Did Apple pitch a fit?

March 16, 2005 7:25 PM

GoogleX : Homage, late night idea or something more? (via a comment @ Mofi)
posted by shoepal (21 comments total)

Obviously, the first link is only a mirror of GoogleX as it appeared on the 15th/16th before it was disappeared by the Labs. (They reserve the right to remove things, of course)

Oh, and yeah, I know, GOOGLEFILTER! Sosumi!
posted by shoepal at 7:28 PM on March 16, 2005

it's cuteish, but given the state of the industry I wouldn't be surprised if Apple has some bizarre patent on anything remotely like their menu.
posted by blacklite at 7:38 PM on March 16, 2005

Hey! That was my comment!

I got it here, BTW.
posted by kika at 8:35 PM on March 16, 2005

Thanks kika!
posted by shoepal at 8:44 PM on March 16, 2005

strange.

but what it needed was the ability to change what Icons you can have on there.
posted by delmoi at 8:57 PM on March 16, 2005

I love my Mac and I love OSX, but the silly magnification on the dock was the first thing I turned off in my system preferences. (Followed by the "genie effect.")

It is pretty and all, but I'd file this under "homage" and bet you $1 that it will never wind up on Google's front page.
posted by evoo at 9:02 PM on March 16, 2005

they need to program the bulging of the bar when the mouse is already hovering and moves to the next icon... otherwise pretty neat
posted by Satapher at 9:26 PM on March 16, 2005

Actually, MeFi had it before MonkeyFilter.
:P

Seriously, I think it is VERY clever scripting and finally got a local copy to study.
posted by spock at 10:00 PM on March 16, 2005

By the way, the problem may not have been with Apple but with the owners of the trademark on "googlex". Not sure who that might be, but googlex.com is owned by some Hong Kong people.
posted by spock at 10:04 PM on March 16, 2005

Thanks spock. The circuit is now complete.
posted by shoepal at 10:28 PM on March 16, 2005

Color me confused -- what is unique or different or special about it? AFAICT, it's just regular ol' Google. What am I missing?
posted by davidmsc at 11:29 PM on March 16, 2005

I'm not sure either, davidmsc. Looks like it's just a google that's harder to use.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 11:43 PM on March 16, 2005

Assuming you have javascript on, you should see an image effect, similar to the Dock in OS X, when you hover over the images. The cleverness (from my perspective) is that this is not merely an image-replacement rollover effect but the image appears to "zoom" to the larger size (where it is joined by a text label that appears in another table field). The other images in the row (original sizes) move apart to make room for the larger image.
posted by spock at 4:55 AM on March 17, 2005

The dock-style doesn't stay the same when you click on any of the icons. Its not a problem with the mirror, it was the same way originally.

The fancy icons just take you to the normal pages for the features. Blech...
posted by blasdelf at 5:44 AM on March 17, 2005

I was just discussing this with someone and found myself tripped up by: This looks like it says "Google X," i.e. it would be pronounced "Google, X." But shouldn't it really be said out loud as "Google Ten"?
posted by soyjoy at 8:32 AM on March 17, 2005

I haven't used the dock in OSX since I downloaded Quicksilver. GoogleX reminded me why.
posted by unsupervised at 10:31 AM on March 17, 2005

whoa! that first link goes to thejosher.com!
posted by thejoshu at 10:37 AM on March 17, 2005

The magnification stuff isn't particularly original to Apple. Many web sites and applications were doing similar things well before OS X appeared. It's such an obvious "focus" approach.
posted by bz at 10:40 AM on March 17, 2005

Whoever runs thejosher.com forgot something...when the images come to full magnification they are swapped out with their full-res cousin (labs-sm.gif > labs.gif) which is why on this mirror they look all chunkstyle.

This googlex link has had the code cleaned up considerably (the js actually makes some sense to read) and has added a GMail link into the 'dock' for your enjoyment...not to mention a handy zip package for everyone to download and mirror it with :)
posted by gren at 11:08 AM on March 17, 2005

Thanks Gren. I figured better mirrors would pop up as people downloaded the code and cleaned it up. Much appreciated.
posted by shoepal at 11:19 AM on March 17, 2005

The hell with that-- Google Maps works in Safari now! ::rejoices::
posted by Down10 at 12:28 PM on March 17, 2005