undefined | Better HN

0 pointsekianjo12y ago0 comments

What do you mean a "clone of their product" ? Desktop PCs had big icons on screen for years, there was nothing new or even remotely original in having big icons on a screen for an mobile OS. That should be declared an obvious invention and not worth of protection at all. The main new thing that they did was to use a touch screen that can be operated with fingers and gestures, but hey, even that idea was not new either. Frankly, no matter how highly you think of Apple's products, nothing of what they do is really, truly original.

0 comments

4 comments · 2 top-level

eknkc12y ago· 1 in thread

Once you see / use them, they become obvious inventions. You know, lightbulbs are so boring right now. Nothing original about them.

Before Apple came up with iPhone, I had a freaking Ericsson brick thingy. None of Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola, Samsung were innovating. None of those old, non original ideas were in any of those devices. Nokia had a webkit browser with a ridiculous cursor that you operated with that joystick thingy. I'm glad that Apple actually pushed them forward.

So yes, I think Apple has original products and they are innovating.

girvo12y ago

Bollocks, Sony Ericsson was innovating, and I still feel that the M600i that I owned was one of the most innovative phones ive ever used. Still to this day no phone comes close in keyboard ability (seriously, go google the M600 or P1i), and UIQ3 was this wicked blend of smartphone power with a dumbphone-esque interface: something the iPhone did but improved on massively.

I use Apple everything. I love Apple products. But to say there wasn't any innovation happening before it in the phone sector misses some really cool things.

PS. I would pay all the money in the world for an updated P1i, same qwerty rocker keyboard, capacitive 3" touchscreen @ 720p running Android. One can dream, right?

Joeri12y ago· 1 in thread

Palm had the grid icon layout for years before apple did it, but nobody would confuse an old palm device with an iphone when actually using it, and palm in fact had to throw it out and start all over with the pre to deliver an iphone competitor.

There's a big difference between a good concept and a good execution of a concept. Apple have always been brilliant at execution, even if they don't have many original concepts (they don't do basic research). Is it not innovative to take a good idea and execute it better than anyone before? I find that a hard thing to dismiss. However, now that they are on top of the world, it would be nice to see them invest in open basic research to give back to the community where they got all their ideas and technologies from, like microsoft does with microsoft research.

sbuk12y ago

Palm was influenced by the Newton, the device that coined the term PDA (actually coined by John Scully) which came out before the Palm Pilot. Computing didn't stat in the 21st century, neither did it start in the 1990's.

RE giving back to the community; FreeBSD, CUPS, WebKit, LLVM and Clang to name a few. Notice I haven't claimed that any of these were directly invented by Apple, but all have varying levels of investment and contribution from Apple.

This is all out there on the internet. It takes a couple of seconds to look up with whatever search engine fits in with your ideology.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse