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An 'Open Letter to Apple'
ndpatel writes "It looks like Apple has a a success in Panther, but it also seems like they've ruffled a few feathers over at Proteron by incorporating a new Windows-esque task switcher that mimics (most of) the functionality of Proteron's LiteSwitch X utility for Jaguar. Proteron has written an "Open Memo" to Apple, but it doesn't seem like Apple really cares. Shades of Karelia, Watson, and Sherlock 3? Is Apple screwing its smaller developers, or just refining their software with relatively obvious improvements?"
If they were really serious, you would think they might present a few links to real solid evidence from that open letter. You know, comparisons of screens or whatever. Perhaps they are planning on litigation? I doubt it. Plus, as some have already pointed out, window switching has been around in older Apple OS's and was then dropped.
Um, no.
As a former LiteSwitch user, I can say with some confidence that the window is not a "near-pixel" duplication. There are similar concepts in both cases, to be sure. The background of the switcher is transparent with rounded corners, but this can hardly be called a ripoff; the style is consistent with Apple's brightness and volume indicators, which have been a part of OSX since 10.0. Apple can't be blamed for UI consistency on that score.
The app titles are in Lucida Grande Bold in both LSX and OSX, colored white with a black drop shadow. Again, this is just a matter of UI consistency; Apple uses this very same font on desktops, and has since 10.0. In fact, this appears to be intended as Apple's standard font for text on top of any dark-colored UI element; the white text is controlled by a hidden preference "com.apple.Finder.hasDarkDesktop" (this was true in 10.0 at least).
The application icons are arranged in a horizontal row in LSX and OSX. Frankly, no other layout would make sense; Apple can hardly be blamed for this one.
Both LSX and OSX highlight the active app's icon by surrounding it with a differently-colored box. Aside from there being no other sensible way to highlight the icon in such an environment, it is worth noting that the boxes look different; LSX uses a dark box solid white border, while OSX uses a light box with no border but rounded corners, again more consistent with the style. Note that Proteron's implementation is closer to the look of the Windows application switcher, which predates both LSX and OSX.
Both OSX and LSX print the title of the currently selected application. LSX prints it centered at the bottom of the window, while OSX prints it under the application's icon. It's arguable which of these is better UI -points can be made both ways- but again, OSX is more consistent with Aqua, LSX is more consistent with Windows.
Panther's application switcher is not a duplication of LSX's functionality. For one thing, LSX actually goes significantly beyond what Panther's switcher does; if it's a copy, then it is a poor one except in terms of aesthetics. For another, although they look similar -more a testament to LSX's attempts to remain consistent with Aqua than Apple's attempts to rip them off- they are not the same. Some of the differences had to have taken some real effort to write, above and beyond any sort of cut/paste job.
Finally, I suppose, we should take a quick look at the history of LSX. LSX began life as a part of GoMac, which was nothing more or less than a Start Menu implementation for Mac OS 8. Not a bad implementation, either; they even added in support for control strip modules to replace Windows' system tray modules. However, this app copied the Win9X Start menu almost down to the pixel; they used Apple's system font and a Mac OS logo in place of the Windows logo, but other than this the resemblance was more than just uncanny. Later on, Proteron would develop an application switcher as part of the shareware GoMac, which they later duplicated in the freeware LiteSwitch as a kind of teaser for GoMac.
Either way, this kind of application switcher is not a new concept, and Proteron should know that better than anyone. If Apple is to credit the original developers, then they should credit the original developers. I'm sure Microsoft ripped the concept off from somewhere, but whoever it was, it wasn't Proteron. Apple and Proteron have both ripped this one off.
The comparison to Karelia's Watson is, frankly, borderline disgusting. At least Watson could legitimately claim to have come up with a new concept and interface; Proteron -at least as far as common features between LSX and OSX goes- just Aquafied a longtime feature of Windows. LSX did other things, but these don't seem to have been duplicated. I don't agree with everything Karelia has said about the Watson situation either, but they had a much better claim than Proteron does.
To make things a bit clearer, no features were "dropped" when Mac OS X. They simply didn't exist because it's an entirely different OS than Mac OS 9. Apple has come a long way since the public beta, in terms of reimplementing the features we used to have (simple file searching, labels, app switcher, etc.)
Products like Unsanity's Labels X, Windowshade X, and Xounds and ASM also bring back missing functionality. I gladly paid for those enhancements. Labels were reimplemented in Jaguar though, and I don't recall ever seeing an open memo from the Unsanity folks bitching about it.
Gabriel Ricard
Cmd-tabbing in general has been around for a long time. OS 9, and in older Mac OSes with add-ons. What is being questioned here isn't Apple's addition of Cmd-tab to switch apps, but that it shows a little bar in the middle of the screen with the icons of the apps you're running, the selected one highlighted. This is what Windows does, rather than select items in the dock (or analog, the taskbar; though, Win-Tab does that). Proteron sells a product that shows the icons in the middle of the screen, just like windows- rather than relying on the Dock.
But meh. Whether the "bar with icons" is my dock (makes sense) or a new, redundant graphic in the middle of my screen is pretty irrelevant to me.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
It was Proteron, and it was a freeware control panel back at that time. I still have it installed on my 6500/225. :)
that SuperClock got rolled into system 7.1 or something, but Apple purchased the rights to it.
Stac vs Microsoft was a patent case. First, Stac sued Microsoft claiming Doublespace infringed on some of the compression patents Stac held. Microsoft were found to have unintentionally infringed on Stac's patents.
Then Microsoft sued back because Stac reverse-engineered some undocumented MS-DOS 6.x trickery that allowed the drivers for compressed drives to be loaded automagically and into HMA. Stac were found to have "misappropriated trade secrets".
Basically, it's a textbook example of why Software Patents Are Bad.
A better comparison might be with Netscape vs IE-in-Windows, except that a web browser isn't really an operating system function (that is, most users see it as an application) [...]
This might have been true before the mid 90s. Today a web browser is basically considered core functionality - and even by the late 90s when Win98 came out it was expected by most.
"Everyone" was bundling browser apps with their OS in the 95 - 98 timeframe. Plonking a browser component into the OS, as Microsoft eventually did with Win98, was a pretty logical step to take once they realised MSN had bombed and the WWW was the future. Even without Netscape's foolish grandstanding and goading they would have done it.
There's actually a difference in functionality, not just appearance. In the new version the order of the applications is preserved. Press TAB n times and you get the nth most recently used application. In previous versions it just cycled through the applications in Dock order after the first one, which was a lot less useful.