iTunes knock-off... this bird has flown

Look again. http://songbirdnest.com/ It took two days to implement because it's built from the potent declarative XML dialectic XUL atop the Mozilla platform, the same as Firefox.

It looks to me like a comment on patenting something that would be produced inevitably, such as the look of iTunes. That's the joke behind the slow transition of the way it looks, from something generic, to something that looks almost but not quite like iTunes.

That's hillarious djones, I wrote him and got the EXACT same response! Here's what I wrote Wow, I must say, it's extremely innovative of you to rip off iTunes like that. I don't think I've seen a fake of iTunes yet. Does it work with all the knock off iPods that are out there? Just curious. Maybe that two days would have been better spent designing something, I don't know, original maybe? Just a thought. Good luck in your impending court case when Apple sues the pants off you! Yeah, kinda snotty, but I've had a bad at work today and felt like venting on a rip-off artist. Same "Look deeper." response though. Maybe it is tongue in cheek, if it is they need to do a better job at showing it. Oh well, still funny.

heh... and I just now noticed that "random" essentially said the same thing: http://www.tuaw.com/2005/11/14/itunes-knock-off-this-bird-has-flown/#c107269

Well, the fact that the name of the company is "Pioneers of the Inevitable" may, in fact, be what they mean by "dig deeper." An experiment on their part to see how much traffic they could generate? The thing... it's just so lame that's it's just as likely to be for real as it is to be a total joke, so who knows :)

Interesting, Wsyiwyg. Someone more detective-y than me needs to have a look. I've gone through the source code for each page, examined each photo under magnification, and even sought out the tracks listed in each shot, playing them at the same timecode in an attempt to find some hidden meaning / joke.

I couldnt keep my mouth shut, so i ha to write them. Heres what I said: ---- Two days to redesign, eh? I guess the first was to download iTunes and the second to paint its interface black. Come on, you guys could at least try harder. ---- The response i get? Here: ---- Look deeper. ---- Wow. Thats so... zen. :-/

SW: Contois made the alleged designs and patents in 1995. iTunes has been out since 2001. He waited until 2004 to even write to Apple in regards to it? And Summer of 2005 to file a suit? No one's going to deny the "browser" style of selection. Screen cap of Contois's music interface is here: http://www.macplus.net/magplus/IMG/jpg/20050621_contois_interface.jpg However, that's a far cry from proving first work or patent infringement. Abstract and patent here: http://www.diariox.com/imagedepot/articlephotos/apple/lawsuits/patent_5864868.jpg http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/search-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=ptxt&s1=5,864,868.WKU.&OS=PN/5,864,868&RS=PN/5,864,868 His interface is clearly designed for controlling an external hardware music device, like a player piano, or a karaoke video machine. And it is nothing more than a way to sort music to and from a device. There's a reason he's seeking a jury trial. He knows that there isn't a judge in the world that would let such broadsweeping sorting prevent further works. His patent is obvious in its intent, and it is for a remarkably different purpose than any music playing software. If he were really concerned about protecting his work and patent, he would have went for WinAmp, Media Player, and even any and all file browsers that allow constraining selections. Fact is, he's hoping that he can convince 12 laypersons that he deserves some money from Apple, and he's specifically waited until now because of the archaic *visual* similarities he has with the now-recognizable iTunes browser. I hope the jury buys it, and that the judge throws out the jury's verdict and pronounces him a moron.

Well Apple allegedly stole the iTunes interface from somewhere else anyway: http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1143

The copyright "2005 Pioneers of the Inevitable" leads me to believe that this site is done tongue-in-cheek. They probably want to see how much shit they can stir up in a small amount of time by taking an uber-product (iTunes), doctoring it in photoshop (or using a skinning program), and then proclaiming they're releasing it to the masses.