Remember a month ago, when I urged the open source developers to take on this software and develop something equivelant and multi-platform? It seems that the only people who actually got interested in my $100 USD offer… was Apple.Their new Sherlock search application for OSX 10.2 Jaguar is a direct copy-cat of Watson, and there is no denying in that. The Karelia folks, obviously unhappy with the sudden change of Sherlock from being a simple search tool, to a Watson-like web service, will most probably take them out of the market in the long run (they sell the product for $29, and reportedly as of now, it is still better than Sherlock 3 as it supports more add-ons and it has an SDK for third party developers to create their own add-ons). They are now more strongly consider a port on Windows, to keep their company alive.
However, we should not be too fast judging Apple. They recognized that the Watson application is an incredibly great idea, and having it bundled with their OS, it would make OSX a more viable OS and more complete. From this point of view, what they did what was absolutely correct for their product and their users. However, history dictates that when an OS manufacturer competes straightly face-to-face with their third party developers, they destroy a part of their own market. And without a viable market, an OS can not have a future commercial success.
Be, Inc. had made the decision back in 1996 to never compete with third party developers. They paid this decision by having developers only creating small utilities, while more complex applications were almost unusable from bugs, as third party developers could not master the art of multi-threading in their code. Result was, that after years of BeOS being available, only a handful of really useful applications were created. Most of them were small utilities (please note the difference of an ‘application’ and a ‘utility’). This is not the case with Apple though, where they already have quite a large application base, plus some very advanced development tools, in contrast to what Be had.
Apple is taking today a route where they compete with their resellers and developers, in order to maximize their revenue. What do you think, would this strategy hurt Apple in the long run, or would it make them stronger?
Nice to see that Apple will never screw over its developers, especially the ones taking the risk of developing new applications for OS X!
– chrish
I agree with Chrish.
As someone said in another thread, Apple is a small version of microsoft. Why do they even release their API’s? why don’they just make all the apps themselves?
nah, wait for someone else to come up with an idea, then screw them over.
sigh.
After all the programming work to get OSX out and up to speed, Apples programmers have some time to take up new projects to make OSX a more compelling product. I think Apple should continue to move into a stronger position on the software front. It makes OSX that much better of a product, and that is what Apple needs.
I wonder if this decision was made by the same person who made the .Mac decision…
I can certainly sympathize with the Watson developers but, look at what their product is: a web service.
I won’t contest for a moment that Apple was ‘inspired’ by Watson, but to say that they totally ripped it from their fingers like a Mr. Burns on a Maggie is a bit overboard.
The phrase “Web Services” has been floating around for more than a year now. If Apple didn’t elect to include a yellow pages and movie browser in Sherlock, would Karelia still be complaining? It seems only natural that the new features in Sherlock3 are the ones that make themselves most obvious *as* web services. Yellow pages lend themselves to be available via a web service, as does movie sifting, as does most other services innately offered in Watson.
I *really* feel bad for Karelia, I have been using Watson for only two months now and I love it. But because Apple implemented something (very!) similar doesn’t exactly give Watson bitching rights.
At least give him some money. Jezz. Sounds just like a Microsoft tactic, steal an idea (which they never innovate and I don’t care what anybody says) and tie it into the OS. Maybe that’s something Apple has finally realized they can do too.
Once Sherlock 3 comes out and momentum picks up, I think Watson will no longer be used. Another VisiCalc story.
> The phrase “Web Services” has been floating around for more than a year now.
Do not confuse the term “Web Services” of Watson/Sherlock to what Sun, IBM and Microsoft are doing for their SunONE, and .NET technologies. It is not the same. The effect is similar, but it is a bit innacurate to call Watson/Sherlock a ‘web service’ when comparing them to a real web service as the above companies offer with their latest products. What Watson/Sherlock do, is literally leaching data off the web.
But yes, ‘Web Services’ are the next big thing. All big companies agree on that, for a change! Please read my editorial of last February about it.
Obviously, in the long run if Apple decides to screw it’s developers over by taking away their source of revenue, then yes the developers are going to get pissed off, and obviously they will look elsewhere.
In regards to Microsoft not innovating, TabletPC – that’s a pretty ambitious project that they started a long time ago, quite innovative. MediaCentre or whatever the new remote control interface to XP is called, also quite innovative. Bundling a web browser with the OS, again, quite innovative.
True, Microsoft do take ideas from other platforms, but all the does is increase compatability, and in the long run benefits their users, and users of other platforms. If Microsoft were forced to only innovate and not use current ideas what would we be left with, a platform that is completely incompatible with everything else.
Please, be serious!
You can’t have it both ways. Linux developers want to be free to copy Windows and MacOS ideas, and the big guys should be just as free to copy others’ ideas. Unless these guys have a patent or something (a whole other discussion), Apple doesn’t “owe” them anything.
Does Opera owe Netscape for the idea of a web browser? How about iCab, OmniWeb, or others? VW had a hit with the retro New Beetle idea – does Chrystler owe them for the PT Cruiser?
It sounds like a cool idea, but it’s just an idea. Apple can roll there own if they want to. It’s not “nice” to their third-party developers, but everyboy “steals” ideas from everybody else, get over it.
Karelia should take their lead and devlop a better product than Apple. If they want revenge, port it to Windows to give people less of a reason to switch.
I can agree with that.
What Watson/Sherlock do, is literally leaching data off the web.
I agree with this too, but this exactly supports the notion that Sherlock3 is nothing more than Sherlock2, which also offers searching capabilites on remote sites, but with more areas to search.
Take Yahoo for example, they offer almost all the same ‘areas of search’ (yellow pages, directions, entertainment), but have an interface only via a brower. Sherlock*2* gave mac users another interface to Yahoo (or any engine of your choice). Now Sherlock*3* is giving new interfaces to YellowPages, etc…
My point is this: Watson saw the value in creating ONE application to act as a new interface for various ‘services’, _but_ they were not alone in their discovery, Apple had this licked even in the original Sherlock.
Anonymous, I agree with what you say, but this is not what we discuss here. We do not discuss if what Apple did was right or wrong for Karelia.
We discuss if this strategy will create a problem for Apple in the long run, as competing with their third party developers, always destroy their own market. You say that if Karelia wants revenge, should port on Windows. But that is exactly what we are saying: Developers will leave OSX. And that would be bad for Apple in the long run!
You can’t really compete with a manufacturer of an OS in application development. They always employ the best developers and they have access to unpublished APIs and tools. That alone gives an edge to the Apple application developers against the third party ones.
DICTIONARY/
in·no·vate Pronunciation Key (n-vt)
v. in·no·vat·ed, in·no·vat·ing, in·no·vates
v. tr.
To begin or introduce (something new) for or as if for the first time.
/DICTIONARY
TabletPC, um no. Nope, they didn’t originate that one. Sorry. Remote control interface, Oooh, yeah, er, umm no. There’s not anything new here. Web browser, um no again, way way off. Sorry. Go to IE, select Help and About Internet Explorer. “Based on NCSA Mosaic. NCSA Mosaic(TM); was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.” We all know the reason why they embedded it into the OS.
Sorry, other than the Paper Clip, I just don’t see. I can’t find one thing Microsoft innovated.
In general, the applications most in danger of competition from the OS manufacturer are utilities (Conflict Catcher, NOW, etc.). This makes sense, however, because utilities are made explicitly to account for lackings in the OS. So companies that sell basic utilities simply have to understand that they shouldn’t exist in the long term. Look at Nico Mak, for example, and WinZip. Wonderful, fantastic program. But since every internet-connected OS needs ZIP functionality for even the most basic things, it really needs to be bundled into the OS. And that’s why you’ll see it in all new versions of Windows.
Now, I do feel sorry for Karelia. I’ve never used Watson, but it looks like a pretty slick little tool. By the same token, however, it’s rather clear that their goal was to extend Sherlock. A perfectly fine goal, but they can’t be too surprised when Apple decides to extend it, too. I can’t imagine they didn’t see this coming.
Sorry, other than the Paper Clip, I just don’t see. I can’t find one thing Microsoft innovated.
Hmm … for 2001, Microsoft received 396 US patents – ranking them at #44. Apple received 97 US patents – ranking them at #172.
Whether you like Microsoft or not, whether you agree with their business practices or not, you CAN’T call them a dumb or uncreative company.
I don’t like everything they’ve done, but it doesn’t mean that all they do is wait around and steal other people’s ideas.
> Whether you like Microsoft or not, whether you agree with their business practices or not, you CAN’T call them a dumb or uncreative company.
I fully agree with this.
Just because you receive a patent doesn’t mean you are a REAL innovator. Web, TCP/IP, ethernet, 802.11b, Firewire, mouse, CRT, LCD, hard drive, browser, microprocessor, on, on, on technologies that have shaped our lives. Name one of your 396 patents that has actually influenced the computer industry. Just one? Patent #234 the Talking Paper Clip?
Apple, IBM, Sun, Intel and many others do REAL innovation.
Sorry.
In general, Microsoft is dumb and uncreative when it comes to technology. They are though, creative when it comes to brainwashing. Sorry, it sounds like the regular bashing but it’s actually true. I’ll never stop being amazed by their methods of brainwashing people. they are simply the best.
About the patents. Does a patent really show that they came up with the idea? nope, it just sais that they own it.
Name one of your 396 patents that has actually influenced the computer industry. Just one? Patent #234 the Talking Paper Clip?
lol.. yeah that’s the one. It has practically annoyed the hell out of the whole industry. talk about influence.
rain, I don’t know a single person that is brainwashed my MS, many of them hate MS, but still use the products. This is off topic here though but please read section 4 of the terms on MS bashing.
WRT Patents, I’d hardly use the argument that innovation is quantifiable via the number of patents accrued. That this MS patent for example:
Patent No. 6,408,270 – A method of searching keyword phrases based on a search phrase includes a step of ordering the search phrase among the plurality of keyword phrases based on phoneme sequences of the search phrase and the keyword phrases, in accordance with a predefined phonetic search order.
Tell me if I am wrong but this clearly is the soundex algorithm with a *TINY* tweak. The US government used to use this algorithm to store the surnames in the census back in the 1920’s (literally).
I know that this is off-topic here but I couldn’t let that patent statistic fly. As was jokingly said by my professor in statistics class: “There are white lies, there are damn lies, and their are statistics.” =)
> Hmm … for 2001, Microsoft received 396 US patents –
> ranking them at #44. Apple received 97 US patents –
> ranking them at #172.
>
> Whether you like Microsoft or not, whether you agree
> with their business practices or not, you CAN’T call
> them a dumb or uncreative company.
These patents may not all be for novel and useful ideas/implementations. Some companies simply submit patent applications for every little thing hoping that they will be awarded many patents to use as leverage against the competition (who may have already implemented said ideas but not have thought/bothered to patent them).
Tim, thank you for reminding all these people over here (including myself
about the terms of this forum. If this off-topic/sarcastic bashing continues, all these comments will be deleted without a second thought.
Thank you.
Does a patent really show that they came up with the idea? nope, it just sais that they own it.
Well, two of the criteria for getting a patent is that it must be new and non-obvious. Both of these really rely on the same thing, the absense of prior art. In order to get a patent, it means a patent examiner was unable to find any prior reference to that technology.
So, the assumption is that they came up with it. There are holes, however. Prior art MAY exist and the examiner just failed to find it. But I have a hard time believing that patent examiners are so lax with MS patent apps that they all just go through.
I’ll grant you that not all patents are inventions of earth shattering proportions … my point was that people who say ‘MS is not creative’ just like to bash MS.
Apple on the other hand, they invented the GUI … yeah right, I forgot.(snicker) Their success lies in taking technology and making it marketable … hmm – sounds like somebody else I know.
—
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a MS lover / Apple basher. I have Windows, Mac, and Linux boxes (and still occasionally boot to BeOS too) – and I appreciate the differences that each one brings. I just think that if you truly examine the technology, you can see that it comes from all over. Every one of the big companies feeds on innovation from the others.
And as far as innovation goes … just about everything is based on prior stuff, so it comes down to who extends it in useful ways.
(sorry about taking this thread way off topic)
well. brainwashing was perhaps not the best word. but they do a good job when it comes to not letting anyone know about the alternatives, and making people stick to their products, practically forcing them to use them.
it’s the cowards way of making business IMO.
/me hides for Eugenia
splinky: This is the last comment I am allowing on this thread to be off topic. I won’t delete it, because it was you who started the off topic thread and you wanted to reply.
But if another one off topic message appears, by God I swear, it will be deleted.
Does Watson have deals with all the companies they use for their services? Like the graphics icons from the weather channel, the translation service from (babelfish?), etc?
Just curious.
..Idea to jump to Windows when Apple is screwing you ? I mean Microsoft is doing the same, only with more programmers. So if you change the platform go to another one but not to windows or you get screwed even more 😉
Thöms
Although Sherlock 3 does bear a great resemblence to Watson, look at Sherlock over time. Watson basically took what Sherlock did and improved upon it. But that’s exactly what Sherlock 2 did to Sherlock. So who’s really surprised that Apple might want to continue improving it in 3? I’m not saying this is fair. But Watson only tried to be a better Sherlock, and if that’s the case, why should Apple stop improving their app because someone else did too?
So, Eugenia, are you saying that Apple has actually collected the $100 USD from you? Certainly that would confirm that Watson was not something they had not begun developing before having knowledge of the Karelia product. Did Karelia patent their product?
While possesing some similarities to clippy, I really think Microsoft needs to be given credit for the “user interface of the future”. I have never before (or since) seen anything that compares to “Microsoft Bob”. I think Bob really needs to be recognized as Microsoft’s major contribution to the computer software industry. Maybe some day they will even create an operating system on their own.
As far as patents being proof of innovation, see the link below. It is important for you to visit this address, trust me.
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p…
…a couple months ago – when Watson was getting hyped – that it was developed by 1 guy over in Alameda, California and he was talking with Apple about licensing/selling it to them for incorporation into Sherlock. Are we sure that he did not do this?
just read the Karelia FAQ – sorry. Maybe the could not come to terms.
This has been rehashed about anyone who’s ever sold an operating system. For any OS vendor, there’s basically a balancing act going on among a large number of competing interests:
Do you want to duplicate a developer’s product or sell an OS that seems like it’s lacking features?
Do you bundle stuff with your OS to make it seem more compelling than your competitor’s, or hope that some developer will come along and do it for you?
Do you write software to take advantage of newly added capabilities of your OS, or just hope a developer will do so for you?
Do you drop a capability in order to move the whole OS forward, even if some developers depend on it?
Etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum
There is no right answer here – i’m not aware of any company that’s never pissed off a subset of its developers.
Apple’s currently decided that it needs to create software that makes purchasing its computers compelling, and potentially to give it a greater degree of independence from Microsoft. Some of that software will invariably compete with offerrings from their developers. Some of those developers will throw their hands up in disgust and walk away, others will think of something to make their products more compelling than Apple’s. This sort of thing’s been going on for years.
One last note – i agree with the poster above that Sherlock3 is a reasonably obvious extension of Sherlock2.
Cheers,
Jay
I say this discussion applies equally to some of Apple’s other new and recent products like iCal, iPhoto, iSync, and iDVD (see a pattern forming here?).
Well, to be fair, Apple has bought their share of good products, too. They bought SoundJam MP and its entire development team from Casady & Greene, and they turned it into iTunes (NO SKINS FOR YOU!). Final Cut Pro sprang from a product Macromedia was sitting on for a while. Cinema Tools HD and its team came from FilmLogic by Focal Point Systems. They got AppleWorks and FileMaker from when they bought all of Claris. ClarisWorks has been around since the Apple ][). FileMaker’s history is…a little more complicated (Nashoba Systems -> Forethought -> Claris -> Apple). I believe DVD Studio Pro was bought as well.
Anyway, the point is that Apple has been competing with third parties for a while, and this competition has not killed their respective markets. Microsoft does it too (Office, Windows Media, SQL Server), but they are the undisputed market leader in desktop operating systems, so this discussion does not apply to them. FileMaker is not the only database system, FCP+Cinema Tools is not the only NLE solution. AppleWorks is not the only small-time productivity package…or is it?
So it’s worth wondering, how well do products that compete against the the recent flood of i-Stuff on the Mac? Do iTunes, iDVD, iPhoto, etc. have competition? Are they successful, or have they left? If we can get answers to those, then we may be able to reasonably GUESS what will become of Karelia.
–JM
PS. Sherlock 3 will still have quite a bit of catching up to do. Karelia can still take the opportunity to OutSherlock Sherlock with more and better features thanks to their plugin API. If they last long enough, I believe they should also start pursuing services outside the US and Canada before Apple does. Oh, yeah, that Windows port couldn’t hurt
. Maybe a Linux port too to be included with Lindows and Lycoris on those Wal-mart PCs.
I could be wrong about this, but I believe Claris, the developer of AppleWorks, began life as a division of Apple that was spun off into a separate company and then reabsorbed.
To justify OS sales an OS company either needs to make large fundamental improvements to how the OS performs or bundle more applications with the OS. People who develop small utilities know that there is a good chance with every OS release their utility will either be bundled or made obsolete. Being a utility vendor amounts to seeing fundamental flaws in the OS and exploiting them. Obviously the OS manufacturer is likely to see the same flaws.
Apple has more to lose by selling crippled OSes that require many expense utility add-ons then they do by loosing a few developers for utilities. Especially given the fact that due to the fact that now that they’ve gone with Unix they’ll be picking up an enormous developer community for free.
If anything Apple should go back to bundling their office package in with the OS. Microsoft’s OS has essentially become the Win-XP + Office combo. If apple sold the OSX + Appleworks combo for the same $130 the extra value of the software bundle would eliminate the extra cost for the hardware.
Finally on the subject of Microsoft brainwashing… Nobody really takes the “best” claims seriously. What Microsoft has usually offered was a standardized volume inexpensive product – low cost high volume. More people purchase Ford than Porsche, Bic than Monte Blanc and Wal-Mart sells more clothes than Sax’s.
{i]Does Opera owe Netscape for the idea of a web browser? How about iCab, OmniWeb, or others? VW had a hit with the retro New Beetle idea – does Chrystler owe them for the PT Cruiser? [/i]
Netscape wasn’t the firs browser. Heck, Netscape 1 was based on Mosaic.
So, Eugenia, are you saying that Apple has actually collected the $100 USD from you? Certainly that would confirm that Watson was not something they had not begun developing before having knowledge of the Karelia product. Did Karelia patent their product?
Perhaps the person would be Kaleria, cause they would most likely port it to Windows, and maybe Linux. But it is unlikely if either company gets the 100 bucks, they don’t have it open sourced.
Well, to be fair, Apple has bought their share of good products, too. They bought SoundJam MP and its entire development team from Casady & Greene, and they turned it into iTunes (NO SKINS FOR YOU!).
I don’t understand, how is iTunes better than SoundJame except being able to burn CDs and sync with ipod?
Maybe a Linux port too to be included with Lindows and Lycoris on those Wal-mart PCs.
I didn’t know Lycoris was bundled on WalMart PCs…
If anything Apple should go back to bundling their office package in with the OS. Microsoft’s OS has essentially become the Win-XP + Office combo. If apple sold the OSX + Appleworks combo for the same $130 the extra value of the software bundle would eliminate the extra cost for the hardware.
I don’t know many OEMs that bundle Office off the board for all the machines. $100-200 OEM price is pretty steep, you know.
If they could find a way to provide an open source solution made of this and then make money from the plugins, they would be set. You can be sure, once you have your stuff as part of the open source community, nobody will rip you off.
I would pay for some services, if the software would be free and integrated. Maybe Ximian will jump on this boat, I think they had some plans into this direction. It was also the goal of the eazel guys, too bad they didn’t survive long enough to get it started.
Johnathan said: Sorry, other than the Paper Clip, I just don’t see. I can’t find one thing Microsoft innovated.
MS has innovated, Microsoft invetented many things, but let me focus on one example that you use every day, whether you use a mac, windows, gnome or KDE, BeOS, or pretty much any GUI. When MS was developing windows 95 they invented a way to switch to different windows within a window in there settings dialog. They called it tabs. It went out for usability testing and 100% of people figured out what tabs were suppose to do! Now tabs are in every GUI around, so take that for non-innovation.
Skipp
Fine, fine, pick on the details.
1. I never said Apple IMPROVED SoundJam MP when it became iTunes. I just said that SoundJam MP became iTunes. The “no skins for you” comment was meant to highlight the fact that Apple removed an important feature from SoundJam MP: the skinning support.
2. Lycoris is not bundled with any PC’s I know of. It’s too new. My mistake. blah.
Skippy: they invented a way to switch to different windows within a window in there settings dialog. They called it tabs
I don’t mean to burst your bubble but I had a program on my Amiga 1000 OS1.3 that had ‘tabs’ as we know them today. Granted it was not in the OS itself (I think the app was called Octamed, I could be wrong, it was over a decade ago). MS did not invent them, they only popularized them. =(
I thought this stuff was OT here?
When you visit Microsoft, it is alive and energetic. It is alive with the hum of the energy of the possible. It is an amazing place to work. So many smart motivated people and comparatively, so little bullshit.
I had to visit them quite often, working with them on technology that would ultimately become the collaboration model for Microsoft Office.
After working at Borland, I would think Microsoft would be the only choice left for top software companies to work at. Perhaps Intuit as well.
#m
This action by Apple just punishes creative developers and creates a bad fealing among developers for OSX as a whole. This, of course, is bad for Apple.