poach v. To take or appropriate something unfairly or illegally.
After introducing new Cinema Displays at WWDC today, Apple CEO Steve Jobs turned to Tiger -- the next version of Mac OS X, which will ship in 2005.
Jobs focused on ten of the new features promised in Tiger. Surprisingly, the biggest reaction was negative, and came in response to a feature that's very similar to a popular Mac shareware app.
As noted here, Tiger's new Dashboard feature appears to be borrowed from Konfabulator, a shareware app that features mini-applications called "widgets."
Readers of the Konfabulator message board spotted the problem immediately, and were among the first to note that something like this has happened before.
When Apple's Sherlock 3 search tool appeared, it was strikingly similar to a shareware app called Watson. At the time, some people condemned Apple for copying a popular application and shafting a small Mac developer; others justified Apple's decision based on the idea that Watson borrowed liberally from Sherlock itself.
Was Sherlock 3 the natural evolution of an existing product or a rip-off of Watson?
Is Dashboard a rip-off of Konfabulator, or a new spin on an idea as old as the Mac itself -- Apple's old Desk Accessories?
Either way, today's news was bad PR. To many, it appears that Apple publicly shafted a popular Mac software developer at a conference for Mac software developers. Call me crazy, but that seems like a very bad idea.
Where does it end? If enough users say that Spotlight reminds them of LaunchBar, should Apple be forced to leave that feature out? If Safari RSS threatens the commercial success of newsreaders like NetNewsWire, should Apple freeze development of new features in Safari?
Should Apple be prohibited from improving its operating system by adding useful features? I think all Mac users (and most developers) would prefer to see Apple continue to improve its system software. But there has to be a better solution than rolling a third-party app idea into the OS and pretending it didn't happen.
Tiger's promotional posters suggest that Microsoft can't wait to steal Apple's best ideas and roll them into the next version of Windows. After today's keynote, Apple is being portrayed as a poacher by Konfabulator's developers and users. And that's not good for anyone.
