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?"

Comments

Reintroduced copied Windows feature?

[eXtro]

I recall that this was available natively in MacOS 9 but then was dropped for X. So Proteron was more accurately copying a dropped MacOS 9 feature (which may have been copied from Windows) and now Apple's re-including it. I doubt that Apple looked at Proteron but do believe that Apple looked at Microsoft. I don't really see anything to get up in arms about here. Watson v.s. Sherlock was much more obviously a rip off of a 3rd party piece of sofware.

Re:Reintroduced copied Windows feature?

[clifyt]

"Watson v.s. Sherlock was much more obviously a rip off of a 3rd party piece of sofware."

From what I understand, the functionality of Watson was something Apple had been developing and had given betas out to select individuals for a few years BEFORE Watson had come out.

I don't know the entire story behind it except what my friends at Apple have said, but doesn't that sound possible that the third party developer heard about it and decided that either Apple wasn't going to bring it to market (long time to develop something this small) for one reason or another and decided to make the implementation herself.

Apple IS a little more open with new technologies than they should be and they are a little too picky about how and when these should be introduced. I've heard of a few new features that I thought were supposed to have been in Panther, but for some reason never even made it to the betas, but you can still find plist entries for them if you look (even if they make no sense in their current context).

I don't know who to believe with any of this...Apple is very good about admitting they like others technologies and paying folks that they do aquire them from -- to the point of buying developers out of their companies and paying both well. Its definately not microsoftian in nature, nor is it the former NIH (Not Invented Here) that use to be prevalent in the company.

Again, I don't know...just pointing out something I see referenced time and time again with the Watson when I had heard of such features as being possible and probably far before I heard of Watson...

Re:Reintroduced copied Windows feature?

[catwh0re]

i second this.

As OS X was slowly rebuilt to include previous OS 9 features. It was obvious that this was going to be reintroduced. It would be as unfortunate to suggest that LabelsX a 3rd party application to reintroduce labels to 10.2 systems. Was being -squashed- by apple with 10.3 bringing labels from OS 9.

Unlike the sherlock/watson affair which was an obvious extension at the time, but in retrospect seems a little contrived. Writing software that you know will be cannon balled is heroic, but don't whine when it does finally happen.

Since the introduction of 10 there have been a variety of 3rd party app switchers, this particular one happened however to have the apple style. When you emulate the apple style, then you should expect when apple finally program it, it will also look like the apple style.

A more complicated application would have my sympathy and a distaste for apple, but this is truly nonsense.

They're doing what MS don't

[Apreche]

Apple is just smarter than MS. Windows is simply missing hundreds of obvious features. Tabbed browsing in IE. The ability to put stuff in the system tray. Virtual Desktops. Etc. These are basic functionalities that should be part of the os. Since MS to this day still does not include any of these tons of necessary features in its os, it is possible to make a business writing software that adds them to windows. As a result you get many incompatible implementations of many things.

Apple is much smarter. They realize that there is a feature that many people want added to the os. They realized the feature is a good thing and a lot of people use it. So they add it in. You can only make money developing applications for OSX. Which is the way it should be. You can't profit by making a piece of software that just adds some missing functionality to the os. This way everyone gets all the features necessary in an implementation that is compatible with the rest of the os. Not like Windows where you have 20 seperate little programs to add in all the missing stuff that should be there in the first place. And not like linux where you add it in yourself.

This is a plus for OSX in my book. I think I'm going to start saving now for the eventual arrival of the 12" G5 powerbook.

Re:They're doing what MS don't

[andlarry]

Not to be nitpicky but I believe in XP you can use vitrual desktops via a Power Toy... quote from the site: "Virtual Desktop Manager... Manage up to four desktops from the Windows taskbar with this Power Toy." Power Toys are unsupported however. If anyone has experience with this util, please lemme know how well it works ( I only use 98Se thru Win4Lin :-) )

Re:They're doing what MS don't

[babbage]

I'm not bashing Apple (I really want a 17" powerbook and a G5), just making a correction. Windows has a quick launch bar on the taskbar that you can add applications to by dragging them. This is roughly equivalent to the taskbar in OS X. Also, the Windows XP Power Tools are a free download from Microsoft, and they include the Virtual Desktop Manager app.

The Windows Power Toys [sic -- "toys", not "tools"] kit is really the key thing here. Microsoft has provided it in some form since at least Win98 or Win95, and some of the apps that they've been providing, such as TweakUI, are really fantastic if you want to "fix" the interface on a Windows machine. Why the Power Toys are only available as a separate download instead of bundling with the OS, I have no idea, but they're free, they're "official", and they can be absolutely essential for making Windows just a little bit less insane to use.

The XP edition of Power Toys includes, as you note, a virtual desktop management tool, but more to the point at hand, it offers an enhanced alt-tab switcher. If Apple ripped off anybody, the Microsoft tool is a more prominent candidate than the Proteon one, by a wide margin.

The one feature that the Proteon switcher seems to be unique in -- if the XP one supports this, I've forgotten & can't check at the moment -- is that it allows switcher functionality other than just putting the selected app in the foreground: you can hide, quit, minimize, etc. That seems to be a new insight, but a minor one: once you've got the hook to put additional functionality into the switcher, it's not so interesting which particular functionality does or does not make it in.

I think another precedent was the BeOS switcher ("twitcher"? I forget what they called it at this point...). Like Proteon, they also allowed functionality in the switcher -- in particular, I seem to remember that you could drag icons around in the window that popped up, so that you could control the order in which applications would be called next by repeated alt-tab presses. This isn't as evolved as what Proteon or Panther do, but it demonstrates the basic idea of "switching doesn't just have to be a bridge -- you can do things along the way". While not many consumers used BeOS, it seems to me that a lot of OS designers did -- Microsoft is ripping off ideas from the Be File System in their uberfilesystem project Yukon, while the guy that designed that file system is now an Apple employee. Various aspects of the Aqua & XP interfaces feel to me like echoes of the BeOS, and the new Panther switcher could well be one too.

So functionally, I'm willing to accept that Apple may have borrrowed the "functionality hooks" idea from Proteon's LiteSwitch, but as for the specifics of the visual implementation, I just don't see it. The Panther implementation's appearance borrows as much from XP and the XP Power Toy switcher (and before that, the switcher dialog that goes back at least as far as Win95 or Win3.1) as any other implementation, and there's only so many ways that this idea could be implemented in OSX that it would be harmonious with similar aspects of the Aqua interface -- in particular, the dim grey overlay icons that you get when you hit eject or the volume control keys.

I would love to see tabbed browsing in IE, though. Of course, while I'm wishing, I'd like a job where I don't have to use Windows at all...

I can't help you with the job, but for the other point you're in luck, sort of. Just as Mozilla is a thin XUL layer wrapped around a crunchy Gecko core, Internet Explorer is a thin .EXE program that calls on a crunchy handful of .DLL libraries. Ergo, it should be easy to replace iexplore.exe with an program that offer

why now?

[TomSawyer]

My first reaction to the memo is to question why it's being brought up now if it is to be taken seriously. Mac Developers were the first to legitimately try out Panther and the copy passed out at WWDC had the feature in question. Did they lobby behind the scenes and only now have decided to bring it to the public after being ignored or is this simply a publicity stunt??

Great marketing ploy by LiteSwitch

[mactari]

I wonder how many people have run across this story now and fall into the following category:

1.) Panther is a bit steep right now at $129 and Jaguar is doing just great for now.
2.) They've never heard of LiteSwitchX until now.
3.) They've now downloaded LiteSwitchX and are considering shelling out $15 for it.

I'm not saying the fellow doesn't think his idea's been ripped and burned to the Panther CD, but I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't think about it being a great marketing ploy for free advertising before he wrote it as well.

Let OS X be usable without 3rd party apps

[shmert]

I've been bitching in feedback to Apple about their poor app-switching interface since the initial beta of OS X, and am thrilled to see they are finally addressing the problem. The old dock-switcher was terrible and unfriendly, and my least-favorite thing about using OS X. As soon as LiteSwitch X was released I bought a copy, and have been happily wearing down my apple-tab keys ever since.

I think the pattern here with Watson and then LiteSwitch X has some interesting parallels to Linux vs. Unix, except w.r.t. which party has more clout. Rewriting costly unix apps workalikes and charging less for them in Linux is seen as perfectly acceptable, because Linux is the underdog. Apple is the overdog, and is catching flak for imitating some other company's well-designed ideas and charging less for it (by bundling it in with the OS).

That said, I'll continue to use LiteSwitch X (of course, I've already paid for it) because it has some nice improvements over the OS X version. Same with Watson, I much prefer it over Sherlock. It seems that the apple versions are the "lite" version of the commercial apps. If you want more, the 3rd-party developer is there to provide you with more powerful, feature-laden versions of the apps. But buying OS X shouldn't necessitate the purchase of several 3rd party apps to be as usable as possible.

To quote Jean-Louis: Get over it.

[RetiredMidn]

Jean-Louis Gassee addressed Apple developers at their World Wide Developers Conference several years ago (after he had left Apple, IIRC), and he touched on this topic then.

To summarize his points, the platform is made richer by creative people writing system enhancements, but don't be surprised if Apple (or any other system vendor) provides those enhancements in a future version of the OS; just move on to another good idea.

Daring Fireball

[theMacDude]

Please read John Gruber's take on this on his Daring Fireball weblog.

Re:From Proteron to Apple

[blkmagic]

So what if the guy who wrote it was hired by Apple? If they didn't use Proteron's source code, it's similar enough to other software products (i.e. Windows functionality), they're well within their legal and moral rights to use it. I'm sorry, but if a small software company is that dependent upon a niche product, they need to seriously re-examine their business plan. As rapidly as software changes, it's financial suicide for a developer to rest on their laurels.