So much for remaining blissfully neutral. We thought we'd successfully ducked getting mired in this sort of controversy when that whole Watson-Sherlock flap was raging (yeah, you thought it was odd that such an obvious dramatic plot point never made it onto the AtAT airwaves, didn't you?), but whoops, we got cocky and blinked-- and now this whole Konfabulator-Dashboard thing just smacked us upside the head with an unpleasant wet slapping noise. See, generally speaking, while we really do enjoy conflict and controversy, we like it a lot more when we're watching it from our couch while cradling a nice, big bowl of popcorn; once we get personally involved, well, it's less about entertainment value and more about hypertension and increased risk of stroke. Taking a stance about speculative issues like whether or not Apple will ever ship Mac OS X for x86 is one thing, but choosing sides in a very real, immediate, and emotionally-charged spat between Apple and one of its third-party shareware developers is just... well, let's put it this way: we get enough of that sort of conflict around the dinner table each Thanksgiving.

And yet it's so easy to get sucked in. How does Switzerland do it?

If you're not up to speed on this latest brouhaha (which we find hard to believe, since it's just about the only thing happening on this post-Stevenote Tuesday), there's a CNET article that should give you a pretty good idea. In a nutshell, Tiger's Dashboard feature may be the bee's knees, but two shareware developers claim that Apple ran off with their apoidean patellae, snatched right up from out of their product Konfabulator. Dashboard lets users access a variety of accessory-like "Widgets" (such as a calculator, stock tickers, and world clocks) at the touch of a key, and allows third-party developers to write their own widgets in Javascript. Konfabulator, on the other hand, lets users attach a variety of accessory-like "Widgets" (such as a calculator, stock tickers, and world clocks) to their Desktops, and allows third-party developers to write their own widgets in Javascript.

See the problem? On the one hand we're ambivalent about it, but on the other hand we're not. When the Watson storm was raging, we had to admit that Sherlock 3's new functionality looked and behaved almost exactly the same in some ways, but since Watson was a fairly natural extension of Sherlock's capabilities, it wasn't necessarily the case that Apple "borrowed" something it shouldn't have. With Dashboard and Konfabulator, though, the similarities are a little too striking to chalk it all up to "well, it's an obvious feature, really." Honestly, look at the two technologies and see if you can really convince yourself that they both sprang organically and independently from, say, the Desk Accessories in System 6 or whatever. We're having a really tough time escaping the conclusion that Apple studied Konfabulator, built its own from the blueprints, bolted it onto Exposé's show/hide-with-a-keystroke trick, and now has itself a killer operating system feature at the expense of one of the third-party developers it's so keen to attract to the platform. Will people still buy Konfabulator for $25 a pop when Dashboard comes free with Tiger?

Note that this goes beyond just adding a similar feature. Take RSS support, for example; one might think that the advent of Safari RSS might prompt the same sort of moral outrage from developers of RSS applications, but in his weblog, Brent Simmons of NetNewsWire fame notes that "the RSS reader in Safari is not a full-featured newsreader" and lacks a ton of goodies present in his own shareware product. Because of that, he's actually happy to see Safari RSS on the horizon, because it'll introduce the technology to thousands of Mac users who may have never heard of it before; those who like the feature in Safari may then go hunting for a more full-featured RSS aggregator and eventually plunk down $39.95 for NetNewsWire. Everybody's happy.

With Dashboard, though, it looks to us like Apple essentially replicated Konfabulator from the ground up (though Apple denies this) and then added a single new twist: being able to call Widgets into existence instantly and then dismiss them just as quickly. But should Apple be lambasted for taking what some of us might consider a flawed implementation of an important idea and making it far more elegant and useful? While we liked the Widgets idea, we've never actually used Konfabulator, because we didn't want still more clutter on our Desktops. Dashboard, on the other hand, is exactly what we want-- but we'd feel less dirty about using it if Apple has at least offered to buy Konfabulator from its developers.

Based on what little we know about this stuff, we doubt that a lawsuit against Apple for this alleged toe-stepping and feature-peeping would be successful (Konfabulator isn't patented; there may be "look and feel" grounds, unless there's a licensing agreement we don't know about), but that doesn't make it right. Ah, well-- at least this doesn't necessarily spell the end of Konfabulator; like NetNewsWire, it just needs some features and functionality that Tiger won't offer on its own. After all, look at Watson! Jaguar shipped with the Watsonesque Sherlock 3 almost two years ago, and the shareware app was still going strong by virtue of being a stronger implementation of the same general feature. And okay, sure, according to the Watson FAQ, the software just got bought out by a "large company" (which MacSlash determined to be Sun), which could be interpreted as an eventual sign of defeat-- or it could show that the product held its own for as long as it needed to until a third party made an offer its developer couldn't refuse. Suppose we'll see Sunfabulator come this time next year?

Oh, and for the record, we personally never thought Proteron had a leg to stand on in that LiteSwitch X-Panther claim...

Moving on to a less-icky subject: say, how about Apple's growing street cred in the world of rap? Ha! Admit it! That was the third least likely phrase you ever thought you'd hear us say, right behind "you don't hear enough talk these days about the amazing health benefits of stuffing rabid weasels down your pants" and "something about that Windows GUI just makes us want to go right up and hug it." But seriously, Apple just scored some major props from, of all things, Rap News Direct, which ranked Apple second only to the company's litigational sparring partner Eminem on its list of the "100 most powerful people in music." Word.

Okay, okay, we're just messin' with ya. While the linked article is, indeed, published over at Rap News Direct, it's apparently a slightly cut-down version of the full article which appears in The Independent-- and that "100 most powerful people in music" list was actually compiled by Q magazine, a decidedly non-hip-hop-fixated publication. But while Q may not exactly qualify as the Voice of the Gritty Urban Streets, you can still marvel at the fact that the magazine's editors currently figure the Dynamic Duo of Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive is more influential in the realm of music than the CEO of Clear Channel, the president of MTV, the heads of any of the major recording labels, any ex-Beatles, Bono, Britney, or even-- dare we say it, and risk incurring the full brunt of her wrath?-- industry powerhouse Kylie Minogue.

Whew, no lightning strikes. Okay, we figure it's probably safe to continue.

So why are Steve 'n' Jon ranked so scarily high? Well, according to Q deputy editor Gareth Grundy, "they've really shaken things up with iPods and iTunes. It looks as though they're going to turn out to be as important as the compact disc. It seems to be a seismic shift in the way we consume music." And apparently the "17-strong panel of rock royalty" that threw this list together agrees with him. Gee, and here we thought it was all about GarageBand...

Oh, and just a quick correction just in case any of you get confused by the error: The Independent, being a British publication, feels the need to point out that "the highest placed Brit, at number eight, is Sir Howard Stringer, the rugby-loving, Oxford-educated Welshman who is the chairman and chief executive of the Sony Corporation." Um, excuse us, but as the author points out just nine sentences later, Jonny Ive's tied at number two; where do these people think he hails from, North Dakota?

Meanwhile, though, that whole "taking the rap world by storm" angle wasn't totally facetious: MacMinute notes a WIRED interview with Will Smith-- yes, the Fresh Prince himself-- in which he declares that "the iPod is the gadget of the century" and that he has "every model." See? Props for Apple from the rap world. See? See?

June's almost over, folks, and as we've already pointed out, it's been one seriously overstuffed month when it comes to momentous Apple announcements. It kicked off with the surprise introduction of AirPort Express and its oh-so-funky AirTunes functionality, followed that up with speed-bumped Power Macs, shuffled right on into the Steve-hosted London intro of the European iTunes Music Stores, followed that with iPod Your BMW and Apple Remote Desktop 2, and then capped it all off with yesterday's new displays and that sneak preview of Tiger. Any more and we're pretty sure that most Mac users' heads would pop like an egg in the microwave.

Presumably that's why the company's being so hush-hush about its latest change: AirPort Extreme price reductions. As reported by MacMinute, Apple's $99 AirPort Extreme cards have dropped to $79, while its high-end $249 AirPort Extreme Base Station (the one with the built-in modem and antenna port) has fallen to $199-- all with nary a press release in sight. So if you were in the market for a high-end Base Station, congratulations! You get to save fifty smackers. And if you were in the market for a low-end Base Station, congratulations! You can't get one anymore!

Yes, it seems that Apple has nixed the $199 Base Station sans modem and antenna port, because it's mysteriously vanished from the AirPort Extreme Tech Specs page (not to mention the Apple Store). So if you have no conceivable need for a modem or an antenna port in your Base Station, tough noogies, because you're getting 'em anyway, and you're not saving a dime-- but hey, at least Apple's not making you buy the high-end Base Station at its original price. That is, they won't unless you start getting uppity about it. So cool it.

As for the lack of a Steve Jobs Media Event Extravaganza to announce these significant changes to Apple's wireless product line-up (or, indeed, even a measly press release just to acknowledge their very existence), we figure it either comes down to Apple wanting to avoid all the lawsuits that a mass egg-in-microwave head-popping epidemic would surely spawn, or the company not wishing to upstage yesterday's Tiger preview and new displays with a ground-breaking and paradigm-subverting alteration to its AirPort product matrix.

Either way, can you believe how much colossal product news we've gotten this month? And there's still one day left in June! We're hard-pressed to imagine how Apple could possibly top news of price drops in its AirPort line-up; something about what Phil Schiller had for breakfast, maybe? If they say "donut," that we can handle... but if they say "glazed" instead of "jelly," we're probably just going to faint dead away. There's only so much excitement one can take in a month, you know.