I'm back from vacation. It was great to go to the gulf of Mexico with the wife and kids. We had a blast. Coming home was a bit of a pain due to weather and my summer cold came back to haunt me. My right ear is totally plugged up.  Lots of crazy stuff happened last week. Apple announced MacOS 10.4 code-named "Tiger" with a feature called Dashboard. Dashboard is similar to DesktopX but it is really a knock-off of a Mac program called Konfabulator. Not that the Apple-does-no-wrong zealots will admit to it. In their mind, Konfabulator is just a derivative of Apple's long defunct desktop accessories or even Active Desktop on Windows. Whatever. In the Apple zealots world, only Apple innovates. Next time Apple users bitch that Windows users are "stealing" some idea, remind them of Dashboard.

Meanwhile Arlo Rose blasted Apple over their borrowing so much from Konfabulator. I can't blame him for being ticked. But based on what I've seen from Apple's defenders, they don't get it. They don't see why Apple should be held to a different standard as Microsoft. After all, Microsoft borrows from its ISVs and regularly competes with them (IE, UXTheme, WMP, Instant messaging). But the reality is, Apple isn't Microsoft.  When someone develops for the "underdog" one tends to expect to be shown a little appreciation. Or, at the very least, not blatantly do things that ruin their business.

I mean really, what's the point in developing software for the Mac if Apple is just as likely to eat your lunch as Microsoft despite the risk being much greater in the first place for the Mac? No one has really talked about that but I think that goes to the heart of the matter.  Apple shouldn't be pulling this kind of crap, especially given how loudly they bitch and moan when others borrow their ideas.  After all, these are the guys who sue computer makers for having their cases too similar!

I know people at Microsoft who just loathe Apple or at least their culture because they know something most people don't -- if you think Microsoft is nasty, Apple is much worse. Apple does things that Microsoft would get clobbered over. When a program breaks between versions of Windows, Microsoft, who legitimately tries to ensure compatibility, gets accused of all kinds of malicious intent.  Meanwhile, Apple, who seems to almost go out of its way to break third party programs between fixes, gets a free ride.

Not that it ultimately matters to me. I don't write for the Mac. I'm harping on this becuase I've gotten hundreds (if not thousands) of nasty email from Mac fanatics over the years claiming how we or Microsoft or the boogeyman stole our ideas from Apple. Whether that be them retroactively claiming that the Mac had alpha blended shadows first (WindowFX had them first) or the various claims that WindowBlinds was a rip off of some Mac program despite the fact we were "skinning" OSes back in 1994.

Mac zealots always seem to think that Apple is some huge innovator. But they're not. They merely take other people's ideas and polish them up and introduce them to the mainstream. That doesn't make Apple a bad company. It makes them a smart one. But I get irritated when the ignorance of Mac users of the wider world causes them to think that Apple comes up with all this stuff from scratch.

So next time you see some Mac zealot claiming Longhorn "stole" some feature from Apple, remind them that Apple has no room to talk.