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Apple is Ripping off 2KHappyWare with the "headless imac" !!!!

invaLPsion

invaLPsion

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 2, 2004
1,385
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The Northlands
I don't know if anyone remembers, but last year a small independent mac seller was building Apple computers. They were called 2KHappyware or CoreComps. They had an ingenius idea to produce an iBox. A pizza box shaped apple computer that would run Mac OSX. Unfortunately, Apple threatened suit, and Corecomps was shut down.

Today, Apple's "headless imac" is seeming quite similar to the description of CoreComps brainchild, the iBox. It seems to me that Apple may indeed have ripped-off this design. However, we will have to wait until MWSF to compare the two designs.

Below is a picture of CoreComps "box."
 

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It'll be interesting to see how the eventual rumored product will resemble this product... I like it – it looks like a piece of hifi equipment with its feet.

Were there any specs (real or planned) for this?
 
Given that Apple has yet to acknowledge that this project even exists, and that this rumor has come and gone before, this may be a bit premature...

and as far as the "pizza box" design, see the Performa entry level line from the general 1994 era. Nothing new here, and it was Apple that did it first.
 
Not sure the "headless" iMac is really CoreComps' brainchild. It looks like an aluminum version of the LC "pizza box."

Sure, it's updated and all, but this type of Mac has been around. Apple will make something that looks significantly nicer than this.

Edit: Shouldn't have looked for a picture... :)
 
How many ways can you build a small pizza box computer? It's just a form factor. There are only so many things that you can change on it.
 
invaLPsion said:
I don't know if anyone remembers, but last year a small independent mac seller was building Apple computers. They were called 2KHappyware or CoreComps. They had an ingenius idea to produce an iBox. A pizza box shaped apple computer that would run Mac OSX. Unfortunately, Apple threatened suit, and Corecomps was shut down.

Today, Apple's "headless imac" is seeming quite similar to the description of CoreComps brainchild, the iBox. It seems to me that Apple may indeed have ripped-off this design. However, we will have to wait until MWSF to compare the two designs.

Below is a picture of CoreComps "box."
Click to expand...

Timelessblur said:
just add it to the long list of stuff apple has stolen then claimed they invented it
Click to expand...


It seems to me that it was CoreComps who was stealing Apples intelectual property, hence the lawsuit.

I guess you could say that apple is stealing something from a company that was stealing something from apple...
 
Timelessblur said:
just add it to the long list of stuff apple has stolen then claimed they invented it
Click to expand...

See the Performa series of computers. http://www.everymac.com

Plus, the rumor mill says that Apple's <insert name here> was in the works for quite some time-- over a year, perhaps, getting everything right. So they might have sued to keep this company quiet over their design that was up and coming.
 
Timelessblur said:
just add it to the long list of stuff apple has stolen then claimed they invented it
Click to expand...

quick snipe + no evidence/links = troll-like behavior -Let's see some evidence :D

Looking at that thing made me think of the Quadra 605
 
Cheap, low cost Mac stuffed into a pizza box case to bring the Mac to the low-price end of the computer spectrum...

hhhmmmm....

Sounds a lot like a Mac LC...

apple_mac_lc_475.jpg


But that was delivered to the public in 1990, so I can see how people would get confused with CoreComp which actually invented the Mac pizza box concept in 2002/03.

Edit: Now how do I go about stealing that flying DeLorean that CoreComp uses to invent these concepts well before the rest of the world?
 
said:
I don't know if anyone remembers, but last year a small independent mac seller was building Apple computers. They were called 2KHappyware or CoreComps. They had an ingenius idea to produce an iBox.
Click to expand...
Everybody is quick to label this as another case of "poor-little-third-party-developer-being-crushed-by-big-mean-Apple" but we have to recognize that it very well may not be true. The seller was building them "last year"? How do we prove that Apple hasn't been brainstorming this idea from before that? In fact, with the historical precedent of the old pizza box Macs and the Cube, the idea of a small, headless computer could be said to have existed long before this third-party company. It is no understatement that the company*may* have actually gotten the idea from Apple instead. Second, IIRC, OS X's end user agreement states that the OS can only be installed on computers made by Apple (or something like that). That alone would be enough justification for Apple shutting them down with a lawsuit. Remember what happened the last time Apple let the operating system run on other companies' computers? I think there's a good reason why they're keeping the system closed. And of course, the "ingenious idea to produce an iBox" is not so ingenious if you think about it. It is nothing revolutionary... like others have stated, it is just bringing an LC into the modern age. Hell, the i- product name isn't even original. At least they could have come up with some creative name.
 
Les Kern said:
Bet they use the iPod form factor.
Click to expand...

I want to disagree only on the basis that I (personally) think that they should make it look like an Xserve... however, I feel that the chic white box is more likely to occur.
 
It's not like the concept of a headless computer is unique. Most computer companies make headless computers. It's only the concept of a relatively inexpensive headless Apple computer that is unique.

There were "pizza boxes" before the Mac LC. Most of them ran Unix, although I guess the Amiga 1000 was kind of a mutated pizza box. That was from when, 1985? Steve Jobs' NeXTstation was a pizza box. Interesting how the current G5 towers recall and update the metallic look of the NeXT hardware.

It will be interesting to see if this thing materializes, and if so, if it's a variant of the eMac, or of the iBook, or something all its own.

How many people here would be interested in buying one?


Crikey
 
well for the list we can start with oh umm DashBoard

iTunes (sorry I dont rember the name of the 3rd party medai player in the works before it came out but I have seen some stuff on it and oddly a lot of the same stuff is in it but it was made the same dev)

The Dock (did come Jobs former company)

Appleworks (kind of a copy off of MSworks and what not)

Sherlock or was it watson one or the other....

apple has a history of doing stuff like this.
Yeah MS copys more stuff but there is a differnerts MS does not state blantly state they came up with the idea but when apple steals they steal hard core and state it all there own work


Dont call me a troll I just am not a blind zealot and know a more about the computing world and what is going on in there then most people here
 
Timelessblur said:
Appleworks (kind of a copy off of MSworks and what not)
Click to expand...
Since when is Appleworks a "copy" of a MS product?

Rupert Lissner began writing it in 1982 and released it in 1984 for the Apple II (as AppleWorks), something about seeing the Lisa Office concept.

One of the earliest integrated programs and cross platform programs around, since the Apple 2 and 3 programs shared file formats.

Might not seem like a cross-platform now -- but back then it was.

MicroSoft Works was introduced in 1987, so once again I can see how MS invented the concept.

Lisa Office Prototypes 1979-2000
 
Timelessblur said:
well for the list we can start with oh umm DashBoard
Click to expand...
Ever hear of Desk Accessories? Original Mac, 1984? Konfab came from that. The designer, Arlo Rose, used to work for Apple. Daringfireball.net did a good article on that. Note the fact that he knew what was coming.

iTunes (sorry I dont rember the name of the 3rd party medai player in the works before it came out but I have seen some stuff on it and oddly a lot of the same stuff is in it but it was made the same dev)
Click to expand...
That's because they bought Soundjam from Cassidy and Greene. They even talked with their competitors at the time, the makers of Audion. But they didn't want to sell, even though they knew iTunes was coming out. Soundjam = iTunes.

The Dock (did come Jobs former company)
Click to expand...
NEXT. ;)

Appleworks (kind of a copy off of MSworks and what not)
Click to expand...
AppleWorks = ClarisWorks. Also bought. Guess who copied who.

Sherlock or was it watson one or the other....
Click to expand...
Sherlock came first, Watson was an extension of that. They offered the guy a job because they wanted to improve it and didn't want to overlap what he was doing. He turned them down.

apple has a history of doing stuff like this.
Yeah MS copys more stuff but there is a differnerts MS does not state blantly state they came up with the idea but when apple steals they steal hard core and state it all there own work
Click to expand...
You're right, M$ never copies something and calls it their own. Office, Windows, X-Box... all original ideas.

Dont call me a troll I just am not a blind zealot and know a more about the computing world and what is going on in there then most people here
Click to expand...
There is plenty to criticize Apple for. These are not them. Some of us also use Windows, and we know a lot too.
 
solvs said:
Ever hear of Desk Accessories? Original Mac, 1984?(snip) him totally proving apples case (/snip)
Click to expand...

Really though, i was going to type the same thing - and as i scrolled down you already did it for me. Plus yours is better written. Okay, watch the movie "pirates of sillicon valley" or something like that. And where did firewire, usb, the mouse and countless other necessities come from? they were first introduced on macs.

kyle
 
Well, to be fair, Apple didn't invent USB -- they did however create the market for it, with the puck mouse and the absence of a floppy drive on the iMac. That's why so many of the early USB peripherals are styled after the iMac G3.
 
Hey, I remember a spreadsheet called Multiplan (I think I have the name right) that a certain small little Redmond software company wrote for the Apple II way back in the day. Probably predates all this stuff. :D

MS has been writing office-type software for quite a long time; don't know if they were first though.

In any case as others have noted, headless computers have been around a LONG time, especially on the UNIX end of things - and low form-factor computers are nothing new either.
 
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