Apple to Arlo Rose and Konfabulator: Screw You!
- From: "Rotten Apple" <rotten@xxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 30 Aug 2009 18:34:57 -0500
http://phark.typepad.com/phark/2004/06/apple_to_arlo_r.html
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Apple to Arlo Rose and Konfabulator: Screw You!
Apple released a bevy of new goodies today, namely huge displays and a preview of OS 10.4 Tiger. Displays were cool, some features of Tiger were cool, but other features of Tiger will most likely spawn lawsuits. As Arlo said as a parody of the WWDC banners: Cupertino, start your photocopiers!
Image of a Konfab widget
Konfabulator is a Javascript/XML runtime engine that lets you run mini-applications written in JavaScript called "widgets" on your desktop. These are easy to code, can use fancy PNG images and transparency effects, and can basically do whatever you want. They can pull in web data, they can interact with your applications, they can run Perl or shell scripts on your computer if you let them, and a whole slew of other stuff. The coolest part is that average Joe's (okay, not average Joe's, but people with a small hint of a programming background) can develop their own widget that does exactly what they want it to do, and then boom, productivity enhanced ten-fold.
Example Widget I Developed
Just as an example, back when I used to drive to my ex-gf's place in Chicago from Rochester, NY all the time, I developed a widget that aided my journey. It was a US map that displayed only the section of the country that I drove through (NY -> Illinois by way of I-90), and the weather for each place on my journey. Say it's 6pm right now. I programmed the widget to know it takes me 3.5 hours from Rochester to get to Cleveland, so it would display Cleveland's weather 3.5 hours from now on my desktop. It would do this for all the major cities on my way, so I could know what type of weather to expect. And the best part is that it wasn't complicated, but filled a little niche that happened to be really useful for me! Konfab is great for little stuff like that. This widget is at home on my other computer, so I can't post code, sorry!
Dashboard vs. Konfabulator
Steve Jobs announced today Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, which included the aforementioned Dashboard feature. From what was demoed today, the Dashboard is a way for little mini-applications (Steve used the term "widgets", just like Konfab does) to fly-in from off the screen ala Exposé and let the user do little tasks with them. The Dashboard featurette website shows a few sample applications, namely: a calendar, stock ticker, iTunes controller, a movie viewer, etc. So what's the big deal?
Dashboard copied Konfabulator's look, feel, concept, and terminology, without so much as a reference.
Konfab is currently at version 1.7, which is a very stable and mature release. The memory that the runtime engine takes up keeps dropping with each successive version, and the number of home-made and user-developed widgets grows every single day. Konfabulator came out a few years ago, and I've been using it religiously for about 8 months now. I don't know what I'd do without it.
Arlo and the Macintosh Community
Arlo Rose is the main developer of Konfabulator (along with Perry Clarke) and is well-known throughout the Mac community for developing amazing third-party software. Back in the days before OS X, Arlo developed an application called Kaleidoscope which let you install themes for the ho-hum Mac OS 9 (and 8, I believe) user interface. If you were a Mac user back then, there is no way in the world you don't remember Kaleidoscope. Before developing that software, he worked for Apple Computer on their Copland user interface team (remember Copland? c'mon guys!). Yup, he's got lots of history with Apple, and many of the things that look cool on your desktop right now may have gotten their start with the work that Arlo did back in the day.
Apple and 3rd Party Developers
Unlike Microsoft who tends to buy out their competitors if they like what they see, Apple sometimes blatantly rips-off quality Macintosh software and includes it in the next major OS release. Karelia Software's Watson application is just another example of this. It aggregated web content before the term "aggregation" was cool. It let you search movie times, books, recipes, weather, and lots of other stuff without leaving your desktop. Apple decided to copy the application (user interface and all) and deem it "the next version of Sherlock". Sound familiar?
UpdateWatson was officially sold to Sun. Via Kottke.
My Personal Take
After reading through the Konfabulator forum posting regarding this very issue, and seeing some disheartening comments from what-could-be-thought-of as loyal Konfabulator users, I'd like to publicly state my stand on this issue. I am extraordinarily upset at Apple for doing this, and will be boycotting the usage of the new Dashboard once Tiger is released in about 9 months. I will be immediately purchasing my license for Konfabulator, and will strive to spread the word to non-Konfab users about this issue. I will evangelize the usage of Konfab even to Windows users (since Arlo is reportedly working very hard on a Windows version of Konfabulator). I will do everything in my power to see some justice come from this injustice.
Hey Apple, you just lost a ton of my respect.
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