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Yahoo acquires Konfabulator
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If enough Mac users go and download Konfabulator. Yahoo will have no choice but to continue development of it for the Macintosh. Go download everyone, it's free.
I wonder about a few things? Can Dashboard use Konfab widgets and vice versa? If not can Konfab windows widgets be used in OS X no problem? These questions make me wonder in the end will there be more/better widgets for one over the other - which one will win out? Can you use both Konfab and Dashboard at the same time? I'd hate to have to push F12 for Dashboard and then realize that the particular widget I wand is a Konfab so I F8 (or something) Konfab. It would get to be too much of an organization hassle. I guess my real questions are these:
Which option is better (now and future)?
Or can I use both easily together like one App?
Which option is better (now and future)?
Or can I use both easily together like one App?
Not good...
What this means is that Yahoo will produce widgets for Konfab and not Dashboard (they basically say this in the announcement). Which is pretty bad news for Mac users imho. Now instead of having one nicely integrated solution (Dashboard), you have to have to use two.
I feel for the Konfab guys and all, but now they have jobs at Yahoo and hopefully made a bit of $ in the process. Software is not an easy business at least they got some kind of "exit".
I'm planning on sticking with Dashboard, if someone else doesn't write the widget I want... then I'll do it. I don't see much point to using Konfab any longer as windows is not one of my target platforms.
What this means is that Yahoo will produce widgets for Konfab and not Dashboard (they basically say this in the announcement). Which is pretty bad news for Mac users imho. Now instead of having one nicely integrated solution (Dashboard), you have to have to use two.
I feel for the Konfab guys and all, but now they have jobs at Yahoo and hopefully made a bit of $ in the process. Software is not an easy business at least they got some kind of "exit".
I'm planning on sticking with Dashboard, if someone else doesn't write the widget I want... then I'll do it. I don't see much point to using Konfab any longer as windows is not one of my target platforms.
Mavimao said:
Actually, that's not quite true: in Amnesty, Dashboard widgets can reside on the desktop floating, with your other documents or embedded in the desktop layer (control-click any widget and select "Configure..." to change the level). And when widgets are embedded in the desktop, using Expose is a handy way to access them when you have a small screen.
Also you can define a hot key to toggle any widget layout if you don't want them on your screen all the time (this function allows quick access to multiple widget layouts, basically Virtual dashboard spaces).
No, the widgets are not interchangeable. Yes, you can run them both, but they can't really be combined to act as a single system.swissmann said:
What's better? For now, probably Dashboard, since it's already built in and there's not much point in running a second program that does the same thing (unless, I suppose, there's a Konfabulator-only widget that you've just gotta have).
It's hard to imagine a widget that's so complicated or obscure that if a Konfabulator version existed, a Dashboard equivalent would be too hard to write. Anything is possible, but...
I tried Konfab when all hell was being raised about "Apple ripping them off" - even paid the money. I trashed it simply because I didn't want the desktop cluttered - something that Apple seems to understand. For me the original "widgets" on the original Mac's Desktop Accessories were more effective for my use than Konfab.
Back to the topic at hand...
Congratulations to those Krazy folks at Pixoria. Although I never did like Konfabulator enough to keep it around, the Dashboard seems to have hooked me on certain widgets. Hopefully the new Yahoo! Widgets team can take a page from Apple's book that Widgets are 100% web pages. I want to be able to use widgets in either application, unchanged. The last thing we need at this point is a format war.
Congratulations to those Krazy folks at Pixoria. Although I never did like Konfabulator enough to keep it around, the Dashboard seems to have hooked me on certain widgets. Hopefully the new Yahoo! Widgets team can take a page from Apple's book that Widgets are 100% web pages. I want to be able to use widgets in either application, unchanged. The last thing we need at this point is a format war.
GFLPraxis said:
Doesn't change the fact that the folks at Konfab came out with a popular product, Apple was reminded, they embraced the idea, and would have eventually killed Konfab if it wasnt for Windows and Yahoo.
This is the exact same crap that MS pulls all the time. They steamroll little guys if they are in the way and simply wipe the guts off their shoes at the door to their campus. But since its Apple its OK behavior. The appropriate thing to do would have Apple acquire Konfab and put these guys to work. But no. They steamrolled them. *shrugs* Oh well. Its Apple. They can do no wrong.
autrefois
macrumors 65816
GFLPraxis said:
So how's come they're called widgets and not gadgets? Apparently, according to this article, some Apple documentation referred to them as "gadgets" while elsewhere Apple referred to (and eventually kept the name) "widget." Were they afraid of being accused of ripping Konfabulator off and then just said the heck with it, we'll use the word widget anyway?
The Konfab people could/should have at least copyrighted the name. If Microsoft can have "Windows," certainly they could have gotten "widget."
I'm not saying Apple ripped off the technology or idea for widgets, or vice versa. It doesn't seem clear one way or the other whether Dashboard is a ripoff of Konfabulator, or if Konfabulator was just implementing something Apple had already developed in earlier versions of the OS.
I don't think the issue will ever be resolved to either side's satisfaction. I think it's pretty obvious that they at least knew the word "widget" was being used for something similar (at least on the surface) and decided to use the name anyway. Besides that, who knows?
I can't wait to get home and install Konfab again. I was playing with it before but a 17" CRT at 1024 x 768 simply doesn't have enough screen realestate to handle the number of widgets I wanted. Enter my new Dell 24" Widescreen that I have setup in portrait mode. (e.g. vertical instead of horizontal.) at 1920 x 1200 more then enough space for any widgets I want to use. This is going to be cool.
Read closer.the_snitch said:
It's not Desktop Ornaments. Rather it is Desktop Accessories. And yes, I programmed a few back in those days.
As for Widgets, I have not programmed any yet. But my take is that they are very similar in function/implementation to the DAs of long ago.
Sushi
SiliconAddict said:
Apple has on numerous occasions acquired companies whose tech they liked. Examples: SoundJam, Emagic. For all we know Apple did try to acquire Konfab and were not able to. I suspect we don't know the entire story and never really will.
Good, hopefully Yahoo! will now be able to figure out how to get my launch radio into a widget and delivered to my Mac. Maybe we'll even be able to watch videos someday!
Sherlock came out before Watson
FYI- http://www.macobserver.com/article/2002/07/29.7.shtml
"Sherlock has a long history, dating back to the Mac OS 8 days."..."Watson, an Internet services application, was originally released by Karelia Software back in November of 2001 as a complement to Apple's Sherlock search software. "
FYI- http://www.macobserver.com/article/2002/07/29.7.shtml
"Sherlock has a long history, dating back to the Mac OS 8 days."..."Watson, an Internet services application, was originally released by Karelia Software back in November of 2001 as a complement to Apple's Sherlock search software. "
awesome
great news for the authors...i'm one of those few who felt like they got short shrift when apple introduced dashboard. hopefully they got a good buyout.
the real question is, are konfabulator widgets easily converted to dashboard widgets? i presume that they are, since dashboard widgets seem to a superset of konfab widgets.
great news for the authors...i'm one of those few who felt like they got short shrift when apple introduced dashboard. hopefully they got a good buyout.
the real question is, are konfabulator widgets easily converted to dashboard widgets? i presume that they are, since dashboard widgets seem to a superset of konfab widgets.
Although I wish they would try a lot harder; unless I've missed an update, YM has been stagnant at the current version for an exceedingly long time...
Stella said:
dejo said:
And yet along comes Yahoo and they roll over? Why do I get the impression from the Konfabs site that they were looking for someone to pick them up but as you said its all speculation.
Yahoo must have really liked the download numbers for it's 2 existing Dashboard widgets. AFAIK, Yahoo didn't make Konfabulator versions.
In the short time Tiger has been out, Apple's site has over 800 widgets available now, pretty phenomenal growth. A lot of them are mostly eye-candy gateways for web-based services. For Yahoo, it's a good move for 2 reasons: it can "expose" widget-based technologies for it's numerous Yahoo services to the mostly widget-deprived MS Windows world in grand scale under it's own brand; and it gets to ditch the confusing, uninformative "Konfabulator" name. ("What's a Konfabulator???")
I tend to agree that Apple ripped off Konfabulator though. Regardless of the technical nuances, seeing is believing and when I first saw Dashboard, I saw Konfabulator. I think Apple had the right idea of making it an operational extension of the Expose layer. I already end up with too much crap on my desktop and my screen in general, and I haven't yet come across a widget yet that I saw the need for 100% full-time access to on my desktop. The idea of desktop widgets means that I likely have to close or hide app windows in order to get to some or all of them, then reopen my app windows again when I'm done just doesn't do it for me; hitting F12 for instant access to any and all widgets that I can put freely anywhere on the screen makes the widget concept much more usable.
In the short time Tiger has been out, Apple's site has over 800 widgets available now, pretty phenomenal growth. A lot of them are mostly eye-candy gateways for web-based services. For Yahoo, it's a good move for 2 reasons: it can "expose" widget-based technologies for it's numerous Yahoo services to the mostly widget-deprived MS Windows world in grand scale under it's own brand; and it gets to ditch the confusing, uninformative "Konfabulator" name. ("What's a Konfabulator???")
I tend to agree that Apple ripped off Konfabulator though. Regardless of the technical nuances, seeing is believing and when I first saw Dashboard, I saw Konfabulator. I think Apple had the right idea of making it an operational extension of the Expose layer. I already end up with too much crap on my desktop and my screen in general, and I haven't yet come across a widget yet that I saw the need for 100% full-time access to on my desktop. The idea of desktop widgets means that I likely have to close or hide app windows in order to get to some or all of them, then reopen my app windows again when I'm done just doesn't do it for me; hitting F12 for instant access to any and all widgets that I can put freely anywhere on the screen makes the widget concept much more usable.
legacyb4 said:
No doubt. It would be nice if YM on OS X actually supported systems with a two button + scroll wheel mouse. It really annoys me that I can't highlight the text with my mouse, right click, and copy/paste chat text that way on OS X which is so easily done on the Windows version of YM.