Dashboard rips off Konfabulator

I agree with GroundZeroX, I think confabulator is a waist of space and it lowers the mac os x elegance and class. In my opinion its crap. I downloaded konfab once, used it for an hour or so playing around and deleted it within a day. Its worse than pop-up's on a windows machine.

VERY Bad move apple. It just don't sell me another os, no way! I would have spent the cash in promoting the operating system "MAC OS X - Tiger" on a TVC or somthing.

I dont know much about the history of Konfabulator but I see as a bit like asking all your developers to develop for you, but when one has a great product, its taken right out of there heart. Not only that, it happened right on WWDC. whats that all about? That will surley scare alot of developer potential away.



anyway...... T think konfab may still be around for a while though.
 
The didn't rip it off they made it better. If they thought there product was one of a kind why didn't they copyright the design? How is it that we have 20 car companies? Did they rip each other off heck no they make their own product and made it better.

Apple has been trying this widget push since Opendoc and Cyberdog. All Konfabulator does is become a container for the widgets...and it does a lousy job in my opinion. If anything they totally ripped off Apple with their Konpose. I don't think they understand the concept?

Everyone does things differently. Many people like Konfabulator for the eye candy. I used to enjoy it for the information at my fingertips...However, the latest versions destroy some of the older widgets so, I no longer use it. Unfortunately, who ever runs that company has a horrible business and marketing sense and was slowly destroying the product. He knew that he was running out of ideas and should be ashamed for trying to halt competition.

Apple pushes people sometimes they do it out of love, hate what not but almost every time everyone wins. Heck if Apple didn't push Microsoft with certain things we wouldn't have this great office product, if they didn't push Watson it would be as bad as sherlock. Anyone that doesn't enjoy competition is stupid and greedy, simple as that... and scared as a buffalo in miami.
 
Arlo ripped off the idea of OpenDoc and CI labs components, containers and objects that IBM and Apple were working on ten years ago. Nothing changed the container idea was there the ability to create your own widgets(and many called them widgets/components back then) The only thing that changed is that back then components could be linked together in ways which Arlo has done a lousy job of pushing and the Aqua graphics came around. All Konfabulotro and these widgets are, is a repackaged version of live objects with a prettier graphics.

http://www.atpm.com/2.09/page5.shtml
 
bah. if Microsoft did it, all of you would be up in arms. Face it. Apple did a bit of "stealing" here from an idea that wasn't original - in the scheme of things - but sure was original on the MacOSX platform.

by some of the rationale in this thread, if MS does it - which they just might with their XAML plans for Longhorn - I guess it should be chalked up to "good business" right? As long as they make it better.

bah.
 
Is not the calculator or QT movie player or and small Apple component that has been there since 1984 just a widget with a container being the OS? So, basically they just built a secondary OS over Mac OS to run these without borders, that's it. You need to run Konfabulator before you can open a widget don't you? So, there is no difference between konfabulator and LiveObjects... just that Konfabulator came ten years later.

Yes, there is a huge difference between Apple Microsoft thing and Apple Konfabulator... it is the idea!!! Only Apple as a Company saw that ordinary people wanted to see their computer interface related in a graphical manner. Xerox didn't, a few individuals within the company but if Xerox had the foresight of Apple thinkers they would have done something about it.

Marketing your ideas that is all it comes down to. Microsoft took the idea and the design and made it look and work like crap in their first try. The only thing Apple may have done was take the design(though they created the aqua look and feel first) and made it look better and work better... they've already been working on components and widgets ideas of computing for 12+ years and in essence 20+ since they knew that people didn't want to have to open up Word or Excel to calculate... that is why they built the widget called calculator that runs outside of its own window in a container called Mac Os.
 
point me one feature of macosx, windows or any other os that wasn't "stolen". I will find you the application that performed something similar to it and was published before.
Ok, maybe there are some, but you will be very surprised how less there are actually. What do you want? A naked os where you have to get all your apps/tools and customization features seperately? Apple to add a little textbox within the Dashboard saying: special thanks to konfabulator/launchbar?
Peeelease!
 
Zammy-Sam said:
Apple to add a little textbox within the Dashboard saying: special thanks to konfabulator/launchbar?
Click to expand...
haha!

I think the Konfabulator guys are fing babies. They need to embrace Dashboard, and start porting all their widgets over, and become the #1 third-party widget creator...

If Apple stole my apps' ideas, I wouldn't pout and complain. I'd be happy and honored that they copied. So the konfabulator guys need to do the same.

Maybe we don't want childish, pouting developers working on our platform anyways.. :)
 
Oh, and as far as Arlo is concerned, this is what I found out yesturday. He worked for Apple, working on the theme manager with others for 8 I believe, and was fired. The guy then went off, and started off kaleidoscope which changes the themes for you without the theme manager. So let me get the straight, he works for a company, gets fired, steals the work that he was working on with other people, publishes a product based off of that and gets several years of revenue for. Then he steals Active Desktop, and Apple copies part of their implementation, and you guys are calling Apple thieves? Do any of you realize that what Arlo did with Kaleidoscope can be considered illegal? When a person is let go from a company as a software engineer, they have for very long time been made to sign contracts stating that they wouldn't work on similar products or features for competing companies for X amount of years. I believe it is typically 4 or 5. You can't BS your way out of that as far as I am concerned about the guy who got canned from Apple then stole their IP for years of his own profit.

To me, it is clearly the truth that Arlo scammed Apple, and then he scammed MS, and now he is pissing and moaning because Apple is bringing back something that used to be part of the ORIGINAL MAC OS.

Heck, need proof? My girlfriend is a software engineer, and if she was fired or quits she would have to sign similar contracts. She also has one of the original Macs. I've messed with the "Desktop Accessories" before, or "Widgets" or "Active Desktop" stuff, that Arlo claims that he worked on all by himself, and was in NO WAY motivated by stuff that was out for nearly 20 YEARS before Konfabulator came out. Active Desktop has been out for 7 years, and they blatantly copies them too. But hey, lets say that he is the victim.
 
GroundZeroX, I suggest you get your facts straight before you start bashing people. Arlo did not steal any work for Kaleidoscope (and actually went through a costly legal battle with Apple over this, which proved this). Arlo didn't even program the utility. The program was the work of a fellow named Greg Landweber.

As for Kaleidoscope vs. Active Desktop... Widgets' functions are not limited to the Internet. They can hook into the system and give you information like CPU usage and AirPort signal strength. They can run just about any shell commands you please. They can interface with applications using AppleScript. And they can be written in a day. I'd like to see you try all that with Active Desktop.

Kaleidoscope vs. Desk Accessories... Refer to my earlier link .

Kaleidoscope vs. DesktopX... It does not matter who came first. Konfabulator's implementation has always been rock-solid and has been repeatedly requested by DesktopX users. I can attest to this... We're always razzing the people who post about K for Windows at the K forums.
 
As was mentioned earlier, Konfab still has a year of life as before Dashboard hits the market. And the people creating can still create Widgets. No laws were broken. Just people seeing things from a very narrow perspective.
How many people were in arms when Konposé was introduced recently with 1.7? No one was upset, saying Apple was ripped off.
 
Any developer that believes he is going to make 500 million on his idea has a real big head. Most great developers do it because they love what they do. And some of the greatest apps are freeware or actually are worth the money. I would never pay $20 bucks for konfabulator on the whole scope of things. I'm sure Apple approached the guys and said hey i'll give you $50,000 for your idea and maybe even a job with them. Then they could have taken the money and like kainjow said created the best website for widgets and sell them for .25 cents to $2.00 a widget and make a mint... bad business on their part... now they look like big cry babies. Apple has helped make developing easier and easier every year they have made many developers very happy and some have made a few coins. You can't make everyone happy all the time.
 
Nobody is ripping anybody off, ideas are just ideas, and more then one person can have and hold and even devise the same idea independently of each other! Both Konfabulator and Apple are Software Companies, developing their ideas into products to convince people to but them. They seem to both have a similar implementation, but christ, why re-invent the wheel?
Why do you think that all cars look similar? They all use the same type of engine, and have for the last seventy or eighty years. Because the engine is a good thing, there is more then one engine 'developer,' which in turn fosters competition between those engines.
I think apple implementing a new (and hopefully better) means of doing things that Konfabulator has done for a time now will foster innovation and competition within the Apple developer world, and competition in industry is always a good thing in the long run, What would we do if Apple didn't copy things from microsoft every once in a while to maintain the superior OS? I very much enjoy Fast User Switching, just as one example.
 
The truth is, Apple's Dashboard is just competition. That's all it is. Mail.app is competition to Entourage, Eudora, etc. But I don't see them crying about it. Safari is competition to IE, Camino, OmniWeb, Mozilla, but those companies embrace it and continue developing. What about Stattoo? I don't remember everyone getting angry over that. When Apple released Sherlock 3, Watson was made better. Konfabulator needs to just accept it and move on. If their app truly is better then Dashboard, people will use it, as was the case with Watson.
 
Ricky, I personally don't care. Konfabulator IS a knock off of Active Desktop and Desktop Accessories. I don't care that it does shell commands, and bla blah blah. There has been programs like this for years on Windows, long before Konfabulator. I can attest to that because I messed with a lot of the ObjectDesktop stuff before a became a Mac user. The information I got was from a friend last night who told me that Arlo worked on the Theme Manager back on the OS8 days, which is unusual to me because I remember the hype over Konfabulator because it came from the creator of Kaliedescope. I don't care what you have to say. Arlo copied Apple. Arlo copied Microsoft. Plain and simple. He didn't "invent" the idea of widgets. He didn't "invent" the idea of Desktop Accessories. He didn't invent the idea of anchored internet data in the form of a mini-app. He didn't "invent" the webkit that Dashboard uses to build Dashboard Widgets. He didn't "invent" Expose which Dashboard relies on. He didn't "invent" Core Image which Dashboard heavily relies on. I know this last one is hard to believe but Arlo certainly didn't "invent" Javascript. I don't see what everyone is complaining about. The only thing that can really be said is that they look similar. Why do they look similar? Because they are basically images held together by Javascript.

You said it didn't matter which one came first DesktopX, which I know for a fact came first, or Konfabulator. Well apparently it does, because Arlo is bringing in the cello and violins trying to get sob story sales off of Konfabulator, because Apple is doing something that is similar to his. Konfabulator is just like DesktopX too. But Arlo wants to play his sob sales games, and thats cool. I hope he does make some money because he did create a nice COPY of Windows products. But don't kid yourself into thinking that this guy is some sort of Genius because he made Konfabulator. Just the FACT that we know that there are so many similar products such as DesktopX, Active Desktop, Desktop Accessories, just goes to show that there is nothing to whine about.
 
On the other hand, this gives Konfabulator a lot of press. Id heared of it and wigets before, but havent paid them a second thought. After reading this column, Ive had a look, and Knofabulator is the perfect solution to a number of little problems Ive found. Forget OS X.4, I want this app as soon as a get my own, private computer!

Plus, like others before have mentioned, this encourages the makers of konfabulator to improve their product. People who wouldnt have bought it before (like me), will look at dashboard, and either use it, or think 'this is limited, lets look for something better'. People who have paid for konfabulator will think either 'ill get this for free' or 'i like konfabulator - ill pay for that'. Yes, konfabulator loses some customers, but more people hear of them, so other people will buy it too.

**writes note to get konfabulator when i buy a new mac for me....**
 
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