Dashboard v. Konfabulator

John Gruber has the definitive answer to this whole manufactured controversy, at Daring Fireball

Daring Fireball: Dashboard vs. Konfabulator:

The post-WWDC peanut gallery is atwitter with the idea that Tiger’s Dashboard is a blatant rip-off of Konfabulator. You can’t read anything about Dashboard without hearing that it’s a Konfabulator rip-off.


Bullshit. Dashboard is not a rip-off of Konfabulator. Yes, they are doing very much the same thing. But what it is that they’re doing was not an original idea to Konfabulator. The scope of a “widget” is very much the modern-day equivalent of a desk accessory

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It’s not hard to speculate on the reasons why Dashboard is based on WebCore technology. First, it’s already there — the JavaScript engine and HTML/CSS renderer are built-in components in Mac OS X. Second, basing Dashboard development on industry standard web technologies means that anyone who knows how to design a web page knows how to design a Dashboard gadget.

In terms of attracting hobbyist-level developers, Dashboard is going to be an order of magnitude more approachable than Cocoa application development. If you know HTML and CSS, you can design a gadget layout. If you know JavaScript, you can program a gadget.

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Dashboard vs. Konfabulator