Leopard dock resembles Sun's Project Looking Glass?

While yesterday's WWDC may have been relatively uneventful for those keeping an eye out for hardware refreshes, Steve made sure he showed off the desktop of Leopard in as much detail as possible. Interestingly, the newfangled dock he managed to brag about may have looked a tad familiar, and as a clever user over at Maxasia points out, it is. According to him, the dock revealed yesterday sports a "troubling resemblance" to Sun's Project Looking Glass. Of course, Apple's icons do look a bit less grainy, but especially when you consider the silver platter that the shortcuts seem to hover over in both iterations, you can certainly start to to see the similarity. But hey, it's not like Apple hasn't been down this road before, right?

[evilbastard Posted Jun 12th 2007 10:56PM]

I have been dual booting Windows/OS2 then Linux for some time now. I currently have Mandriva 2007 installed along side of XP. I don't boot to XP all that often, only when I need to run a piece of software that doesn't have a Linux equivalent.

I have Beryl and Compriz loaded so I get a lot of similar visuals available from Vista and OSX. Plus a neat utility called gDesklets lets me run widgets, and startbars giving me the same functionality found in OSX. Best part, ITS FREE :) (Well minus the work getting everything working).

[DinrajP Posted Jun 12th 2007 5:39PM]

Stardock is gonna emulate this in no time. And it would run on Windows XP.

My point is, Apple should give these gooey visual changes, slightly less importance. But Apple Inc's PR needs these to sell the product. "New Desktop", "New Dock"

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 2nd 2007 4:36PM]

Stardock's evil! Their name means death! Object Pesktop (and crap) is pointless, a waste of money, and you can do all the same stuff with free software. I don't give a crap about "eye candy", anyway.

So what if Apple copied everyone? Everyone does it all the time, and it'll probably never stop. In the end, it won't matter.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 12th 2007 6:24PM]

I'm sorry, did you think I actually OWN a Mac? No, I use several different Macs (of all generations from PowerPCs to G5s) at work and they ALL suck. I guess all Macs are shipped "broken."

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 12th 2007 6:13PM]

This is a logical fallacy that is quite common. It's called post hoc, ergo propter hoc, which means after this, therefore because of this. The argument goes Apple's doc ostensibly came out after this project looking glass, therefore it came out becuase of it. However, it is specious to assume that chronological sequence implies causality. Indeed A may not have caused B, nor B caused A, but rather C could have caused both A and B. Or A and B could have independent causes. It is not enough to state that because something came after something else it was caused by the thing that preceeded it. After all we could blame anything on something that happened earlier, i.e. , the sun came up, then I I crashed my car, ergo the sun caused me to crash. FALSE! One needs at least counterfactual statements to prove causality: That argument goes thus: If project looking glass had not come out, then leopard's dock would not have come out.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 13th 2007 4:14AM]

Whatever it was, Amiga did it first.

Probably.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 12th 2007 8:24PM]

When these big boys steal from each other we all win. Users are experienced with apps they've never used. Yay for less of a learning curve. This is another way for Mac and linux to steal windows users and for windows to steal mac users (if that ever happens). its about the consumers, not the apps.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 12th 2007 8:27PM]

"According to him, the dock revealed yesterday sports a "troubling resemblance" to Sun's Project Looking Glass."

Troubling? why is the resemblance troubling?

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 12th 2007 9:39PM]

Actually, I didn't even realize the new Leopard dock was supposed to look 3D and perpendicular until I saw it compared to Sun's beveled dock. I really don't see what the big change is... they should make the dock customizable in my opinion. Choose your own background. But then again, I'm a Linux (Ubuntu) fan, so.....

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 12th 2007 10:38PM]

Cupertino, start your photocopiers.

/hypocrites

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 12th 2007 11:21PM]

That isn't even close apple has always had that dock

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 21st 2007 2:16PM]

Of course, research is intended to be copied. Take the original time machine work done at Sony CSL in the late 90's:

http://www.sonycsl.co.jp/person/rekimoto/tmc/

I'm sure Jun Rekimito had some mixed feelings when he saw that Apple had adopted his great ideas. The frustration comes in when people like Jobs don't cite the origins of their new products. Of course, commercial interests aren't academia, but a public "thank you" can go a long way :-)

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 13th 2007 1:56AM]

Who cares the dock sucks. Its very annoying and completely useless. No matter where I locate the dock it gets in the way.

and who the hell makes the short cuts the same as a common one in Photoshop which I use constantly - instead of feather I get the freaking dock bobbing away.

Cant even "right" click,open with properly.. lists a whooooole bunch of crap instead of actual programs.. geez.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 13th 2007 6:40PM]

Its amazing that Sun could copy a pretty good looking UI (the dock), and make it so ugly (looking glass). The name is good, the actual work, really ugly.

[Strangedaze Posted Jun 13th 2007 12:41PM]

Mac vs. Windows argument aside...

www.bumptop.com is where the real comparison should be made. The features of this prototype GUI are nearly identical to the "stacks" features of Apple Leopard.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 13th 2007 10:46AM]

1) Anyone else hate semi-transparency? It REALLY gets on my nerves to have to deal with looking at two different things at once (especially when the menu bar doesn't even allow things to go past it, wtf). I hope it's optional.

2) I'm not even sure I like the slant yet. Maybe it'll take some getting used to, but let's face it, not every icon meets the 3D standard, so having these flat icons "floating" in space is irritating.

[Howzer Posted Jun 13th 2007 12:58PM]

Anyway Apple copied the dock from IBM's Launchpad in OS/2 :-)

[ethana2 Posted Jun 14th 2007 12:37PM]

Well, I use Ubuntu with Beryl, so really, I have to say that if people are, you know, paying money for these features, it's a shame. If you think about it, most of the average people who get Vista will do so because it looks pretty. Many people with macs probably do so for the same reason, terminology:"elegant".

I can do whatever the heck I want- I even have, like, three different docks I can choose between- one of which has a physics engine- and so what if I don't like one of them? I paid nothing. I lost nothing. I can use another one. I have the exposé effect. I have translucency and transparency wherever I want it. I have and use both the Vista Aero theme and the Tiger theme with emerald. Using the colemak keyboard layout (which I'm typing in right now) gives me easy special characters. Macs have nothing on Linux besides the entire "It comes pre-installed" thing. Come on. Of course now, thanks to Dell, Linux does too. Where are you going to hide, OSX? Oh, yeah- that's right. On your own fancy looking $3000 hardware. With a TPM.

[grabaclue Posted Jun 14th 2007 7:28PM]

I have to laugh at the rampant hypocrisy of the Mac fanboys. When Microsoft or someone is perceived to have copied Apple they can't scream about it loud enough, but when Apple does it, they spout "who cares?!?" as if they would ever stoop so low. Too funny.

BTW, the first dock I ever saw was HP Dashboard, early 90's.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 3rd 2007 4:12AM]

"Who invented the dock?"

Microsoft. 1985.

Windows 1.0:http://toastytech.com/guis/bigw101.gif

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 16th 2007 5:34PM]

err... isnt it the other way around? looking glass was developed AFTER 10.5....