Command-Tab

One of the many new features in Panther is a vastly improved keyboard application switcher. The way it works: Hit Command-Tab, and you instantly switch from the current app to the next-most-recently-used app; if you keep the Command key pressed, you get a display of all running applications, and as you continue hitting Tab, you can choose which app to switch to. You can hold down the Shift key to cycle in the opposite direction, and, while continuing to press the Command key, you can use the H and Q keys to hide and quit applications without switching to them.

Proteron is a small Mac developer; one of their products is LiteSwitch X, a $15 utility that implements Command-Tab keyboard switching. In response to the aforementioned newly improved switcher built into Panther, Proteron’s Samuel Caughron has published an “open memo”, addressed to “Steve et al at Apple Computer”, wherein he claims, more or less, that Apple has ripped off Proteron.

Let us count the ways that Caughron’s claims are ridiculous.

Caughron writes:

For tens of thousands of users the feature has existed since May 2002. A developer at Proteron first conceived of it. Proteron developed and published it.

Oh, really? For hundreds of millions of users, the feature has existed for over 10 years, after it debuted in version 3 of Microsoft Windows. The feature was a hit, and was clearly one of the few good UI designs in Windows 3 that didn’t come from the Mac. Nor did it take long for third-party developers to bring the feature to the Mac OS; e.g. Michael Kamprath’s Program Switcher debuted in 1994, and continues today on Mac OS X as a part of Keyboard Maestro.

Apple itself implemented Command-Tab switching back in Mac OS 8.5, in the form of the “Application Switcher” extension (which was actually a faceless background app, not a true system extension).

Caughron writes:

Now Apple has made it their own, an “Apple innovation”, without recognizing Proteron.

Where has Apple, or anyone who works for Apple, claimed that Panther’s improved switcher is a quote-unquote “Apple innovation”? As far as I can tell, this is a completely false attribution. You can argue about whether Microsoft truly invented the feature, but there can be no doubt that they popularized it. Everyone knows this.

The idea that Proteron deserves credit as the “original authors” of this feature is patently absurd. It’s like claiming to have recently invented drag-and-drop.

Command-Tab switching was also present in previous versions of Mac OS X — it’s just that it stunk. And that’s exactly what this boils down to: Mac OS X’s Command-Tab switching used to stink, thus leaving an opening for third-party developers to fill. Starting with Panther, that opening is gone, and Caughron is pissed.

Part of Caughron’s argument is that Panther’s implementation is “a near pixel duplication of […] LiteSwitch X” — meaning that they look the same. Proteron did a fine job designing how LiteSwitch X looks, but it is not a novel design — it looks good because it looks like something designed by Apple. Is it any surprise that Apple’s new switcher does too?

Again and Again

The entire episode doesn’t even deserve attention, but it’s too late for that. Caughron’s memo has succeeded in drawing attention from sites like MacInTouch and MacNN, both of which simply quoted from Caughron’s letter without comment. (At least MacMinute offered a link to a dissenting opinion.) What’s maddening is the “Apple’s done it again” meme (e.g. Rob McNair-Huff’s Mac Net Journal: “Did Apple engineers rip off a third party, again?”). The again part, invariably, being a reference to the Sherlock-Watson saga, which itself is not as clear-cut as conventional wisdom would lead you to believe.

There’s a lot to argue about regarding Apple’s relationship with third-party Mac developers, but not this.

If Caughron were right, that Apple has indeed ripped off an idea from an independent Mac developer, one would expect other independent Mac developers to be up in arms, no? But instead, they’re calling Caughron on his bluster.

Michael Tsai points out Caughron’s hypocrisy: he demands credit from Apple, but gives no credit to others.

Erik Barzeski calls Caughron a “whiner” and points out:

You don’t see Unsanity asking for “credit” for Labels X, do you?

Which is indeed a fine example: when a utility is designed to compensate for a hole in Mac OS X, the developer should not expect the hole to remain unfilled by Apple forever.

Browser Stats

Twice before — in January and February — I looked at the Daring Fireball server logs to see which browsers you fine readers are using.

Here we go again, for the month of October to date:

Something I don’t get: out of the 9,883 unique IPs for Safari, 1,282 are already using Panther’s Safari update. In other words, 13 percent of Daring Fireball readers who use Safari were already using Panther before today. That seems awfully high. It’ll be interesting to see how high that number jumps in the next week.

Note on Methodology: It is not possible to accurately count “unique visitors”. What I do is count each originating IP address once for each browser. This means that if you’re using DHCP and get a new IP address from your ISP, you’ll get counted multiple times. Similarly, multiple visitors coming from behind the same proxy or router (like if you have several machines sharing a cable modem connection at home) will only be counted once, because in the logs they’re sharing a single IP address. The point is not to count readers, but to gauge the popularity of various browsers.

Closed Is Open

Reading Between the Lines as Dave Fester, General Manager of the Windows Digital Media Division, Lays Out Microsoft’s Shamelessly Orwellian Party Line Regarding Digital Music

First, it’s an exciting time for digital music fans where, finally, a broad choice of innovative and appealing legitimate music services has arrived.

Where by “legitimate”, we mean “under Microsoft’s control”, which is also why we think it’s so “exciting”.

In at least one respect, you can look at the online music services in a similar way to how you look at traditional CD stores: consumers want and expect to be able to choose where they buy their music. One store might have a particular CD or single that you’re looking for; while you might discover that another store has it at a lower price. Additionally some stores may carry more music than others, or they may run different promotions.

It’s fun to run all over town looking for a decent price on a CD, and we’re hoping Windows users are looking for that same experience when they pay for music online.

What I think is great about most of the new services available on Windows is that being built on Windows Media enables such amazing choice. […] That is what Windows users love — being able to shop around and pick and choose the products and services that work best for them.

Where by “products and services”, we of course mean “Microsoft products and services”. I.e., this very fun and exciting “choice” is choosing where to buy music in WMA format, not choosing some format other than WMA. And where by “love”, we mean “have grown to accept”.

We are now at a point that consumers can buy a device that meets their needs and budget and works great with the new Windows Media-based music services. Over 40 devices from a variety of manufacturers are available today that support Windows Media Audio (WMA) that work with the music stores. With WMA playback support virtually everywhere, it means that consumers are now able to hop from store to store, download tracks, integrate them into playlists and move to their choice portable music devices. With WMA’s advanced compression it means that the music sounds great and you can pack more songs on your device. Even more, these music players come in all shapes, sizes, colors and prices — one to fit your lifestyle.

We’re hoping that WMA is to portable music players as Windows is to PCs — dozens of manufacturers fighting each other for commodity hardware sales, all of them paying licensing fees to Microsoft.

iTunes captured some early media interest with their store on the Mac, but I think the Windows platform will be a significant challenge for them. Unless Apple decides to make radical changes to their service model, a Windows-based version of iTunes will still remain a closed system, where iPod owners cannot access content from other services.

We’re bad-mouthing Apple because they’re not using WMA, and our goal is to establish a monopoly on digital media formats and rights management. You might think that the iPod and iTunes are in fact open, given that they work swimmingly well with MP3 files, but you would be wrong, because what we mean by “open” is “based on Microsoft’s proprietary formats”. (In fact, we don’t even mention “MP3” in this entire “Q&A”.)

Additionally, users of iTunes are limited to music from Apple’s Music Store.

Except for MP3s, which don’t count.

As I mentioned earlier, this is a drawback for Windows users […]

Where by “Windows users”, we mean “Microsoft”.

Lastly, if you use Apple’s music store along with iTunes, you don’t have the ability of using the over 40 different Windows Media-compatible portable music devices. When I’m paying for music, I want to know that I have choices today and in the future.

Antitrust, schmantitrust — this discussion wouldn’t be happening if we had put Apple out of business when we had the chance.

Pop Culture

Some irony from today’s iTunes/iPod hoopla, regarding Apple’s upcoming “100 million song” giveaway in conjuction with Pepsi. It was Pepsi, you’ll recall, where John Sculley was president before coming to Apple as president and CEO 1983. Steve Jobs personally recruited Sculley, finally wooing him with the question, “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life?”

Who’s selling sugar water now, eh?

This Pepsi deal also adds a tad bit of irony to “Dell’s Dud”, given how much effort I expended comparing the iPod to Coke, brand-wise. But Coke-vs.-Pepsi rivalry notwithstanding, the deal backs up my argument: the iPod is not about geek culture, it’s about pop culture.