Wil Shipley: Apple "copied me"

Well, placing books on a wooden shelf with their faces visible would probably be rather hard to copyright anyway: prior art has existed for at least 600 years, so the idea doesn't look really that novel to me.

I'd rather not hang my claim to fame on an idea that's centuries old.

Nevertheless Delicious Library is a nice product.

I was one of those who instantly saw the similarity. However, Delicious Library has not branched out from real books.

Also, AFAIK, Delicious Library has never created the obvious iPhone app like OmniFocus, 1Password, Bento, Evernote, EyeTV, and many others have done.

And finally, there is nothing to keep Delicious Library from creating an awesome iPad app to help people manage their physical books, CDs and DVDs. He could even add a book reader.

""But your [designs] aren't really yours. They have lives of their own. So when your designs do change the world, you have to accept it. You have to say, 'Ok, this was such a good idea, other people took it and ran with it. I win.'"

Excellent quote and attitude by a talented designer comfortable with himself and his role in this world.

Hey, look at it another way - it's got some publicity for DM.

I've been living under a rock and have never seen it before (though I'd thought that it would be great to catalogue all my stuff in some way). It looks like he's got at least one new customer...

Not only is Wil's design good, it has been done before. ArkInterface and Microsoft's BOB predate it. And there are more before them. It is not new, not novel. It is OBVIOUS! Tons of prior art. The wallpaper on my (jailbreak) iPhone has a shelves motif as well. I did mine (purple heartwood BTW) before I found others. Lots of people think this way. Hence not unique enough for protection. Also we have "Design patents" in the US. It is possible through a combination of design patents and copyright to protect such concepts. Else risk them becoming the popular meme without compensation!

The first thing I said when the Books app was previewed was, "Hey that looks like Delicious Library". But Shipley doesn't really win unless he gets something out of it other than a pat on the back.

@Bingo

Dearest Bingo, I am so sorry my affectation for the word "prolly" as opposed to the proper form of "most probably" offended you and caused you to think of my being an educationally challenged juvenile. I hope that this properly worded email can rectify your thoughts of me and cause you to see me in a more favorable light.

(P.S. what kind of moronic shithead calls himself Bingo btw, you insufferable twat.)

Whatever, I think that stuff it butt ugly anyway. I really hope the brownish coloring throughout the iWork apps can be changed as well. Give me Aqua.

Look in back-issues of Byte (amongst other old magazines) and you'll see a visual bookshelf metaphor used decades ago. Hell, I was proposing it as an idea in 1984.

And about the problems of organising a large library of books on these virtual shelves? Well if only the iPad were some kind of computer that ran software, maybe somebody could change the software a little sometime so that it got better? Wouldn't that be an amazing thing?

Wait till his app get rejected from the App store for being "too similar" to built in functionality.