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news of 2004-06-30

I didn't want to, but I have to: Rant - Dashboard, Konfabulator

I won't go into great detail on how I feel about Apple "ripping off" third party developers. Let's say this: I'd want Apple to catch bigger fish than Arlo Rose, i.e. I like Apple's Final Cut Pro competing with Adobe's Premiere (and basically killing it on the Mac), and I like how TextEdit evolves into a much better word processor than, well, Word (TextEdit in Tiger can read/write Word files with tables!).
Now about what really pisses me off about this Konfabulator vs. Dashboard discussion (or rather flame-war) that's going on throughout the web: I don't like the fact that Konfabulator took old ideas (Desk Accessories were part of the original Macintosh operating system, putting stuff together via scripting is way, way older than Konfabulator, web services weren't a Konfabulator invention etc.), mixed them with Apple technology (mainly Quartz, Apple's display engine) and sold this as the greatest thing on Earth. Well, I can agree that Konfabulator is great (and will be until Tiger's released, I'm sure), but being pissed off at Apple because of that just seems wrong to me. And the reaction to it pisses me off.

Developers out there: You're doing great things on the Macintosh platform. You're doing these things on the platform which Microsoft and others have tried to rip off for decades. If you invent something really, really, really great: Get money, get a patent and then release it if you want to get rich without being 'ripped off'. It's a cruel world. And Apple had to learn some tricks in order to survive. I'm very glad Apple did learn. And quoting myself: I'd want Apple to catch bigger fish. Fore more info about Dashboard's roots, read this daringfireball.net column about it.

[ written by fryke™ on 2004-06-30 at 23:25 CET ]
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Dave Hyatt about Dashboard

"It's _not_ just JavaScript." Instead, he says, Dashboard widgets are effectively webpages using WebKit to be rendered. So they have all the options that WebKit offers. Read more at his blog. It also means that we can probably do quite a bit more with Dashboard than one can with Konfabulator. It certainly sounds very intersting.

[ written by fryke™ on 2004-06-30 at 12:25 CET ]
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Tiger 8A162 installation report

The WWDC Tiger Preview comes on one installation DVD (and is about the same size as a Panther DVD or the three Panther CDs combined, so it's not really much bigger). Installation is smooth and without any changes from Panther (so far). After installation, the user is asked whether he/she wants to transfer his/her settings and files. This transfer utility can also be called later, but then only offers FW transfer, not - as initially - also importing just another volume's files.



Below the infamous about-box shot:



System Preferences with Spotlight's, erh, spotlight:



Copying files in Finder looks different and shows much less detail (will probably be changed later in the development process):



And finally: Safari's RSS support:



We haven't had much time to test this build yet, but we'll inform you soon enough.

[ written by fryke™ on 2004-06-30 at 10:22 CET ]
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And just to quiet (or unleash) the whiners...

-> Tiger's going to cost 129.00 USD. Too much, you say? Get over it. Apple's said so in their press release. (Not that you should get over it, but that it costs as much as Jaguar and Panther did.) And we're good with that. ;-)

[ written by fryke™ on 2004-06-30 at 08:20 CET ]
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