View source for Cyberdog

{{Short description|Suite of computer applications for Internet use}}
{{about|the computer application|the clothing shop|Cyberdog (shop)}}

{{Infobox Software
| name = Cyberdog
| logo = Cyberdog.gif
| screenshot = 
| caption = 
| developer = [[Apple Computer]]
| released = beta, {{Start date and age|1996|02}}
| latest release version = 2.0
| latest release date = {{Start date and age|1997|4|28}}
| latest preview version = 
| latest preview date = 
| operating system = [[Classic Mac OS]]
| platform = 
| discontinued = yes
| genre = [[Internet suite]]
| website = {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/19981212024155/http://www.cyberdog.org/|date=December 12, 1998|title=www.cyberdog.org}}
| license = 
}}
'''Cyberdog''' is a discontinued [[OpenDoc]]-based [[Internet suite]] of applications, developed by [[Apple Computer]] for the [[classic Mac OS|Mac OS]] line of [[operating system]]s. It was introduced as a [[beta software|beta]] in February 1996<ref>[http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=01123 Cyberdog Beta Available for Power Macs] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20000602102710/http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=01123 |date=2000-06-02 }}</ref> and abandoned in March 1997.<ref>[http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=00706 Apple Computer '97: What's In, What's Out] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/19990828150709/http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=00706 |date=1999-08-28 }}</ref> The last version, Cyberdog 2.0, was released on April 28, 1997.<ref>{{cite news|last=MacDonald|first=Christine|title=Apple walks latest Cyberdog|publisher=CNET News|date=28 April 1997|url=http://news.cnet.com/Apple-walks-latest-Cyberdog/2100-1001_3-279246.html?tag=mncol }}</ref> It worked with later versions of [[System 7]] as well as the [[Mac OS 8]] and [[Mac OS 9]] operating systems.

Cyberdog derived its name from a cartoon in ''[[The New Yorker]]'' captioned "[[On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog]]."<ref>{{cite journal|last=Ticktin|first=Neil|volume=12|issue=2|title=Save Cyberdog!|journal=[[MacTech]]|url=http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.12/12.02/Feb96PublishersPage/index.html|date=February 1996|access-date=3 September 2011}}</ref>

==History==

===Cyberdog 1===
* Apple released the first beta version of Cyberdog on February 16, 1996.<ref>{{cite press release|url=http://tidbits.com/article/1123| title=Cyberdog Beta Available for Power Macs |publisher= TidBITS Publishing Inc.|first=Geoff|last=Duncan|date=16 February 1996}}</ref>
* Apple released Cyberdog 1.0 on May 13, 1996.<ref>{{cite press release|url=http://tidbits.com/article/1003|title=WWDC Ware|publisher= TidBITS Publishing Inc.|first=Geoff|last=Duncan|date=13 May 1996}}</ref>
* Apple released Cyberdog 1.2 on December 4, 1996.<ref>{{cite press release|url=http://browserwatch.internet.com/news/story/apple30.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20000817102012/http://browserwatch.internet.com/news/story/apple30.html|archive-date=17 August 2000|title=The Re-release of Cyberdog v1.2|access-date=14 April 2011|publisher=[[Internet.com]]|first=Dave|last=Garaffa|date=4 December 1996|url-status=dead}}</ref>

===Cyberdog 2===
Apple released a first alpha version on December 21, 1996, with new features such as [[Framing (World Wide Web)|frames]], [[HTTP cookie|cookies]] and animated [[Graphics Interchange Format|GIF]] support.<ref>{{cite press release|url=http://browserwatch.internet.com/news/story/apple33.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20000817100726/http://browserwatch.internet.com/news/story/apple33.html|archive-date=17 August 2000|title=A Present From Apple: Cyberdog 2.0a1|access-date=14 April 2011|publisher=[[Internet.com]]|first=Dave|last=Garaffa|date=23 December 1996|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Apple also released Cyberdog 2.0 with Mac OS 8.0, allowing Mac Runtime for Java to be utilized and also had minor bugs with OpenDoc fixed.

== Overview ==
Cyberdog includes [[email]] and [[newsgroup|news]] readers, a [[web browser]] and [[address book]] management components, as well as [[drag and drop]] [[File Transfer Protocol|FTP]]. [[OpenDoc]] allows these components to be reused and embedded in other documents by the user. For instance, one of the common demonstrations of OpenDoc involved a "live" Cyberdog web page embedded in a presentation program.

A serious problem with the OpenDoc project that Cyberdog depended on, was that it was part of a very acrimonious competition between OpenDoc consortium members and Microsoft. The members of the OpenDoc alliance were all trying to obtain traction in a market rapidly being dominated by Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer. At the same time, Microsoft used the synergy between the OS and applications divisions of the company to make it effectively mandatory that developers adopt the competing Microsoft Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) technology. OpenDoc was forced to create an interoperability layer in order to allow developers to use it, and this added a great technical burden to the project.

An offspring of Cyberdog called Subwoofer was developed in parallel and was aimed at providing software developers with a simple library for integrating web communication protocols into applications. The project was completed after the cancellation of Cyberdog and released at the [[MacHack]] 1997 conference by Sari Harrison and Frédéric Artru. Subwoofer evolved into the URL Access library shipped with Mac OS 8.6.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://db.tidbits.com/article/5396?print_version=1|title = Putting URL Access Scripting to Work|date = 17 May 1999}}</ref>

== Cancellation ==

OpenDoc had several hundred developers signed up, but the timing was poor. Apple Computer was rapidly losing money at the time. Before long, OpenDoc was scrapped, with [[Steve Jobs]] noting that they "put a bullet through (CyberDog's) head", and most of the team was laid off in March 1997.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-lays-off-thousands/|title=Apple lays off thousands|author=Dawn Kawamoto|author2=Anthony Lazarus|date=14 March 1997|work=CNET News.com|access-date=22 March 2018}}</ref> Other sources noted that Microsoft hired away three ClarisWorks developers who were responsible for OpenDoc integration into [[ClarisWorks]].<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.swiss.ai.mit.edu/~bob/clarisworks.php#oregon | title=A Brief History of ClarisWorks : Oregon | author=Bob Hearn|author-link=Bob Hearn | year=2003 | work=Bob Hearn's website | access-date=24 April 2007}}</ref>

[[AppleShare|AppleShare IP Manager]] versions 5.0 through 6.2 rely on OpenDoc, but AppleShare IP 6.3, the first Mac OS 9 compatible version (released in 1999), eliminated the reliance on OpenDoc.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=60659 | title=AppleShare IP 6.3 Does Not Require OpenDoc | author=Apple | date=18 December 2003 | work=Apple Support | access-date=24 April 2007 }}{{Dead link|date=August 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> Apple officially relinquished the last trademark on the name '''OpenDoc''' on June 11, 2005.

OpenDoc had a large memory footprint for the time, and since the [[OS/2]] (Warp 4) versions of OpenDoc were behind schedule, Cyberdog was only released for Mac OS. Moreover, saved documents are not viewable from applications which do not support OpenDoc's Bento format. After Apple ended Cyberdog development along with the rest of OpenDoc, Cyberdog's web browser component has grown outdated as web standards evolved.

Cyberdog was once positioned as a replacement for the earlier, discontinued, [[Apple Open Collaboration Environment]].

== See also ==

* [[Safari (web browser)|Safari]] – Apple's current web browser
* [[Mail (OS X)|Mail]] – Apple's current eMail client
* [[Macintosh Finder|Finder (10.2+)]] – Apple later integrated FTP functionality into the Finder
* [[Address Book (application)|Address Book]] – Apple's system-level address book service
* [[Network Browser]] – An FTP client introduced in OS 9
* [[Claris Emailer]] – Apple's earlier eMail client

== References ==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==
*{{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.cyberdog.org/ |date=* |title=Cyberdog }}
*[http://browsers.evolt.org/browsers/archive/cyberdog/2.0/ Cyberdog Installation]
*[http://tidbits.com/static/html/TidBITS-233.html Prerelease speculation about possible features]

{{Web browsers|desktop}}
{{E-mail clients}}
{{Early web browsers}}
{{Internet suites}}

[[Category:Discontinued internet suites]]
[[Category:Classic Mac OS-only software made by Apple Inc.]]
[[Category:Classic Mac OS-only web browsers]]
[[Category:1996 software]]
[[Category:Discontinued software]]