A new feature was added to Mac OS X with the release of version 10.4, "Widgets." These are tiny applications that perform one task very well. Press F12 and a translucent window appears, showing all the widgets you have open.
Widgets can do anything. The best example is the one provided by Apple to display current weather conditions as well as a forecast from Accuweather, based here in State College. Other widgets can provide a television schedule, calendar, a list of entries at a blog, etc.
Microsoft recently announced a new concept for the next version of Windows, known as "Vista," which was formerly known by it's development name, "Longhorn."
I like to think the name was changed from "Longhorn" to "Vista" because some concerned Texas Aggies on the marketing team forced a change. Could explain the silly and blah name, "Vista." Or maybe Microsoft didn't want "Windows Longhorn" to be confused with Longhorn cheese. All kidding aside, I liked the name "Longhorn" and the logos they were using. Then again, I lived in Austin TX and the "Longhorn" logo reminded me very much of the University of Texas Longhorns.
But back to Gadgets. Just when you think that there's something original going on here, look back at the history of Apple's widgets. At one point, they were called gadgets. No idea why the name was changed to widgets.
Of course, Widgets aren't entirely original either. Widgets are very much akin to another product, Konfabulator, which was recently purchased by Yahoo. Apple probably should have bought Konfabulator.
To be even more fair and concentric, Widgets and Konfabulator are descendants of Desk Accessories from the original Mac OS.
If that doesn't sound crazy enough, there's the whole thing about Apple's original internal online service known as AppleLink. At one point, they thought of having a external version called AppleLink Personal Edition. The software was then sold to a guy named Steve Case who had his own online service for the Commodore computers. Case renamed and retooled the software into America Online, AOL.
Apple then decided they really did want to build an online service for Apple fans and borrowed/rented/whatever the AOL engine and slapped their own front end and name on it, eWorld. I worked at eWorld in their customer technical support department.
