“When Steve Jobs took the stage this week to present one of the most important products in his company’s history, he knew that the very name of the iPhone was in dispute and that U.S. communications officials had not even approved the device. Those facts might have concerned other business leaders in his position. But Mr. Jobs didn’t miss a beat.” More here.
The Very Different Worlds of Mr. Jobs and Mr. Gates
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSAlert.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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When Steve Jobs starts copying.
Granted, with all of the “i” products from apple that’ve popped up all over the place over the years we all knew that’s what this one was gonna be called, that being the iphone. Also granted is that cisco knew just like everybody else what the rumors were. They knew they had an old patent and took advantage of it. Honestly, good for them.
But still. Normally it’s Gates who is more content with copying others.(via windows products)
“Welcome to my world” I suppose.
Edited 2007-01-14 04:01
You mean trademark ?
Starts?
when Steve Jobs starts copying…
then it looks like this: http://tinyurl.com/yllydr
more pics:
http://tinyurl.com/yhtjb7
http://tinyurl.com/yhm9kf
LG KE850 is one of the products that won iF Product Design Award 2007 [held on the end of 2006].
One small correction: The issue in dispute is Cisco’s registered trademark on the term “iPhone”, not a patent.
Apple’s new phone isn’t all that innovative. So it plays MP3s. Big deal. Plenty of phones can already do that. It remains to be seen whether people will want a combination iPod/phone — or whether they’ll simply buy individual devices. Convergence tends to produce mediocrity. I’m not betting against Apple — but, I’m not betting on them, either. There are plenty of entrenched players in this market.
it will be interesting to see how people will use it as a phone, its long, wide and flat ..and whats to stop your ear from clicking those buttons? ..i guess we will all see when it comes out ..
I’m just guessing you haven’t read many articles about it.
“.and whats to stop your ear from clicking those buttons?”
Um…the proximity sensor that shuts down both the display and all of the buttons.
Like someone already mentioned, there is a proximity sensor that turns off the display and touchpad. This makes accidental touches non-existant, as well as helps to save battery.
hmmmm. so it will shut down if I slip it into my pocket ?
must do if it has a proximity sensor.
if it kees playing, it must be broken.
marketing crap that I will not fall for.
oh, and Vista is the “most secure and reliable” Windows.
And George Foreman really is on a low fat diet……
Suggestion to you, read more before posting.
If you read the OP you would have seen he was talking about when its up at your *ear*. Apple’s marketing would lead you to believe what I and others have said. The screen does not need to be on when the phone is against your ear, and neither does the touch screen. If you read, you would have seen that.
I was not claiming anything else. Also from Apple’s website – there appears to be a lock that I am guessing will “lock” the screen from being used until you slide your finger across a certain area.
Of course I don’t know if this actually works as advertised – this product isn’t even available to average Joe until around June.
Edited 2007-01-14 08:49
the proximity sensor turns off the screen and the buttons… there is nothing posted anywhere that says the proximity sensor turns off the device..geesh
I don’t think it is the features that make it innovative but its design. That is part of the problem, today. When we look at stuff we like to see a bullet points of features then a price and we make our decisions. I am sure many of Apple Engineers are furious about this mind set.
It is not about features that makes Apple Innovative, it is how the implement them.
The iPhone dosn’t really add to much new features on the table over a normal smart phone. But they make it so users can easily access them. Apple spend a lot of time making there products so you focus more on what you need to get done and less on their software/hardware itself.
I know on my phone I Dred putting in contacts in even besides use the
1-0 keyboard to type in stuff. just using the software is a pain even if I had a full keyboard on my cellphone. Or accessing the calculator on it. It takes me forever the way my phone is set up to access a simple calculator.
Will I personally get an iPhone though… Probably not any time soon. The Price is too steep for me, and with the new interface there should be features that I think it should have… iChat AV Support, Add 3rd Party Software…. But that doesn’t diminish how innovative the product is. It just personally doesn’t match my budget and feature needs, which I feel are more extensive then the average persons.
Apple’s new phone isn’t all that innovative. So it plays MP3s. Big deal. Plenty of phones can already do that.
And there where plenty portable mp3 players when they introduced the iPod.
The success of the iPod was created by the combination of several factors, that was innovative not the device itself. Easily accessable content, the application with the intergrated online musicstore thing. Marketing and branding obviously. And price, it cost about the same as similar devices when it was introduced.
If the iPhone primary functionality as a phone is good, and it keeps the success factors from the iPod there is no reason it should not become a success. Obviously not as big as the iPod, but it will make Apple some money.
The problem is, all phones are mediocre at best, most of them being pure crap. Doesn’t matter if it is just a plain old phone that does nothing else, or if it is an MP3 player, or a PDA/Smartphone… ALL of them are crap.
Apple is trying to build a device that does all of it in one device which isn’t humungous, and have it do what it does well, and with the smoothness that you see in OSX and other Apple apps.
Agreed. From what I’ve seen cell phones are on a downward spiral where they aim for packing in more features without any real polish and very little quality control.
All I want my phone to do is keep a phone book and call people! Everything else is just silly to me, especially given the restrictions they add on from the carrier combined with overpriced extras.
I suppose they have to pay for that cell phone they give you in some way…
comment misplaced, sorry
Edited 2007-01-14 13:51
The whole iphone trademark beat up is just to generate a lot of free publicity for Apple and Cisco. The case will be settled amicably in a few months.
Yeah, and you could imagine a settlement if there was a version of Microsoft Zen instead of Zune ?
In fact, remember Lindows ? They had to change name to Linspire because Lindows “sounded” to close to Windows, a trademark of Microsoft.
It is not some silly patent they are moaning about, it is a trademark. There are massive differences. I will point them out.
Trademarks are worldwide identifiers of a product. They stop others copying the name or trading under it.
Patents are only valid in the country they are granted under, and they are only to show that the holder was the first person to apply for it, and that person should have sole rights for a specified amount of time.
In fact, why am I even trying to explain this to you, go look for it http://www.google.com
Edited 2007-01-14 08:37
– well, I that Cisco iPhone is actually completely different device. They hardly overlap with Apple. Plus they do not have the trademark registered worldwide AFAIK, so there is a settlement waiting to happen sooner or later.
– the Lindows case got settled and Mr. Robertson received 20 million from MS for changing the name. Otherwise MS was in danger of losing the trademark “Windows” at court altogether as a generic term. But that’s a completely different story.
Edit – not quite sure how much – this claims 15 million ( http://contracts.onecle.com/lindows/microsoft.settle.2004.07.16.sht… ), this one 1.1 billion ( http://news.com.com/2100-1046-5078074.html )
Edited 2007-01-14 10:24
– OK, I was actually right the first time, according to Cnet it was 20 million ( http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1624907,00.asp ), though the settlement is, in fact, confidential ( http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2004/jul04/07-19lindowspr…. ).
Actually, Apple copied the “Nano” terminology from Creative, but nothing ever happened, presumably because it was a brand but NOT a trademark (or maybe because Creative thought the confusion might be good for their business, so they didn’t bother doing anything).
In any case, in recent articles it has been revealed that Cisco is trying to protect their brand, but may not actually hold a *trademark* on the name “iPhone”.
Edited 2007-01-14 10:28
You’re joking, right? Apple and Creative settled with over $100 Million and look forward to jointly working together on “future” products.
As far as I know that had nothing to do with the name “Nano”, but rather had to do with various patent issues…. Point me to a link if you’ve got one….
http://googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=apple+iphone&word…
Also remember that with the iPhone it’s not what it does that makes it very advanced, it’s how it does it. The UI and the seamless applications which really well togeather is what makes this phone different.
There are a lot of other phones out there that can do xyz, i have a P910i which can do most of what the iPhone does (i.e. play music, touch screen) however the UI and implementation on this phone and many others is very poor, the apps are not so seamless and doing simply tasks are a chore.
Mr. Jobs, on the other hand, is still pumped on the adrenaline he gets from creating products that change the world.
Change the world, or, give it another round of consumerism?
I keep having this feeling, in spite of all the reverence for His Steveness, that he couldn’t “create” all of that on his own. I’d give Tony Fadell, Jon Rubinstein, Jonathan Ive, et al., “some” of the credits for creating Apple’s chief money maker.
We are all consumers, we buy more than we would/could ever sell. There is nothing wrong in consumerism, the whole attitude “I am above it” does not work.
Jobs and Gates will be dead, but their evil will live on.
It’s interesting that almost all of the comments so far seem to be about Steve Jobs, when the article was clearly commenting on both Apple and Microsoft in equal measure.
I think this proves the point: Steve Jobs comes across as the visionary leader and people follow to him. Which I think is kind of sad, because although I’m no fan of MS, some of the technology Bill Gates was demonstrating right at the end of his keynote was potentially far more notable and ‘revolutionary’ than the iPhone or anything in Steve Jobs’s keynote (and also far less likely to appear in the shops in the next few years).
Totally agree – this is a very important difference for me. People use to say ‘Steve Jobs’ (person) when they think ‘Apple’, while think ‘Microsoft’ (company) just after the name of ‘Bill Gates’.
I’m not a fan of both Apple and Microsoft. Both companies have my respect, not love. My personal point of view is that ‘Steve Jobs’ brand is making way too much buzz – it should be the team, the company, what people talk about – not the person…
Edited 2007-01-14 22:13
Gates? Give me a break! He’s not revered, he’s widely despised in many circles, and grudgingly admired in others. He’s about as easy to love as a great white shark, and the consequences of getting too close are similar, as many smaller companies have already discovered.
Technophile? More of a marketing and behind the scenes guy if you ask me. But then again, so is Jobs in that respect.
The more company (or group or party or government or state) relies on personality, the more it loses when personality vanishes…
An obvious difference not mentioned is that Mr. Gate’s world dominates 94 percent of the desktop market. Mr Jobs’ world is more of a niche market at 6% of the desktop market.