14 DAY TRIAL // Wil Shipley is the founder of Delicious Monster and the main figure behind the Delicious Library Mac app. He claims, in a Twitter note, that Apple ripped him off on the UI of Delicious Library, adding it to its all-new iBooks application, featured on the iPad.
In tandem with announcing the iPad tablet two days ago, Apple also announced the new iBooks app, which includes Apple’s new iBookstore. Apple claims iBooks is “the best way to browse, buy and read books on a mobile device.” As soon as the iPad is out, the iBookstore will feature books from major and independent publishers, according to the Mac maker.
According to Paul Thurrott’s Super Site blog, Shipley was quite vocal about the situation saying, “No, Apple didn’t license iBooks from me. They just copied me. Ah well [...] I guess it’s not enough Apple has hired every employee who worked on Delicious Library, they also had to copy my product’s look. Flattery?”
“But the thing about iBooks is, it’s a book-reader,” he continued. “So, of course they looked around, found the best interface for displaying books (Delicious Library’s shelves), and said: yup, this is what we’re doing. Although Delicious Library was the first to do it, we didn’t try to copyright the idea of wooden shelves, or of showing books photo-realistically. ‘Look and feel’ is kind of an outmoded concept, I think,” he went on to say.
“Now, of course Apple couldn’t contact me ahead of time and say, ‘Hey, we’re taking your idea, thanks.’ Their lawyers would worry they’d open themselves to a huge lawsuit, for one, and they’d also be leaking a secret,” Shipley explained. “Nor could they write me a check. Even a token one would be an admission (in their lawyers’ eyes) that they were copying something. They are a public company — they can’t write someone a check unless they got some value in return. And if they got value, the lawyers would ask, how much was it? How was it determined? [...] So their official policy has to be, ‘No, of course it’s a crazy coincidence that these shelves look almost entirely like Delicious Library’s shelves.” he concluded.
Paul Thurrott poured gas over fire saying, “The bookshelf view in iBooks is nearly identical to the main bookshelf view used in Delicious Library,” pointing out Shipley had every right to be upset. However, isn't it also true that the bookshelf view in iBooks is nearly identical to every real bookshelf in the world? The same would go for Delicious Library.
Thurrott adds that Apple fanboys are likely to turn on Shipley saying that, “A bookshelf is an obvious idea. I mean, what better way is there to display books?” Yes, that’s correct. Why would Apple go out of its way not to include intuitive elements? These last sentences would have summed everything up quite beautifully. Anyone else here thinks Wil Shipley is trying to capitalize on the iPad hype?