clock … watching time, the only true currency

Yesterday’s sneak peek at Leopard, the next version of Mac OS X, included Time Machine. This archive/journaling/backup application has a nifty UI, at least in demo mode. We’ll have to wait to see if it’s actually useful or not, but it sells well.

But what I was struck by was that Time Machine appears to be the first popular evocation of Lifestreams, the Eric Freeman and David Gelertner attempt to replace the desktop metaphor from a decade ago. By popular, I mean something that people will actually see and (maybe) use. Gelertner’s software company MirrorWorlds appears to have slipped away, and the domain leads to a parked page. So does Scopeware, which was the name of the company in 2003, when I last noticed this idea in the wild.

I wonder if the ideas really are close enough that Apple had to license any patents?

Update: I was not the only one to make this comparison.

• Steven Berlin Johnson: Leopard First Impressions: The Time Machine
• Dave5: WWDC - A Very Scrabble Christmas (see the footnote)
• Dave Rogers: Mac: Seeing Spots