FWIW, Growl predates iOS

Edit: also, IIRC Growl was originally called "Notification Center", which is the name that Apple later used for their implementation of similar features

Double edit: I should've RTFA which mentions my fun fact

IIRC, Growl was created because a similar feature of Mac OS didn’t make it into the first release of Mac OS X (sorry, can’t find pictures or documentation online)

If so, I think its developers can’t be completely unhappy about the end result. Also, their code is (3-clause) BSD licensed. If the product lives on in spirit, does it really matter where the code came from?

I never used Mac OS until OS X because I wanted a terminal with Unix userland and also ms office. I don’t know what feature you’re talking about and it was not a consideration when coming up with Growl.

You’re right, but Growl did much more than the notifications in classic MacOS. Also, Apple took their sweet time to get their notification system for OS X.

I first got into the Mac eco system in the mid 2000s, so I don’t know the entire history of notifications there, but I remember that Growl was pretty much the defacto Mac standard by the late 2000s.

Growl and a particular packaging software that provides auto updates had basically become a prerequisite for Mac apps at a certain point.

The auto updates software you're thinking of is Sparkle, and it's still going strong. Still by far the most common way for Mac developers to do automatic updates for apps distributed outside the Mac App Store. https://sparkle-project.org

Yes, but notification center, added in Mountain Lion, was an exact clone of the iOS 5 notification center. Which at the time was argued to be stolen(!) from Android's notification center design. So did Android steal Growls implementation, as well? That is what is being implied.

The update framework is Sparkle and is still widely used. You’re quite right that these two frameworks made important chunks of app functionality Just Work.

Growl goes way back, this is an interview from 2006:

https://www.osnews.com/story/15442/interview-with-chris-fors...

Good lord I forgot about that interview. I was so young haha.

Growl started around 2003 really

I’d just like to thank you for your work on Growl, Perian, and Adium. Those were fantastic, provided great functionality and were rock solid. All of them were invaluable. They are always associated with the good time I’ve had tinkering with my computers as a student.

> Toast notifications weren't even invented by Growl

Does MSN Messenger get the credit for that?

Windows 2000 according to Wikipedia

MSN Messenger predates Windows 2000 (July 1999 vs February 2000 respectively).

It’s possible Apple independently arrived at a design for how to present iOS notifications that just happened to resemble growl in every way... but it’s not likely. Growl was so pervasive before macOS notifications that it’s inconceivable to me that developers at Apple weren’t presenting it as a proven model.

Uh huh. This is ignoring that notifications were present in webOS, Android, Windows 7, and so on. Or were those able to independently arrive at the exact same design of a toast popup, and Apple uniquely owes the provenance of their toast popup to Growl?

Growl existed before webOS, Android, and Windows 7.

Windows have system tray balloon tips since Windows 2000. Or even earlier

What is your point? Is Growl responsible for all notification implementations post 2003?

Wow, everyone is so fucking combative and contrarian the last few days. Chill out, that's not what I was saying.

It seems to be exactly what you're saying?

I was only saying that it seems pretty likely Apple took inspiration from Growl. Not that they didn’t take inspiration from other prior art, or that Growl didn’t either. They’ve taken similar inspiration from other things on their own platform even where there were multiple inspiration sources available. Spotlight took design direction from Quicksilver even though Enso existed. From Mac OS 8 (or was it 9?) through most of the OS X/macOS span, it took inspiration or cues from WindowShade even though a zillion other minimization styles existed. They literally bought CoverFlow even though a ton of other presentational equivalents existed. It’s not that these ideas don’t flow around everywhere. I was just observing that they likely observed what was already at home on their platform.