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This from Apple's email newsletter:

Want a fast way to switch from one open application to another?
Mac OS X version 10.3 "Panther" makes it as easy as typing Command-Tab.

Now, I can't remember if the Alt-Tab shortcut was in Windows 1.0 in 1986, but it was certainly in Windows 2.0 in 1988 and every version since, so it's only taken Apple fifteen years to figure out that this is a good thing. But then it took them to System 7 to catch on to running multiple applications, and OSX to figure out preemptive multitasking.

Yes, Apple have come up with some great ideas, but let's not forget that they steal ideas too.

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It isn't stealing because no one owns ideas. ideas are shared.

Patents on the other hand are a whole new kettle of fish but I really really don't beleive that a user interface should be patentable. Imagine if someone patented the car steering wheel and pedals.

I quite agree. I think it's quite healthy for clever innovations to propagate between operating systems, and if one software company is allowed to sit on ideas nobody suffers but the end users.

Mac users are quick to point out that Windows stole it's best ideas from the Mac. There is quite a lot of truth in this, but the reverse is also true.

Strangely enough, I disagree.

If someone came up with a better interface than the mouse (whether trackball, nipple, bat (flying mouse!), retina scanner, tablet or whatever, if they come up with a new invention that makes things simpler and easier then, if they've either displayed a moment of inspiration or it's the result of a lot of perspiration, then the point is that *they* have made that leap and others could just get the benefit by copying/"stealing"[1] it without either the genius or the perspiration (including surveys, dozens of models, redesigns, years of study etc.)

*That* is the purpose of a patent (I assert), to reward someone for coming up with something and making it worthwhile.

If you spent ages figuring out a way of designing an entire HTML4.0 compliant browser, with frames, CSS etc. all perfect and fitting it into 4k of phone memory, then someone else just copied your work and sold it for their profit, you'd likely be *very* pissed off (unless you'd specifically given it away for general use and that included other people making money from it!)

If I design a new car steering system based on, say, voice commands and the ability to "read" the road (the cat's eyes might have little bluetooth transmitters to tell the car where it was, charged by piezo crystals recharged when a car drives over the catseye) then I'd really like some reward for my moment of genius (particularly if I then turn it into a functional prototype and solve the various engineering problems).

The thing to remember is, that patenting the steering wheel and pedals only becomes a problem if either the fee for using the patent is too high or the patent is sold exclusively to someone else. The theory (in software engineering) is that if someone has the patent for "steering wheel and pedals" someone else will develop "joystick" or "handlebars" or "iPod style dial" etc. until someone comes up with something even better than "steering wheel".

My uncle drives a car without pedals (he has to, he had polio as a child and so can't use his legs) ... another uncle designed cars for people who couldn't operate a steering wheel ...

... and what sort of design has a steering wheel you are supposed to keep two hands on, a gear stick, indicator stalks, radio controls and an ashtray that can all be operated/used while moving? Add in eating and using mobile phones and the steering wheel seems a bad idea (particularly in a crash where it can crush the chest)

You have stated an extreme view point ("no one owns ideas. ideas are shared.") which I must admit is very seductive. However the difference between an idea and a product (legally) is quite large.

Patents were partially designed to encourage innovation and to reward investment and R&D. If you can think of a better way of rewarding someone for coming up with an idea and working on that idea until it is valuable, then there are many economists etc. out there that would be fascinated (and if it's a good idea, once you've work on all the exceptions and answered all the arguements ... we'll steal it, publish a book and claim the royalties !)

eeep, gosh that turned into a rant didn't it!

Ok, another "evil" of patents I didn't mention is when someone can get a patent for the blindingly obvious or only way of doing something, which didn't require either genius or perspiration to achieve. In which case it is just a land grab followed by a licence to print money, and far too many software patents have been too broad and actually cover either existing processes or something that any one of us could and would design with 20 minutes thought. Those things should not be patentable but the law is an ass (for those situations).

Oh, and the missing footnote from above
[1] if there is no law against taking someone else's hard won ideas and profiting from them without acknowledement and payment to the original thinker, then it is not "illegal" and so you can't really say they have "stolen" the idea. Though the definition of "stealing" also usually includes depriving the original "owner" of whatever has been stolen, which is not usually the case with ideas.

I agree with most of what you're saying here, but I think that the patent rules need to be modified for the information age. I think the duration needs to vary depending on the type of product - fifteen years may be appropriate for a steam engine, but not for a software algorithm. There also needs to be better safeguards to prevent obvious/trivial patents, or ones that are far too general. And personally I don't think pressing alt+tab or option+tab (or clicking one link to place an order, or embedding flash components in web pages) to switch applications should count as a patentable idea.

However whether it's copying ideas or licensing them (or technology swaps such as the MS/Apple swap of TrueType for LAN technology), I think the propagation of ideas between OSs is good for end users.

I seem to recall a command to cycle through the windows in Macintosh. Can't remember it offhand but there was one... it wasn't command-tab iirc.

So when I apple-tab between applications in 10.2, am I just imagining that I'm doing it? :)

Perhaps. Any idea when it was introduced as a shortcut? And the option key is different from the Apple key, isn't it?

Christ knows. I get confused which one is which. I have ctrl, alt and apple, so I suppose 'apple' is 'command'.

Last I looked at a Mac keyboard, there was a key to the left of the spacebar with a sqiggely symbol called "option" and a key to the right of the spacebar with the apple symbol on it. But it was a while ago, so not very fresh in my memory.

[Saddened and a little annoyed]

James, don't criticise what you don't know.

Firstly, MacOS X has had Cmd-Tab switching for years. It was in 10.2 and I think in 10.1 and 10.0 as well. Certainly the Dock did it with the mouse in those.

Secondly, what they're getting at is the USER-switching facility, which makes the entire desktop with all open apps rotate, as if a face on a 3D cube, out of sight, to another complete user session, with a totally different set of apps. This is more akin to XP's Fast User Switching.

That's the only thing new in 10.3.

All you're attacking is a poor ad copywriter.

Mia culpa!

Okay, I may have missed the mark on this one. As I said, I have nothing against Apple copying good ideas from other systems. And I have nothing against them using the same shortcut as Windows - why make users have to remember different shortcuts on different systems. But some Mac users will go on at length about how Windows is just a poor copy of the Mac. While there are plenty of Mac features I'd like to see in Windows, there are also plenty of Windows features I'd like to see on the Mac. I'm very happy that Apple provide one of the few alternatives to Windows, and some day I would like to own a Mac, though it's unlikely to ever be my main computer. Most of all, I wish Mac fanatics would accept that not everyone is going to buy Apple, and that both systems have their advantages and disadvantages, and that it's good to have a choice.

But the poor ad copyrighter did set himself up pretty good.

I've read up on this now and I overreacted badly. Sorry, James; you didn't deserve that.

For the reference and to keep it straight: the modern Mac keyboard has Control, Alt (Option) and Command (Apple) keys. Command is for hotkeys to tell it to do something, Option modifies another key's action, and Ctrl is for PC compatibility. (Though since Opt=Alt, they could have just used Cmd=Ctrl).

Right. Cmd-Tab does task switching in 10.2 and I think it did in MacOS 9 as well. It didn't work in 10.1 and before, I believe, and so there was a little free addin called LiteSwitch. This makes Cmd-Tab pop up a box in the middle of the screen with the icons of all running apps, and repeated presses cycles through them. Just like Windows since about NT4.

In 10.3, Apple has copied this and built it in. In 10.2, the keystroke works, but the only visual clue is the icons in the Dock highlighting.

It's not much of a feature, but it's helpful. In general, though, Exposé is much more useful, and Windows so far has nothing remotely equivalent to that.

But yes, it's copied from Windows. It's trivial, so why not? Fast User Switching is also copied from XP, and for some users, is VERY handy. It's not triggered by Cmd-Tab, though, but by a new menu on the right-hand end of the menubar.

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