7 apps that Leopard kills

A few comments -- one is that these are obscure apps. The vast majority of everyday Mac users do not research this stuff so much. I don't think Apple is stealing small developer ideas as much as making them available to a wider audience who would never find this stuff. Does anyone really think they want to crush Bob with a .Mac page making his Safari plug-in while going to college?

Also, as for stealing from MS, what is most revealing to me is that MS nevers says Apple has stolen one of their ideas, even though they have. All the whining Apple does about MS just tells me they feel inferior and want more respect.

About back-up -- isn't FileSalvage more of a direct comparison to Time Machine? Seems like it mostly an undelete program. And if iChat pulls from a whoel bunch of smaller apps, can't they still keep going by adding new features faster than Apple ever could? It sounds like Adium only has to worry about tabs, for example, but it supports more protocols.

One I'd add to the list : Look at the number of note-takers out there - there are at least 7 note apps all offering similar features - mostly being used as a better Finder.
What are the odds that Apple will notice customers want something like that?

Will Finder do away with Yojimbo?

Can anyone find out the system requirements for 10.5, mainly is it going to be strictly intel macs?

Before you get all revved up over Apple trashing the virtual desktop products, disassemble their code or read the source. In Richard Wareham's Desktop Manager, for example, you'll find a thin wrapper around a bunch of CoreGraphics functions that have been there for a while that implement the various workspaces and behaviors, and some additional behavioral modules to customize switching and whatnot.

http://prdownload.berlios.de/desktopmanager/DesktopManager-0.5.3.src.tar.gz

It looks like Apple's senior management was finally convinced to turn on the virtual desktop feature that these third party apps have been riding on.

It irks me to see Apple acting like all of these ideas were invented by themselves when in fact they have been around for years. What's even worse is that Apple points fingers at Microsoft for copying OSX ideas in Vista and yet so many of the features of OSX are no more than rip-offs of third party applications. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

Apple really should buy the technology of small developers instead of reinventing their ideas. I'm sure it would be a lot cheaper to pay off some guy who has built and polished an application over the years than to assign a team of their own developers to design a copycat application. Not only would it be more cost effective but it would also encourage more innovation.

Spaces won't replace CodeTek's VirtualDesktopPro for me - I use it for the X11-style mouse-focus, as it's the only product I could find for OSX that gives me this. The virtual desktops are just a side-benefit. Now if Apple would just provide native mouse-focus, then I wouldn't need it. :)

big deal!

Apple is going to want to cover highly requested features, which are likely to have already been implemented by a third party dev.

Good point ChrisM70. The fact is that none of us are nearly as original as we like to think we are. We are all the products of many influences: genetic and environmental. And companies are no different. Apple is no different. I'm sure Apple has had its share of truly new ideas, but most of what they offer is just a copy of something that already existed or a variation on the theme. That's one of the hazards of living in the human community.

iChat? Hmmmm... I like Adium ;)

The problem starts when we try to define what an OS is.

Operating Systems used to be simple, and provided the means to start your computer, run applications and ensure system stability.

Modern OSes are more like application bundles, aiming to satisfy the user, just out of the box. This leaves little room for other developers to provide competitive applications, or applications covering unexplored areas.

That is how Internet Explorer dominated the market several years ago. And Dashboard renders Konfabulator useless. And Windows Media Player and so many other examples.

Of course, there are exceptions. Firefox and VLC are good examples of "not included" software that are able to compete with their included equivalents. But that's because the included equivalents have already been tested and proven problematic or inadequate.

Thank god, there is always someone around the corner who can give us something better, something new or something more.