Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, WWDC, Freeware, Leopard
7 apps that Leopard kills
Phill Ryu, a man who must have some sort of direct neural interface with the Mac shareware community, has posted a list of applications which could very likely be killed off by features of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard which were announced yesterday. Seasoned OS X users will have immediately seen parallels between many of the new Leopard features and software that has been available for some time. Most obviously, Spaces are just fancy names for virtual desktops; something that can be easily achieved by VirtueDesktops, DesktopManager, and VirtualDesktop Pro. The new application launching features of Spotlight take aim at popular applications such as LaunchBar, Butler, and my personal favorite of OS X applications, Quicksilver. With iChat, tabs kill off Chax, live presentations kill off ShowMacster, and backgrounds kill of ChatFX.
Be sure to click through to the original post for all the other apps now lining up at the unemployment window, and to see what the shareware developers themselves have to say about the announcements.
Update: Buddy'o'mine and BarCamp mastermind Chris Messina has a similar post.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
adriana said 7:06PM on 8-08-2006
what does fuleing my car at home have to do with this article? I think your link might be wrong.
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andazp said 7:10PM on 8-08-2006
Click to the link on the word "posted" that one is good
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Knut Melvr said 7:24PM on 8-08-2006
While some apps will suffer under Leopards release, I cannot _entirely_ agree with Phill Ryu on his observations. Take Quicksilver, at the first sight, it is a app. launcher. I dare say that most QS-users has (eventually) played around with pluggins and discovered great features that enhances the efficacy. Just a week ago I became aware of the Clipboard-history function which comes in handy copy/pasting code-snippets etc...
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gdw said 7:34PM on 8-08-2006
You should also remember all those webcam and similar widgets. Not quite "applications", but same general idea.
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Dan Dickinson said 7:42PM on 8-08-2006
It should be noted that Phill says that Quicksilver will *not* have a problem with Spotlight 2.0; it's LaunchBar he says should be concerned.
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Josiah Pugh said 7:48PM on 8-08-2006
Don't forget about iGlasses and ConfrenceRecorder.
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Stuart said 7:53PM on 8-08-2006
If it saves me installing 3rd party stuff, then it's all good.
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C.Stone said 8:09PM on 8-08-2006
Some of you guys are sure hilarious. You bitch and moan that Apple should have included this function and that function in the OS, then when they do, you complain how they rip off small developers. Do you think capitalism is benign, and looks out for the little guy? Apple is a corporation, profit drives it to be innovative to survive. Why should they look away if they see something to increase their market share?
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Slow Motion, Quick Thinking said 8:20PM on 8-08-2006
If iChat lacks tabs, then it's to be expected that it will get them sooner or later.
So, if an app jumps in that "gap", to me it seems that Apple's low priority for tabs, actually provided them with a market.
To say that it's killing aps is a bit dramatic in most of these cases, I'd say.
That would be like saying that Apple kills the accessoires-market, every time it updates its line of iPods.
Now, in some cases where new technology is developed (like I think was the case with widgets) I agree more, but still I'd rather have an OS that expands from time to time and doesn't need plugins and utils for every little task, even though I appreciate the people that make them.
For instance, backing up should really have been a part of the OS already, and I'm glad that it will be.
It's never pleasant to have to kill your darlings (or to have your darlings killed), but on the other hand Apple is providing more and more possibilities to make plugins and the such. (i.e. Dashboard may contain the possibility for a market in Widgets.)
Apple growing like it does, also results in a growing market for developers of utilities, even when it demands flexibility on the part of the developer.
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Andrew said 8:26PM on 8-08-2006
"Spaces are just fancy names for virtual desktops..."
Actually, "Spaces" is a *simpler* name for something that's typically very geeky and complex sounding. "Virtual Desktops" is a very fancy name, IMHO.
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jason said 8:38PM on 8-08-2006
If the app is good and people like it, then they will continue to use it. I can't speak for chatx and all that jazz, but if spaces doesn't provide a desktop pager, then i probably won't use it. VirtueDesktops has teh same "problem" (feature... whatever) but DesktopManager has it, which is why I continue to use it. I personally think Spotlight blows, it never seems to give me the results i'm looking for. So i'll stick with Quicksilver and good folder organization for my app launching and file finding needs.
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Caitlyn Imburgo said 9:04PM on 8-08-2006
I think the new iChat will also be a strong competitor against Adium.
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jho said 9:42PM on 8-08-2006
Apple has been doing this type of thing for a long time. One of the examples that I keep coming back to is the story of audion and panic software in general.
A elegant write-up from the developers can be found here.
http://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/
The bottom line here is that although iTunes pretty much killed their product they continued to innovate as a company and produce more software built on bigger and better ideas. The whiny home developers who are upset that apple stole their $15 per copy software could learn a lesson here. Take the fact that Apple decided your idea was good enough to include in the OS as a compliment; take what money you have collected as a incentive to keep innovating. It's guys like you that keep that keep the space on it's toes, you are the leaders and the visionaries and sometimes that doesn't come with glory or fame but it always comes with respect and of course bragging rights.
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Ian B said 9:56PM on 8-08-2006
This just saves all of us comsumers money and hassel or installing 3rd party software.
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Milk said 10:05PM on 8-08-2006
Virtual desktops? Tabs? Backups? Application launchers? These really aren't exclusive to (or even invented by) the apps mentioned. It's stuff that Mac users have wanted for some time, and Apple is simply filling a niche that 3rd parties filled before Leopard. It's definitely not the Konfabulator scandal again.
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Joshua Ochs said 10:12PM on 8-08-2006
Hey, recall that a LOT of those apps were started because of obvious shortcomings in Apple's offering. Things like tabbed chat, virtual desktops (which exist on almost every other Unix system), and enhanced Spotlight are all "duh" things for Apple to do.
I don't see Butler or QuickSilver going anywhere. I mean, come ON. They share so little with the new Spotlight as to make me distrust the author's entire argument.
There are going to still be plenty of things that either Apple missed or don't appeal to everyone for these utilities to morph and survive.
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ChrisM70 said 10:54PM on 8-08-2006
Isn't there something a third party can do when Apple takes their idea?
There are examples of Apple doing this for some time... Doesn't anybody remember how Apple singled out "Watson" as a great example of third party software, and then STOLE the functions of Watson and put it in the new version of Sherlock?
Doesn't Apple have to pay for these ideas? I'm all for Apple adding functionality to their OS, but you have to GIVE BACK to those who are leading the way, instead of thanking them for their hard work by putting them out of business. Doesn't seem very developer-friendly.
Just think how much good will Apple could create by actually BUYING an application like Quicksilver and incorporating it into the OS, and giving Blacktree, Inc. credit for their work! I guess that kind of fair play doesn't fit in today's market.
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Milk said 11:11PM on 8-08-2006
"Just think how much good will Apple could create by actually BUYING an application like Quicksilver and incorporating it into the OS, and giving Blacktree, Inc. credit for their work! I guess that kind of fair play doesn't fit in today's market."
Unless Spotlight's application launcher is clearly a ripoff of (and only of) Quicksilver, why should Apple pay them for an idea they didn't even create? Should the developers of Quicksilver pay royalties or something to whoever developed the first application launcher (which I'm going to assume is the commandline).
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Brutus said 11:16PM on 8-08-2006
The irony is that Apple spent time (too much time) ripping MS for copying, while Apple has made a career off copying 3rd party apps and putting them out of business.
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Turtle-Bear said 11:18PM on 8-08-2006
Gosh, I've never thought of using most of these apps. Several of them I haven't even heard of. No, I have not been living at the bottom of a hole.
I do have interface modifiers like ClearDock, WindowShade, FruitMenu and A-Dock. I have been using Spotlight sort of as a launcher since I've had Tiger installed. SuperDuper will continue be my way of backing up (a complete clone once a month and daily back up of most important stuff to my iDisk).
I'm glad that Apple is adding long wished for abilities to the OS.
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