Apple acquires Curvus Pro X to power new Mac OS X Tiger application

Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
In need of a modern graphing calculator application for its Mac OS X distributions, Apple stopped coding and went shopping overseas.



Apple Computer has purchased the rights to Arizona Software's Curvus Pro X, a powerful and user-friendly equation graphing application designed for MacÂ*OSÂ*X, AppleInsider has confirmed.



According to tipsters, Apple bought the software from the Switzerland-based company late this summer and immediately began re-interfacing the application for inclusion in future releases of Mac OS X.



Screenshots: Graphing Calculator 1; Graphing Calculator 2; Graphing Calculator 3; Graphing Calculator 4



A message on Arizona's website confirms the sale of Curvus Pro X, but does not single out a buyer: "On July 22, 2004 Curvus Pro X was bought by an international company and its distribution has been discontinued."



Since acquiring the software less than two months ago, Apple has adorned Curvus Pro X in its traditional brushed aluminum theme, and renamed it "Graphing Calculator." Source close to Apple have noted that the company is already distributing the revised application in private seedings of its next-generation "Tiger" operating system.



Apple is expected to release Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger in the first half of 2005.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 35
    This is one story we can truly say was created in-house!
  • Reply 2 of 35
    Quote:

    Originally posted by AppleInsider

    Apple Computer has purchased the rights to Arizona Software's Curvus Pro X, a powerful and user-friendly equation graphing application designed for Mac_OS_X, AppleInsider has confirmed.



    This is good news. I have been a user of Curvus Pro since it first came out, and weathered the update to the X version. This is by far the best choice for general-purpose, easy-to-use graphing functionality, and goes considerably beyond calculator-style features. Looking forward to seeing the Tiger version!
  • Reply 3 of 35
    Does this application produce plots/curves from individual data points or only from equations?
  • Reply 4 of 35
    kasperkasper Posts: 941member, administrator
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Carson O'Genic

    Does this application produce plots/curves from individual data points or only from equations?



    I would just download an archived version of Curvus Pro X and check it out. It has to be the same exact application as the one in the new Tiger builds, other than the interface. They are probably still bringing it up to their code of standards and most likely have not added features yet. It was purchased just over a month ago...



    K
  • Reply 5 of 35
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Gavriel

    This is one story we can truly say was created in-house!



  • Reply 6 of 35
    Ah... the return of Graphing Calculator ten years on.
  • Reply 7 of 35
    I have to say that this move stuns me.



    Apple has been demonstrating recently that it would rather code their own imitations rather than buy the rights to an existing software produc (Watson, Konfabulator).



    This is also quite amazing given the fact that Apple already had the rights to the OS7+ Graphing Calculator. Couldn't they have just reworked and recompiled that app from the existing codebase?
  • Reply 8 of 35
    tkntkn Posts: 224member
    My only question: Does it do RPN stack operations?
  • Reply 9 of 35
    screedscreed Posts: 1,077member
    Quite the contrary, JamesG. For a while Apple was shopping like mad. iTunes, Final Cut Pro, on and on apps were derived through acquisition.



    Watson/Sherlock I'll give you but concerning Dashboard/Konfabulator, there is a great article out there that explains that Dashboard is a far more integrated tecnology than the Javascript hack that is Konfabulator.



    Screed
  • Reply 10 of 35
    From who was the iTunes technology acquired?
  • Reply 11 of 35
    toweltowel Posts: 1,479member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by CatharticFlux

    From who was the iTunes technology acquired?



    SoundJamMP, Casady & Greene (RIP).
  • Reply 12 of 35
    pbpb Posts: 4,255member
    Does anyone know how Curvus compares to Graphing Calculator that Apple bundled with earlier versions of MacOS? Graphing Calculator 3.1 was already a powerful tool.
  • Reply 13 of 35
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Towel

    SoundJamMP, Casady & Greene (RIP).



    Not 100% correct, iTunes was developed by an Apple engineer in his own time and only distributed by Casady & Greene. When Apple brought it in house that developer continued to work on it, I believe he is some big cheese in charge of the iTMS now (that last bit's just a vague memory).
  • Reply 14 of 35
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
    Again, it seems like most of the software I use now is made by Apple. I'm still not sure whether that's good or not. Man imagine if they surpass MS one day. They would be insane. A benevolent dictator perhaps? But wow would I hate to cross them especially if it is still headed by Jobs. I mean sure OS X is based on open source but most stuff that average users use that runs on it now is made by them!
  • Reply 15 of 35
    mr. memr. me Posts: 3,221member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by PB

    Does anyone know how Curvus compares to Graphing Calculator that Apple bundled with earlier versions of MacOS? Graphing Calculator 3.1 was already a powerful tool.



    Graphing Calculator 3.2 is the latest release of the commercial version of Graphing Calculator. The latest free version that ships with MacOS 9.2 is Graphing Calculator 1.3. The Windows version is NuCalc. You may find them at Pacific Tech's web site. The latest available version of Curvus Pro does curves in 2-D and surfaces in 3-D. These are major functions in Graphing Calculator. Curvus Pro also does vector fields, which Graphing Calculator cannot do. Graphing Calculator is a much better numeric calculator. It also does simple symbolic algebra and calculus, both differential and integral. Curvus Pro appears stronger in numerical evaluation of calculus-based expressions. The take-away message is that Graphing Calculator is a better calculator. Curvus Pro is a better grapher. However, your mileage may vary. By the time MacOS X 10.4 is released, I expect that the holes in Curvus Pro's functionality will have been plugged. However, it is still an fantastic aaplication as it is.
  • Reply 16 of 35
    The non-free version of Graphing Calculator could do vector fields and a whole slew of things as seen in the version 2 demo that comes with the free version.
  • Reply 17 of 35
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Code Master

    The non-free version of Graphing Calculator could do vector fields and a whole slew of things as seen in the version 2 demo that comes with the free version.



    Yep, it's kind of odd that Apple went with CurvusPro given that it was somewhat behind GraphingCalculator featurewise. However, the PacificTech folks seemed a bit obstinate about not porting to native OS X (although they now say they have an OS X native version in the works and are in testing).
  • Reply 18 of 35
    Quote:

    Originally posted by irobot2004

    Yep, it's kind of odd that Apple went with CurvusPro given that it was somewhat behind GraphingCalculator featurewise. However, the PacificTech folks seemed a bit obstinate about not porting to native OS X (although they now say they have an OS X native version in the works and are in testing).



    Although buying Graphing Calculator from PacificTech would have solved the OS X obstinacy problem.



    Maybe they didn't want to sell.
  • Reply 19 of 35
    From what I gather going with Curvus Pro X makes more sence because that was already a native Mac OS X application, whilst Graphing Calculator still needed to be ported. We don't know how far Pacific Tech had gotten and it is quite possible that the lion's share of work porting it remained to be done.
  • Reply 20 of 35
    mr. memr. me Posts: 3,221member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by CharlesS

    Although buying Graphing Calculator from PacificTech would have solved the OS X obstinacy problem.



    Maybe they didn't want to sell.




    Exactly how does Pacific Tech expect to stay in business without Apple's business? I almost forgot that Graphing Calculator 1.3 ships with each new Mac. The company's core business is providing a Classic app that virtually no one will use anymore. Sounds like a winner to me.
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