another new apple stuff thread • Non-Gaming • Apple, Mac, and iPod • Eurogamer.net

eviltobz 2 Jul 2004 16:50:10 2,609 posts
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with all the mac fans now on the board i thought this might be of some interest. the apple store is stopping taking orders for imacs as they are dumping all their stock before a new line of them is introduced in september.

linkage that may or may not work with it linking to the online store and all.

/starts thinking about chopping in the

TennesseeStiff 2 Jul 2004 21:06:45 372 posts
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Yeah I saw this on the Ars Mac board last night and it had a lot of people scratching their heads. This is NOT the Apple way of doing things!

The question is, will the iMac replacement be much more price/performance comparative or will it be another boutique product for the small proportion of people who don't mind paying several times over the odds for a computer that was only good for basic email/browsing/listening/word processing?

iRobot 4 Jul 2004 10:07:14 12 posts
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Yeah, that konfabulator rip off is slightly shocking - check out the konfab website frontpage

.

I think apple should have done the decent thing and at least hired the team that originally created it. Shareware is vey important for os x, and i think it'll be slightly discouraging for any other developers if Apple continue to steal ideas off the little fellas.

On the other hand, Dashboard looks very cool - each widget it actually just a webpage - slightly unbelievable when you look at how polished they are, but the confirmation is here

Edited by iRobot at 09:07:46 04-07-2004

GrandTheftApu 4 Jul 2004 10:39:49 6,117 posts
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On the other hand, Dashboard looks very cool - each widget it actually just a webpage - slightly unbelievable when you look at how polished they are, but the confirmation is here

In which case it also borrows from Microsoft's direct desktop, but with expose type hiding.

iRobot 4 Jul 2004 10:47:43 12 posts
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I guess so, but MS kind of abandoned that didn't they?

It's all in the execution anyway

Nemesis 4 Jul 2004 11:45:50 20,312 posts
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TennesseeStiff wrote:
Yeah I saw this on the Ars Mac board last night and it had a lot of people scratching their heads. This is NOT the Apple way of doing things!

The question is, will the iMac replacement be much more price/performance comparative or will it be another boutique product for the small proportion of people who don't mind paying several times over the odds for a computer that was only good for basic email/browsing/listening/word processing?

It certainly does more than that you cheeky rabbit. I've had this iMac for 2 years now and it's still going very very strong. I can use Safari, iPhoto, MSN, Yahoo messenger, Aquisition, Mail, watch QT/DIVX/MP movies, watch DVDs with the SuperDrive.....play Diablo2, Neverwinter Nights, Warcraft3, MOHAA, Age of Mythology, Civ3 without any problems at a stunning digital res of 1440x900.

2 years ago a G4 iMac with a FP screen was a bloody good investment. Now they need to give it a decent kick up the arse. As a consumer machine it needs that G5 processor to lay the foundation for Tiger.

Nemesis 4 Jul 2004 11:48:54 20,312 posts
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http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/72503/wo/Wv4m4fofAFxB2UPj1LW1AT9hq2s/0.0.7.1.0.6.21.1.2.1.1.0.0.1.0

The man is right, new iMac in September.

/taps foot, checks watch.

Nemesis 4 Jul 2004 11:50:26 20,312 posts
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otto wrote:

iRobot wrote:
Yeah, that konfabulator rip off is slightly shocking - check out the konfab website frontpage .
Shit, I had just assumed that they'd bought the IP off konfabulator, I never imagined they'd simply nick it! If that's what they've done, then that's really disgraceful. Especially given all that stuff Jobs was saying about Longhorn copying OS X. And now I think about it, it's not the first time either is it? Aren't Sherlock and the Option-tab doobries also pinched from shareware producers and/or Windows? Surely the makers of konfab have recourse of some kind? I mean, Apple have basically just stolen their livelihood!

Check the journal matey, it doesn't seem to be that much of an issue...

http://www2.konfabulator.com/journal/

Nemesis 4 Jul 2004 11:58:25 20,312 posts
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It's cross-platform, so I guess there's still a business opportunity over on the PC.

Still...ouch.

iRobot 4 Jul 2004 12:04:13 12 posts
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Oooh, he mentions a 'cross-platform' strategy - hopefully this means konfab for windows! I have 2 macs at home, so it would be cool to be able have widgets on my XP machine at work. I tried desktopx, but it sucks.

But going back to Apple nicking it n the first place - wether it's an issue for the konfab guys or not, I'm still not impressed with Apple on this one. And to be honest, the other new features in Tiger haven't instantly sold it to me. The new Core stuff is very cool, but it's no use to me and my G4 PowerMac, and I'm not buying a G5 anytime soon either. Tiger my arse.

Shinji 4 Jul 2004 12:41:13 5,902 posts
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Jesus H Christ, this bullshit about Konfabulator is getting annoying. You'd think they invented desktop widgets - they fucking DIDN'T, not by any stretch of the imagination. Guess who did?

Apple. Years back. Can't recall the exact name of the feature, but quite old versions of MacOS used to have a whole bunch of desktop widgets - calendar, calculator, etc etc. Since then it's been implemented a shitload of times by a shitload of different people - Konfabulator are just the latest in a long line; anyone remember the Windows Object Desktop?

So now people are whining like crazy because Apple are doing a new implementation of something which THEY INVENTED, and in the process will probably put a bunch of people who ripped off their invention, with what was frankly a buggy and extremely limited use version of it, out of business. (Don't you think if Konfabulator was actually as good as its adherents make out, Apple WOULD have licensed it? It's not, so they didn't. It's not like they're a company shy of buying out others to get their technologies into the OS...)

This isn't just a ridiculous thing to moan about, it's utterly hypocritical. Apple users - myself included - go on about how amazingly feature rich and functional OSX is; but how many small companies providing email clients do you reckon got fucked when they built Mail.app? How badly did they hurt Opera's bottom line in the Mac business when they built Safari? iCal and Address Book - you don't think there were shareware alternatives before? iMovie, iTunes, iPhoto, GarageBand, DVD Player, Calculator, Backup, iSync, Sherlock... Not a single one of these applications arrived without some shareware guys, or even small corporations, finding themselves without a major revenue source.

Of course the alternative is that Apple could have bled its heart dry over their plight and given us an OS filled with hodge-podges of shareware rubbish which didn't interact together properly and offered a confusing variety of different ways to do the same thing. Would that really be better?

sam_spade 4 Jul 2004 13:00:35 15,745 posts
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Well even if it is business, it takes a hard heart not to feel sorry for the guys who have made a big name for themselves in the mac market and then have the rug potentially pulled from under them by the maker they were supporting.

Shinji 4 Jul 2004 13:49:13 5,902 posts
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Otto, seriously, think about what you're saying here.

You're saying that Apple should PAY a group of people who have implemented and profited from a system that Apple originally devised, to use this (Apple-created!) system in OSX - even though the actual technology that the third party guys used isn't suitable for use in the OS, so it'd have to be rewritten entirely?

Um. That's not Apple Corporation you're talking about. That's the Apple Programmer Charity Fund.

The suggestion is frankly bonkers. These guys have been making money for some time from an innovation which was originally created by Apple; now Apple plans to re-implement its own innovation, and you want them to pay more money to the chaps who've been profiting from it for the last few years?

Yes, I feel sorry for the little guys here to some extent. But Apple is hardly the Evil Empire - they're perfectly within their rights, both legally and morally, to do this, and like I said, I don't doubt that if Konfabulator's technology had been suitable for integration into the OS, they would have bought them rather than going to the trouble of developing new tech.

Ultimately, if a minnow chooses to swim with a shark, it knows the risks. Yes, it'll pick up some pretty damn impressive scraps from the table, but it's never going to be a party that lasts forever. If the Konfabulator guys didn't recognise that and have a Plan B in place (and in fact, their web postings suggest that they DO), then they're shit businessmen. C'est la vie.

sam_spade 4 Jul 2004 15:09:45 15,745 posts
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But technically haven't Konfabulator done all the market research for Apple.

"Hey Steve, people are loving that Konfabulator, they're paying $25 a pop to use those crazy little widgets."

"Didn't we come with that technology and ditch it?"

"I think I'm having a kerching moment, Steve. You're a genius"

Khanivor 4 Jul 2004 16:00:25 44,800 posts
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You know what amazes me? How Apple can bundle their iLife package with new macs and yet no one screams abuse of position/monopoly at them like they do when MS bundles software with their OSs. I bet the little companies making software like that included in the suite are mighty pissed off, and rightly so.

It seems that Apple aficionados are willing to overlook things when their favourite company employs underhand tactics similar to those of the great Satan. Understandable to a degree, but rank hypocrisy.

Pandora-Panorama 4 Jul 2004 17:46:32 55 posts
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Khanivor, what's underhand about providing the consumer with software they might need? I sure as hell won't complain about this.

You realize that you compare quite different things? What people hate about microsoft is that they FORCE you to use this stuff. For instance, you cannot just un-install internet explorer because it's integrated into the OS.
On the Mac you can just move the stuff you don't like to the trash --- all gone.

And regarding the Konfabulator stuff, just read Shinji's posts.

Khanivor 4 Jul 2004 19:35:26 44,800 posts
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I can use any package on windows that I like. I don't need to unistall explorer to use Firefoz, or media player to use mediacenter. The issuer remains that by bundling such software with the OS Apple is making it far less likely the casual user will use a 3rd party package, the very critiscm so loudly layed at MS's door. It would be similar to MS bundling Office with windows as that is what most PCs are bought for, like most macs are bought for creative purposes. It just stinks of double standards to me.

And I never mentioned the konfab stuff, haing read Shinji's post.

Shinji 5 Jul 2004 12:48:39 5,902 posts
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The key difference, Khanivor, is that the Mac has a tiny percentage of market share in the overall home computer market. Apple may have a monopolistic position over its own hardware, but it does not have a monopolistic position over the computer market (as Microsoft is accused of). Apple's position is more like Sony's, Microsoft's or Nintendo's with regard to their consoles - you could equally argue that if you were someone making a console FPS game for the Xbox, you'd have been pretty pissed off when Microsoft started bundling Halo for free!

Fundamentally, it's Apple's remit to try and provide the best OS and software possible to their customers. That's their job. Concerns for the software companies that make money off the Mac platform are, well, secondary - sorry, that's just how it is. And the fact is that Apple is very good to its developers - it provides its development suite for free (whereas you'll pay a fortune for a Visual Studio license), it contributes code and concepts back to Open Source projects, and it's generally very open about the nature of all the bits and pieces of its OS. Where it sees the chance to enhance its operating system, though, it seizes that chance - just as you'd hope it would, as one of its customers.

Khanivor 5 Jul 2004 14:09:11 44,800 posts
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I see where you're trying to come from there, but surely it is MS duty to provide its customers with what they want/need? Also, as you can't really run another OS with Apple hardware other then their own surely Apple have a total monopoly on Apple hardware.

I still feel that there's two standards running here, one for Apple and one for MS. Isn't it just how it is when MS include a piece of software which used to be sole line of business for a particular software company? In fact, as the Apple market is so much smaller, by bundling so much functionality with their OS Apple are making it next to impossible for a 3rd party company providing similar software to stay afloat. At least with the PC market there are so many million users out there that a company should be able to stay afloat as there will be a significant number of users who want to use something other then that provided in the box. Say 10%. In PC land that would equate to say, 1 million users, where with Apple land it would equate to 60,000. (v rough figures obviously)

If a console maker were to bundle a footie game, racer, FPS, puzzler and 3D adventure game, without raising the price of the console itself, then, yeah, I think their competitors would be well pissed off. And as MS has such a small share of the console market, you reckon no one would complain if they did the above with the Xbox?