hate to see him become discouraged with a second lightning strike and quit! Aaaarrgggh! His new application looks good and I know will be another outstanding one when it is finished. We all wait to see what Apple will be doing.
H.G. Wells is correct. We should be supporting great 3rd party developers on the Mac platform. It’s a tough market out there – they’re already minimizing their chances of doing really well by picking the Mac platform, so don’t sh1t in their faces by saying “Oh well, too bad if Apple makes what you make.”
Karelia have been unfortunate enough to have Apple bring out similar software, and it might happen yet again – I’d hate to be in that situation. It’s not like Apple tells anyone what they’re up to – so it’s a huge gamble for these guys to spend 6, 12 maybe 18 months on something only to see The Mothership release something in their market. Of course, because it’s from Apple, it’ll have a huge advantage over anything else available (unless it sucks.) It must suck being Apple too – I’m sure they’d rather not piss off good developers.
Some of these smaller developers literally only just survive month to month (go read their blogs if you really don’t believe me.) Sure, it’s their choice to be an independent Mac developer, but we consumers hold the chips and where we choose to spend them will make or break these guys.
iWeb is going to suck in the way that Aperture sucked… in that, its quality is so sucky, you won’t want to use it, even if its feautre set compells you.
I look forward to Karelia making a good piece of software… if its better than iWeb, great.. i’ll buy it.
but i’m sick of hearing that if Apple makes a piece of software that someone else can’t make it better. Besides, one wil have to buy iLife 06 – its not free.
That said, Karelia’s software leaves a lot to be desired at this time.. its very incomplete.. i hope it gets better, because it has a great look at feel – its UI feels “distant”.. nothing works like i want it to – i want to add another list – tough.. i want to add a picture into the pre-built page – i can’t..
at this point, if iWeb is as sucky as my sources tell me, Karelia has nothing to worry about but their own damn problems.
“at this point, if iWeb is as sucky as my sources tell me, Karelia has nothing to worry about but their own damn problems.”
WHY NOT BLOODY WAIT UNTIL SOMETHING IS RELEASED BEFORE SAYING HOW CRAP SOMETHING IS!
Apple have not released anything yet – for gods sake, wait until the keynote, read the info about the products announced on their website, go to your local Apple Store and try them out – THEN YOU CAN MAKE CONSTRUCTIVE COMMENTS AND COMPARISONS!
“iWeb is going to suck in the way that Aperture sucked…”
If you think that about aperture you are obviously not the market that the product is designed for.
Professional Photographers love the app.
Remember also that it is only version 1 at the moment and is a totally new software category that has been developed by apple.
Adobe should have done this app 6 years ago – but they have the majoroity share of the market, so they couldnt be bothered until a competitor created something.
Same senario with Quark – complacency kills businesses.
Apple are never complacent – if they were the business would have gone under years ago.
odd rock has a point in that Karelia KNEW what they were getting into.
RapidWeaver has been around for a long time, and it is awesome.
So they knew the bar was pretty high, even though Apple wasn’t in the picture at first.
Before moaning about being steam-rolled over by Apple, maybe the Karelia software should resemble what it’s supposed to be: intuitive web-design for everyone – and it should actually link to the style sheets too.
Hey Solar Flare, RIGHT ON!
i agree with ndelc’s comments. I also believe Microsoft will be relevant for years. What’s the operating system that people in China and India are using. Where’s Apple in those markets? Everyone uses MS Office.
So what will make people switch? OS agnostic apps?
Beautiful hardware? A killer app? A killer virus? iPods? Even if i could run both OS’s on my computer, as a Windows user, why should i care? Viruses? if i get a virus when i’m running Windows on my Mac and it still screws my harddrive then there’s still no benefit.
—
What will make people switch is apps become accessable via the web.
E.g. – If apple developed a version of iWork that yuo dont need to install on your machine, that you only pay a small amount every time you use the app.
This IS the future of all pc software.
In 10 years time you wont install software on your mac/pc – you will connect to the internet, use it and pay a small fee every time you do.
“In 10 years time you wont install software on your mac/pc – you will connect to the internet, use it and pay a small fee every time you do.”
Great. “Sorry, can’t continue with the “Paste” command. Please check your internet connection.”
I haven’t seen any comments about iweb’s reported restriction of only working with a .mac account. I have zero interest in that. I have been waiting for a program like sandvox. Right now I use fusion but it’s a windows only app. I would love to have a mac program that is as easy to use as fusion is and I’m willing to pay for it even if I get iweb when I get ilife 06. Of coarse if iweb is a decent program and it’s not tied to .mac then I’ll use it.
“they’re already minimizing their chances of doing really well by picking the Mac platform”
Actually a presentation by one of the Delicious Monster guys said exactly the opposite. It’s easier to get noticed on the smaller Mac platform, and as long as you have an excellent product (the size of the platform also eliminates second-rate software), you’ll go far.
” I would love to have a mac program that is as easy to use as fusion is and I’m willing to pay for it”
How about Softpress Freeway…?
How about Softpress Freeway…?
Thanks, I’ll compare it to sandvox. I would classify myself as a complete beginner as far as building websites is concerned. I have no desire to get deeper in web design. All I am basically looking to do is put a basic site up that is mostly just to allow a simple way for people to view my pictures.
Fusion, while not fancy, has allowed me to do this quite easily without having to learn much of anything. I was able to basically load the software and in a very short time I figured out how to do what I needed to do with very minimal use of the manual.
Is Freeway and/or Sandvox as easy as that?
Thanks for the info MacJack.
SolarFlare,
I am a pro photographer and I can tell you that Pros DO NOT love Aperture. It is dog slow, uses a propietary database system that does not allow you to use external folders or drive, does not write to a files metadata so all keywords etc are left behind on export,the RAW processing is way sub-par…I could go on. Nice start, shows promise but not many serious photogs are going for it, or are happy with it. Look around the web at independent reviews – you will see what I mean. On thhe other hand, Adobe has just annnounced the Public Beta of LightRoom which is like Aperture done with feedback from actual photographers and it has excellent RAW processing (DUH, it Adobe after all) and the speed is great even on my 15″ Powerbook 1.5 ghz w/ 1.25 gigs ram – which barely makes the minimum specs to just run Aperture! That ‘book isn’t even a year old!
Lightroom:http://labs.macromedia.com/technologies/lightroom/
Good old fashioned competition. Makes everyone better. Lightroom already does Aperture one, or two, better.
“In 10 years time you wont install software on your mac/pc – you will connect to the internet, use it and pay a small fee every time you do.”
bull****.
That may be *available* but it won’t be the way everything is done. That requires a whole lot of assumptions and would limit the usefulness of computers. What about the person in a remote place? or with a wireless connection in a place where the connection is spotty? or someone who is intentionally disconnected? People will not go for having it only one way. A lot can happen in 10 years – the reliability of the internet could be much better, wireless could work almost everywhere, broadband could be almost ubiquitous—but I bet not, and I am an optimist.