Submitted by It might be a cliche, but sometimes, a picture says more than a thousand words. Over the years, I’ve often talked about how the technology world is iterative, about how products are virtually always built upon that which came before, about how almost always, multiple people independently arrive at the same products since they work within the same constraints of the current state of technology. This elementary aspect of the technology world, which some would rather forget, has been illustrated very, very well in one of Samsung’s legal filings against Apple.
This is what Samsung was considering putting to market in the summer of 2006, six months before the unveiling of the iPhone.
One of these phones (the bottom-right one) became the Samsung F700 – a product Apple once included as an infringing product, but later withdrew once it learned Samsung created it and brought it to market before the iPhone
It extends to more than just the hardware – Samsung was also working on interfaces that looks remarkably like iOS (actually, that look remarkably like PalmOS) – in the summer and fall of 2006. Again, before the iPhone was released.
The most damning and interesting graphic is one of those ‘before-after-the-iPhone’-ones. In it, Samsung quite effectively demonstrates that its phones – like the Galaxy line – are clearly descendant from Samsung’s pre-iPhone designs, and not from the iPhone.
Seems like an open and shut case to me. Samsung didn’t have to look very far for prior art – it created it itself. Doesn’t that just boggle the mind? Samsung is being accused of stealing, even thought the company was clearly working on what it supposedly stole before the iPhone was even released. Samsung’s phones bear more resemblance to its own pre-iPhone designs than to the iPhone, yet Apple and its supporters still insist Samsung is a thief.
All this reminds me a lot of the early ’80s and the development of the graphical user interface (a process I prefer to divide up into generations). The ‘invention’ of the GUI was a very long process, which, in my view, started with Ivan Sutherland’s Sketchpad (1st generation GUI), and ended with the work done at Xerox (3rd generation GUI). I say ‘ended’ because even though some people are easily fooled by fancier graphics and swapping a mouse for a finger, every device we own still employs what is essentially Xerox’ interface.
Xerox didn’t realise they were sitting on a revolution, so other companies swooped in and created the 4th generation of GUIs; Apple, Amiga, and Digital Research (GEM) all developed a fourth generation GUI simultaneously in pretty much the same timespan. However, these days, many people just give all the credit to Apple and be done with it.
Apple acts as if the iPhone was developed in a vacuum, and wants the world to believe that it, and only it, invented the concept of a touchscreen phone. With that nonsensical idea, the company not only ignores the long history of mobile computing (specifically PalmOS which is iOS’ and Android’s common ancestor), but also the fact that other companies were working on touchscreen phones at the same time (LG Prada, these Samsung images).
Apple wants to rewrite history. As a geek, I find that incredibly offensive.
Of course many of the iPhone’s great features would have been introduced without Apple. I did not realize how many of them had been though.
Kudos to Apple for putting them all in one product. As Jobs himself once bragged, great artists steal.
I would not have guessed it was Sony though that so heavily influenced the industrial design. I do not associate Sony electronics with a great sense of style. Perhaps that is unfair though.
You must be young. Sony was the king of elegant design in consumer electronics, before the rise of the ipod. Growing up, if you didn’t have a Sony walkman/discman/minidisc, you were roundly mocked.
Sony always worked better from day one, looked better, and lasted longer than anything else.
I think they would be a much better consumer electronics company today, if they had not entered the record and movie business. That started their crippling of products to proprietary drm laden formats.
Yeah, DRM kills the brain of those who promote it.
DING DING DING DING! We have a winner.
^^Bonus points^^
This hit the nail square on the head. Once Sony got into the content business their fate was sealed. The proprietary formats were relentless and now Sony and the RIAA are so joined at the hip that I no longer purchase or recommend their products to anyone.
I can see why a company like Sony would get into the content business.
It’s an often repeated mantra. It isn’t the internet providers or the owners of the glassfibre in the ground that get rich. It’s the content creators. “infrastructure” isn’t where the money is.
So Sony wanted to be in the content business, instead of only creating the “underlying infrastructure”.
It seems what they really mean is “great artists, as long as the artist is Apple, steal. If not then they are thieving bastards who should be drawn and quartered.”
Edited 2012-07-31 03:56 UTC
Steve Jobs wasn’t the original author of the quote. I always found it ironic; that he took somebody else’s quote to complain against plagiarism.
Edited 2012-07-31 23:32 UTC
Fwiw, Jobs never claimed to have originated that quote. I believe he attributed it to Picaso.
I did not say he claimed to have originated the quote. I found it ironic (or is it hypocritical) that Steve Jobs used somebody else’s saying to complain about microsoft’s supposed plagiarism and lack of originality. I, for one, found such lack of self awareness amusing, except for the part where people took him seriously…
Lol, quoting somebody else and citing your source is the direct opposite of plagiarism, and of course it’s in no way hypocritical.
As I’m pretty fed up with the Jobsian religion and its tireless acolytes, I’ve just registered to vent my rage. I would like to make a few points (I thought they were platitudes, but it seems I was wrong):
1. Steve Jobs was not an artist of any kind; no Apple product is a work of art by any “artistic” standards (more of a sexual fetish or a religious totem).
2. “Good artists copy, great artists steal” is not an original quote by Jobs, but by Pablo Picasso; similarly T.S. Eliot had already remarked that “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal” (perhaps Picasso stole the quote, by he was a great artist after all).
3. Apart from quotations, Jobs and Apple stole many of their “new” concepts and designs.
4. If you aren’t a great artist — not even a good artist or an immature one (see point 1) — and you steal nevertheless (see points 2 & 3) then you are a thief. (Mind you, this does not mean that other companies are not thieves too.)
+1 on all counts.
additionally, in **1870** this little genius said:
“Plagiarism is necessary. Progress implies it. It holds tight an author^aEURTMs phrase, uses his expressions, eliminates a false idea, and replaces it with just the right idea.”
^aEUR“ Isidore Ducasse, Comte de Lautr~A(c)amont, Po~A(c)sies II
Steve admired Sony and his turtle neck outfit has a direct link with Sony:
http://www.geekosystem.com/why-steve-jobs-wore-turtlenecks/
I wouldn’t wanna call Steve a hack, I guess the only thing he is good at is having taste/vision and saying: no
With vision I mean, like the people at Xerox didn’t know what they really had when they let Apple see and use it.
That also is a talent, maybe his only talent.
Steve had a couple of talents: vision, eye for details, taste, forcing/persuading people do to his bidding and indeed saying no. Interestingly the co-founder of the world’s most successful tech company wasn’t very technical.
Xerox didn’t know what they had, Parc Xerox did. Some at Xerox Parc were happy that Apple wanted to do something with their technology, others weren’t.
It’s funny how these seemingly small lucky events. I’d really love to know what would have happened in an alternate universe.
What if Steve hadn’t visited Parc Xerox or didn’t return to save Apple?
What if IBM didn’t bother with the PC or Microsoft didn’t buy QDOS?
What if Commodore hadn’t gone bust?
What is OS/2 did manage to succeed?
What if Microsoft gave up after Windows 1.0?
What is Google had stuck to search?
What if Apple didn’t think a mobile phone would sell?
What if BSD didn’t have legal problems and Linus never started Linux?
They wanted to create devices, similair to that, since the time of the Newton.
Yes and with hindsight the tech battle moved to mobile stuff, but mobile phones were and are a risky business to get in to. In 2007 Nokia and RIM were big players and a load of “others” were in the game too.
Most mobile phone makers aren’t doing very well. Had the original iPhone been a bust, it’s second generation may not have created enough buzz to make it sell like it did.
If Apple now wants to build television sets I suspect it will be even more difficult to do. Even though phones and televisions kind of share the same price segment people are less likely to replace a working television. I would only do that if it was something I couldn’t resist, meaning it would have to be a television+++.
That is why everyone is surprised Apple want to make TVs, the current Apple TV device and devices like Nexus Q are much more likely to be sold. As they are an addon which makes it an easier sell.
The Nexus Q is very unlikely to be sold.
http://www.osnews.com/story/26234/Nexus_Q_delayed_pre-orders_will_s…
Apple is yet to announce their television. So far it’s just a rumor, but it’s one of the strongest yet.
My guess, if it comes, it will be US only at first. No doubt it will feature downloadable content and subscriptions. Apple needs to get all the big parties on their side in the US, see how it goes and then try to pull it off in more countries.
I’m not entirely convinced we can sincerely say that about somebody who insisted, for so long, on ejecting removable media by… moving them to the trash.
Hm, that didn’t really work out with the last big example of “saying no” to apps on the iPhone. Or, harmful in different way – he strengthened in Apple a culture which will likely lead to a repeat of the history with PC, while he could make iOS “the PC”.
Though how much is it still a tech company?… (vs. media / physical chain / software distribution, design, marketing)
Oh there is an easy answer to this one – the underlying goal of OS/2 was to return the control over PC market to IBM (and that’s why it didn’t succeed, other OEMs wouldn’t play along / why they went the Windows way) – you just have to look at how IBM did things, with its more traditional markets, to know what it would be like.
PS. And BTW those ways, and the PC – pretty much the same thing you mentioned in http://www.osnews.com/thread?529156 applied to the PC …so was it not a commercial computer?
(or to Nextcubes; hell, it largely applies to Macs machines, for most of the planet – they hardly “brought the GUI to the homes” ( http://www.osnews.com/thread?529153), only to some minuscule proportion of them; you should know, Amiga and all :p – and BTW, when Apple was suing MS for “ripping the GUI off” …Xerox sued Apple on the same basis)
Edited 2012-08-07 00:19 UTC
Great artists may steal, but cannot sue everybody later saying it was his idea, since he admittedly stole it in the first place.
How times have changed, huh?
I sincerely hope that Apple gets a legal pasting, i.e. is hoist by its own legalistic petard.
I am tired of ‘capitalists’ who haven’t got the backbone to live by the rules they apply to everyone else but themselves. From banks to oligopolies, ‘capitalists’ hide behind ever bloated, increasingly unaccountable states either arbitrarily to get them to socialise their liabilities or protect them via pettifogging legal systems, where justice is not so much blind as quadriplegic.
Where’s the free market? Where is the freedom of choice that the consumer needs to possess in order to make markets free? Where is competing on merit for the common good? As G.K. Chesteron said, the problem isn’t that there are too many capitalists but that there are too few: http://faithandheritage.com/2011/12/g-k-chesterton-on-economics/ (look beyond the religious stuff and ask yourself whether in the final analysis we need any state, communist or corporatist/capitalist).
I am ashamed to say I am posting this from an iPhone. Never again once this contract is over.
(Edited for typos)
Edited 2012-07-30 20:20 UTC
A legal wedgie?
Whatever it takes!!
Solid post!
I would add, don’t look beyond the religious stuff… Chesterton was pure genius, his prot~A(c)g~A(c), CS Lewis wasn’t bad either.
Thanks – that’s kind of you to say. Yes, their ways of using paradox to unpick apparent logic or rather customary thinking, were often quite striking.
I sometimes go to church, sometimes don’t, and this person has kind of said it better than I could do as to why that is:
http://hypocritereader.com/18/if-i-told-you-i-went-to-church
Cheers,
Orf
Meh, Chesterton’s prose had lots of stylistic merits, it’s intellectual content however was rather pedestrian. E.g. The piece by him that you linked earlier was a colossal “no true Scotsman” type of arguments, and those are just run of the mill fallacy…
^aEURoeThere are no uninteresting things, only uninterested people.^aEUR
^aEURo G.K. Chesterton
I find geeks trying to rewrite history (in order to excuse a blatant thief) very offensive.
http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/30/apples-purple-concept-for-iphone-g…
Samsung only has to prove their were designs like the iPhone on the market before the iPhone. Besides, the reason phones look the way they do is because it is an obvious implementation for touch screen technology.
Apple isn’t making the claim they are the first to invent the idea of a touch screen.
If touch screen phones weren’t a rectangle with a touch screen on one side then what else would they look like? Other electronics like monitors and digital photo frames already used that basic shape before phones did so Apple certainly didn’t invent the rectangle with a screen on it.
Besides, Samsung had a photo frame in 2006 that had the same form factor as the iPad here: http://www.androidauthority.com/behold-samsungs-ipad-made-in-2006-2…
It predates the iPad by 4 years. If that isn’t enough here is a prototype tablet from 1994 that looks like the iPad: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1381528/Knight-Ridde…
Samsung: Apple Didn^aEURTMt Invent the Rectangle
http://allthingsd.com/20120731/live-samsung-making-its-case-in-land…
Responding to charges that it copied the iPhone and iPad, Samsung lawyers on Tuesday told a federal jury that the design of the iPhone is less revolutionary than Apple would have them believe.
“There^aEURTMs more to the story than what you just heard,” Samsung attorney Charles Verhoeven told the jury, beginning his opening statement. He showed other phones that predate the iPhone and have large rectangular screens taking up most of the area, most notably the LG Prada phone from 2006.
“Apple didn^aEURTMt invent that,” he said. “That was already out there.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_Prada
The LG KE850, also known as the LG Prada, is a touchscreen mobile phone made by LG Electronics. It was first announced on December 12, 2006. Images of the device appeared on websites such as Engadget Mobile on December 15, 2006.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone
The iPhone is a line of smartphones designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007.
There are even Samsung internal designs for rectangular touchscreen phones that pre-date the iPhone, proving that the iPhone cosmetic design was not copied.
http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/31/3209204/samsung-angers-judge-by-s…
The judge apparently doesn’t want people to know that Samsung had already internally designed a touchscreen phone which was a rectangle with no keyboard, very similar to the iPhone, before the iPhone came out.
Regardless of what the judge wants, people will know this anyway, it will be common knowledge. If the judge insists that this common knowledge is ignored by the jury, it merely makes the judge look totally biased, and it guarantees Samsung will be able to appeal if they need to.
Edited 2012-08-01 08:32 UTC
iPod.
One word, your answer.
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Developer-launches-a-Kickstarter-pro…
Actually, a circle or oval could be interesting…
I’ve brought this up before, but the first touchscreen cellphone (and arguably the first smartphone given its PDA functions) was the IBM Simon Personal Communicator in the early-mid 1990s. Even the Treo beat both Samsung and Apple by a few years, and for those who consider Symbian a smartphone OS, so did Nokia. Though, I don’t recall seeing a touch version of a Symbian phone until around the time the iPhone was revealed.
Regardless, it’s pretty clear from the evidence in the article that Apple should give up their holy war against Samsung.
Nokia didn’t have them, but Sony Ericsson did – P800, P900 and P910, touchscreen phones using Symbian UIQ. The first one was released in 2002. The interface was primarily for a stylus, not fingers, but still.
could be because symbian inherited the stylus from epoc
what you don’t recall is a Series60 touchscreen phone. There were however others like UIQ, Series80 (in the communicator phones) and Series 90 (in the Nokia 7710 and 7700, look them up on wikipedia)
You’re both right, I failed to take into consideration Nokia’s non-S60 models, most likely due to the very limited presence Nokia has here in the U.S. compared to the rest of the world. I do recall seeing a Nokia Communicator in some 2000-era spy film set in Europe, but I’ve never seen one in the flesh, so to speak.
I believe you’re referring to “The Saint”. In any case, a friend of mine owned one around the same time frame, it was certainly quite nifty as far as mid-to-late 90s phones went.
That’s the one! A halfway decent movie, though I’ve only seen it once that I can remember.
Have fun:
http://starringthecomputer.com/features.php
You are so wrong for linking that! I just got off from a 12 hour shift and should be going to bed now; I have to be up in six hours for an appointment. I don’t think I will be sleeping today after all…
Well, you don’t have to watch every movie/episode of course!
Here is the most important one (for you):
http://starringthecomputer.com/computer.php?c=71
Edited 2012-08-01 11:02 UTC
No, but you don’t understand how my somewhat ADHD brain works. Once I start reading something fascinating but ultimately repetitive like this, the next thing I know it’s four hours later and I am about to pass out in my office chair.
It happens with Minecraft too; I find the biggest timesink for me in that game is digging to Y:12 and fanning out laterally. Several wasted hours later, I have thousands of castoff cobblestone, maybe a diamond or two and a sinking feeling that I should have spent that time doing something more productive.
To (somewhat) steer things back on topic, that appointment I spoke of is to possibly buy a Samsung Nexus S, so I will have a solid Android phone for comparison to my Windows Phone. If I like the Nexus enough, I’ll probably keep it and put the Arrive to the side for a while. When upgrade time comes next year, I’ll be better equipped to decide between sticking it out with Metro or going with Android once and for all.
If you want to compare WP and Android I think you should wait until WP8 arrives.
For me apps are more important than the basic system. If System A is great, but has no apps it’s pretty useless. If System B isn’t that great, but has a wide choice of apps I would prefer it.
The problem I have with my WP phone is that it lacks certain apps my iPhone does have. WP is fast, but a factor in this is, I think, that’s most apps don’t have much functionality. For that reason alone I would pick the iPhone.
And you can play Minecraft on an iPhone, not on a WP phone.
Well, what I will be comparing is the current Android OS version for the Nexus S (ICS), and WP 7.5. I expect Jelly Bean and WP 7.8 updates for the respective devices to be released around the same time as each other, and I will compare those two as well.
That’s a key difference between you and I. I’m a workflow-centric person, and that is one of the main things about WP that appeals to me, especially the version of Office that is included. Overall the OS just flows better than Android and iOS to me. I don’t have much experience with ICS, though it’s my understanding that the workflow aspects have improved, and that’s what I hope to find out.
I do agree that the volume of apps is not there (again, not as much an issue for me as for most people), but you’ve hit on a great point. A lot of the third party apps (Facebook and Twitter “official” apps come to mind) are practically useless and seem to be far below the Metro UI standard.
I play a version of it on my Arrive called Survivalcraft, it’s a shameless clone but a very well implemented one. It has features I sorely wish the official Minecraft for PC had, including a built in “Recipaedia” and integrated Dropbox support so your world files are always synced across devices. The gameplay is similar to what I’ve experienced on iOS via my fianc~A(c)e’s iPad. I bought the game in its first release cycle and have enjoyed all the updates to it so far.
I don’t enjoy Minecraft at all. I don’t play it, but my son does and he keeps using all my gadgets. He found out it flies on my iMac, so he now even uses that.
I’m 100% healthy, now allergies, deformities or anything else. But I have one weakness: 3D world games. For some reason it give some kind of motion sickness. No problem with 3D racing games, flight simulators or traveling IRL, but stuff like Minecraft make me feel ill after 10-15 minutes, even on an iPhone screen.
Never had this with 3D games on the Commodore 64 or Amiga though.
Forgive my morbid interest, but that is fascinating! I’ve found over the years that games with extremely wide viewing angles, such as Unreal and DDO (and Minecraft if you adjust the angle too far) will make me queasy, but otherwise I’m fine. I’ve also gotten a little bit of vertigo from playing Portal, but I think that comes from trying to mentally keep up with the physics of the game.
Ultra-realistic games — graphically speaking — like Crysis seem to be the easiest on my eyes; I can play that particular game for several hours without getting fatigued. Minecraft, with its very unrealistic blocky low-res textures, seems to wear out my eyes and brain after just a couple of hours. I may be way off base, but I wonder if it has something to do with my brain trying to make sense of what I’m seeing on the screen and translate it to real-world concepts. I say that because it’s the same with other low-res games like classic Doom and Hexen.
I first discovered this playing Duke Nuke’m. Wolfenstein didn’t cause any problems. Nor did Doom, but I never played that very long. At first I thought I was just hungry, it was a feeling in my stomach. Standing up, getting something to eat did help, but more so because I stopped playing than eating.
I thought about the realism of the graphics, but Minecraft’s aren’t that good. Although there are better and there are more of them than in a C64 or Amiga game. Mercenary (C64) is a 3D world and I played that for hours, but these were wireframe graphics.
But racing/flight simulators never caused me any problems. Nor do 3D movies or roller coasters. It’s only certain 3D world games. Delta Force (PC) also never gave me problems, Rainbow Six did but after a longer period.
Perhaps there is some secret trigger in some games that gets me.
Perhaps the malfunctions are quite individual-specific… for me something possibly similarly weird was in Diablo II, close to its premi~A¨re – the whole screen would basically just blur out, as far as my vision was concerned, during any movement (scrolling). Similar with split-screen on night circuits (yes, that specific) in Gran Turismo.
But not any more – when I tried D2 half+ decade later, it was fine, and it turned out that I adore the game.
Though my brain is most likely a bit weird in general: for just one thing, I was kinda an epileptic in my earlier years – something the “it was a feeling in my stomach” largely reminded me right now, this being a common sensation for me. Hypothetically… you might be experiencing a mild seizure (in short, the popular idea of seizures equalling convulsions is quite inaccurate, such are actually relatively rare), something in those few 3D games being your trigger ;p
BTW stereotypical triggers and weirdness – you’d expect me to avoid strobe lights, right? Well… there is a certain range of their frequencies which I can’t stand – not that they cause some aura or anything, I just hate them. But, conversely, there is another range of frequencies which I… absolutely love, it’s almost a recreational drug for me
Oh, and I adore the mentioned above Portal, it’s possible it feels to my brain sort of more right than the real world, by now
Edited 2012-08-03 02:44 UTC
With… what?! You mean wireframe games?
Thing is… the Nokia Communicator in “The Saint” from 1997 certainly didn’t use Symbian.
Not all did, early ones were on GEOS (and they actually had x86 CPUs)
PS. And Motorola had some touchscreen Symbian UIQ devices (Moto was actually involved in it), I imagine they were at least semi-available in the US, before iPhone.
Edited 2012-08-03 00:26 UTC
Why wouldn’t it be considered as such? (especially if we’re include Simon or Treo)
Anyway, there’s perhaps one even earlier device that Samsung could point out – perhaps a bit on the large side of things, but still showing similar form-factor: GRiDPad, a tablet launched in 1989 http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/6565/GRidPad-1910/
And the best part: it was manufactured by… Samsung.
I hope that Apple’s lawyers get their backsides kicked up one side of the courtroom and down the other.
I am sick and tired of Apple claiming to have “invented” everything, when darned near everything they claim to have invented actually existed beforehand. “Prior art”, in other words.
I’m proud to say that I have never owned any Apple product and I never will, so Apple has never made a cent off me.
But the problem is not Apple claiming it has “invented everything”. The problem is Apple being granted the patents that it applies for. It would be irresponsible (from the point of view Apple’s shareholders, for example) for any company not to apply for patents to protect things it believes it has invented. The problem is the patent system. Apple is not the only company that applies for and is granted patents, you know!
I’d say believing you invented something you didn’t could also be considered a problem, more so when your concept of “protecting things you believe you have invented” turns out to be attacking competitors and trying to get their products banned.
The patent system is obviosly flawed, but just because a system is flawed doesn’t make it’s abusers any less of scumbags.
Edited 2012-07-31 11:38 UTC
Agreed, but can you name a company that isn’t using patents in the same way as Apple? This year-old chart seems to suggest that they’re all at it!
http://flowingdata.com/2011/08/22/mobile-patent-lawsuits-2/
From the chart you posted I dont see Google suing anyone.
andydread,
“From the chart you posted I dont see Google suing anyone.”
Yep, it’s humorous that the poster would say something that disagrees with the evidence he provided, but he probably meant to illustrate the chaos rather than make a literal statement.
Arguably google entered the game so late that it lacks the portfolio needed to mount a successful attack, but I won’t read into it that way – they appear to genuinely believe that it is wrong to use patents offensively.
A piece of information that is missing on the chart is timeframe, and whether lawsuits were filed in response to an attack from the other party. That might show a much better view of who the aggressors and defenders are. We already know where apple lies, but some of the other companies I’m not so sure.
Edited 2012-07-31 16:03 UTC
Um, dude, Google doesn’t have the patent portfolio necessary to mount an attack on any of these companies, barring its Motorola acquisition of FRAND patents. They are now suing Microsoft via proxy Motorola over a ridiculous demand of 100x licensing of H.264 patents.
Edited 2012-08-01 02:00 UTC
tomcat,
“Um, dude, Google doesn’t have the patent portfolio necessary to mount an attack on any of these companies”
Point me to where that contradicts anything I said.
Google’s Motorola acquisition *could* help it mount offensive patent lawsuits, but I don’t believe that is their intent. Either way, we’ll have to watch their intentions pan out over time.
While you are here, maybe you could clear up a few questions: when did the lawsuit between ms and motorola begin and how does that relate to when google was able to effectively take over the company? Was it a countersuit? This helps to answer whether google had a causal involvement.
Edited 2012-08-01 04:12 UTC
Although Google effectively now owns Motorola, and it was Motorola’s patents that were part of the motivation for Google’s purchase: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2012/07/24/google-says-patents-tech-wer…
that is because Google doesn’t make money directly from their IP they are an advertising company so they most be everyone’s best friend.
Google only just started counter-suing through Motorola and only to try to force those attacking Android to enter a cross-license agreement, which short of a patent reform seems to be the only way to stop the madness.
Both apple and samsung should get a kick in their butt because both of them are playing the “sue eachother” game.
And i cannot believe that people have the time to write and comment on there apple vs samsung all the time, it feels like this is most of the stuff posted on osnews nowadays.
Give it a rest and report on more fun and interesting stuff.
I’m not blaming Thom for doing this at all. Things like this get people posting and creating new page views which brings in more money. Again, I don’t blame Thom at all for this.
The best thing to do is just pass by posts like this if you don’t like them. It’s like a TV. You have the remote. You can change the channel any time you want.
But I do wish there was more fun stuff too. But fun stuff takes time to research and it isn’t like Thom has a lot of free time to do this. You could always send Thom a million dollars and then he would probably have plenty of time to research and post more fun articles.
PS: Unfortunately there really isn’t too much interesting stuff going on with Amiga or Haiku (BeOS opensource clone), etc. Thom is doing the best he can but people have to do interesting fun stuff for him to have something to post.
Edited 2012-07-31 23:00 UTC
OSAlert is not a moneymaker. This is a labour of love. Whether we have x hits or x+1, it makes no difference. We get about enough to keep hosting up.
We’re not John Gruber who makes hundreds of thousands of dollars per year with his site. Would be awesome though.
I realize that. I’m just saying that it takes time to create this website and to find things and then to comment on them. If someone wants something significantly better, that would require more time. Are you saying you wouldn’t accept a million dollars if someone offered it to you? lol
Isn’t that after subtracting Aston Martins, though?
I only owned one Apple product and it broke within a year.
Probably never gonna buy from Apple ever again, because of their business practises
Edited 2012-08-01 09:12 UTC
Lucky you, it was still under warranty.
Long story short: it wasn’t in my case.
I’m still wondering why they keep showing silhouettes of my Tandy Model 100.
I remember this phone: http://pdadb.net/index.php?m=specs&id=362&c=dopod_818_htc_magician
I wanted it bad, yet roumors were flying of an phone from apple…. Guess what? dopod had rounded corners too…
Wanted this from 2002 too:
http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_ericsson_p800-326.php
Edited 2012-07-30 21:56 UTC
I wanted a similar HTC phone, but I was waiting for wifi, which never came.
I came.
Where were you in 2002 when I really needed you? Ten years later, I can’t go anywhere without running into you.
But it never made any sense to me to have a smart phone without you. GRPS internet access was worse than dial up most of the time.
I would have killed for the p900 back in the day, I just couldn’t afford it.
That apple choose Samsung to be the main opponent in their war against android, i could imagine a smaller company like HTC or LG probably could not stand this treatment for such a long time, having their products banned from major markets. I think those company’s would have been forced to ground long time ago. Samsung never felt forced to change their design just because a computer manufacturer had the idea to build mobile phones all off a sudden.
So basically, Apple is a scummy corporation and all companies share ideas from each other, including Apple. Pretty obvious so far.
But in this case, Apple is claiming that they did it first, when in reality Samsung actually has a full year on Apple, and they’ve even gone so far as to sue Samsung over it. My mind is about to explode at the arrogance, selfishness, and downright assholishness Apple is displaying with this move. Apple is a downright corrupt corporation. The fact that they got so big is disappointing–now they’re just bullying everyone else with cheap tactics.
Good read. I will never buy an Apple product. Never did, and never will. Apple just keeps giving me reasons not to. I think they might have struck a new low now.
“Apple wants to rewrite history. As a geek, I find that incredibly offensive.”
To be honest, I find Apple as a company to be incredibly offensive. Period.
[Former user UZ64 here–I will be using this username from now on.]
Edited 2012-07-31 04:11 UTC
Things usually start going bad when a company becomes publicly traded. After that they need to show profits every quarter.
The problem is that Apple and its irrational fans (including those in the media) have been distorting history by attributing disproportionate credit to Apple and maligning competitors as copycats. The sheer scale at which this distortion campaign is projected over the web is mind boggling. Today, Apple is more a myth manufacturer than a real manufacturer, far from what a real manufacturer like Samsung is. Apple is the best perception manager, even though it may be at the cost of distorting computing history.
It’s interesting to watch this unfold. On the one hand, you have people who support Apple, you have places like the Verge digging up Apple designs that pre-date these Samsung ones – that didn’t get reported here. You then get these, which definitely seems to support Samsung getting reported here.
It’s very easy to point a finger and shout “Thom is biased”, and he is. In his mind Apple lost/will lose/should lose. Samsung is right. Me, it’s not that simple. You have two companies desperately trying to prove they have bigger dicks. Whatever. I don’t care.
I’ve had some serious time on a Samsung phone now. My Daughter now owns a Galaxy Y. It’s a nice phone. Touch wiz is a bit iOS without being insanely iOS. The apps seem okay. It has a memory card slot, which is pretty cool. But, it didnt blow me away. Neither does iOS anymore. She paid ^Alb65 for the phone, though it is “pay as you go” it came from Carphonewarehouse and is “sim unlocked” which is pretty rad. Would I buy the Galaxy Ace 2? Yeah probably, ^Alb150 unlocked on PAYG. To own it outright. Shame it doesn’t have a micro sim slot though.
Edited 2012-07-31 09:35 UTC
Those are irrelevant since they don’t prove anything. Apple is the one claiming Samsung ripped off the *iPhone*. So, secret Apple designs from *before* the iPhone have no bearing on supporting that accusation, because being secret and all, Samsung could not have copied them.
They’re definitely interesting from a historical viewpoint, but they do not support Apple’s accusations in any way.
I’m indeed biased. I’m biased against patent trolls, and software and design patents because they are the biggest threat to this industry – even more so when it’s incumbents like Apple and Microsoft.
Edited 2012-07-31 09:51 UTC
Two words: industrial espionage.
I mean, come on, isn’t it obvious?
Yeah, you’re right. How could I have been so dense. Koreans wearing all-black sneaking into Cupertino HQ.
Sounds like a bad movie.
It is a bad movie . . . . . ;-))
featuring the corrupted sherrif Epplby!
Edited 2012-07-31 10:47 UTC
Really? Well, as Samsung just got slammed by the judge for releasing all of the above to the press – because they were deemed inadmissible in court, I really don’t see how any of your ambulance chasing is particularly helpful.
Yep. They did. It’s pretty clear they have far less evidence that is admissible in court to back up the opposite claim. Or are you calling the judge a liar?
Cherry pick your standards. *clapping hands* so classy. Of course, the iPod classic didn’t exist back then. And it doesn’t have a similar form factor. And of course, the fact that Samsung have been documented in the press stating that they were enamoured with Apple’s designs and were trying to emulate them, well that’s just lies too, right?
There you go people. Nothing more to see here. Move along. Right/wrong, who gives a fcuk. So long as Thom gets to argue and feel superior. Seriously, grow up. This is still two companies trying to win a dick waving contest, plain and simple. Neither deserves to win. One is being a bully, one is being a clone. Neither deserve to benefit from any of this. But as a journalist, either grow some balls and be unbiased or get someone else to write stories you have an emotional attachment to.
Truth hurts?
The evidence was deemed inadmissible because it was submitted late, not because it wasn’t valid.
I’m guessing that you knew this already but it didn’t fit in with your argument.
Currently, I am working on Flying Sources (just for records)!
yes, they did: Xerox did search for computer company that could bring their technology to mass market. They choose Apple. In return Xerox got opportunity to invest in pre-IPO start-up Apple (Xerox bought 100,000 shares of Apple at the pre-IPO price of $10 a share).
I am bored debunking this myth (Apple steal from Xerox) all over again but it is nice to see that others also find out the truth, now it is even on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Apple_Inc.#Xerox_PARC_and_t…
anyway, did you know that IBM did consider buying Xerox back then in 70s….
winners write history, right?
essentially, Apple was one that gave Microsoft chance to succeed with Windows: Apple bring DRi’s GEM to court and effectively cripple it! (DRi need to remove windows resizing and overlapping options, to limit GEM on only two window…) which gave Microsoft chance to succeed with Windows.
Atari GEM was not crippled and there was many beautiful applications for Atari GEM that latter was ported to Microsoft Windows 95.
and yes, Apple got much more credits today than they deserve
(btw 1984. Mac was pure technical shit compering it to ST alone; not to mention Amiga 
)
keyword is: MULTITOUCH.
so all yours complain are irrelevant (no one had multitouch interface on phone before iPhone).
apple bought FingerWorks on time since they know that they want MULTITOUCH! (others switch to multitouch after iPhone)
…which has been in development for 30-40 years. Apple did not invent it, nor was it the only one who saw the potential.
Not invent, implement. No one else implemented it in any practical way.
Which is irrelevant to this case. My 1200 EUR Sony Bravia is, by every possible standard, a better implementation of the TV than the first television sets. However, this doesn’t mean Sony gets to claim it invented the TV.
Invention is all that matters – all that should matter. There is not a single invention in the iPhone. It’s all existing work. They did it well – but that still doesn’t mean Apple invented it.
I find it fascinating how people have such a hard time understanding what “inventing” means.
Implement. Did I mention “invent”? The problem is, implementation *should* be key in all hardware patents.
If Apple created a phone form factor with a multitouch screen, then with in the next 2 years 50+ phones appeared with that style of interface – what conclusion should we draw?
The strange thing is I’m very much in to Apple stuff, like Apple related news sites, but nobody ever claims Apple “invented” the iPhone or any of its features. It’s the Apple haters/Google lovers that for some reason say that Apple and its loyal band of supporters claim that Apple does this.
You’re projecting all kinds of wrongness on Apple and then attack them on those points or use them to ridicule Apple.
Then you clearly haven’t been reading Apple’s legal briefs.
You’re doing this for the last few years now, I doubt that you read Apple’s legal brief from this case years before it started.
Legal briefs are designed to stand up in court. Lawyers spend their lives picking holes in other peoples lives/interests. That has little to do with the reality outside of the courtroom. And Samsung’s lawyers will be doing their best to do the same. Once you enter a Court of law, gloves come off and reality ceases for both parties – seriously. It’s all about painting the most believable picture, otherwise injustices would never happen. Reality outside of litigation, on the other hand, there’s a different outlook. You seem to miss that entirely. You also seem only to be able to see black and white in any argument. There’s no black and white in this, nor any other court battle. Human’s are fallible, weak and have extremely selective memory (and this is even in built as many studies have shown.) We remember what we want to, not what necessarily actually happened. End of story.
Uh… Where did I make this claim in the article? As usual, you’re reading things you want to read, instead of reading what’s actually there.
I personally still don’t really see the need for multitouch. Doesn’t really provide anything special. Pinch to zoom is annoying and other than that, don’t really use multitouch for anything. I’m sure there are applications out there that depend on it but I haven’t come across any that I need yet.
Apple, Amiga, and Digital Research (GEM) all developed a fourth generation GUI simultaneously in pretty much the same timespan. However, these days, many people just give all the credit to Apple and be done with it.
They give credit where it is due and you don’t, you rewrite history. Lisa OS was presented to the public in January 1983, Mac OS in January 1984. A first prototype of GEM was presented at the Comdex in November 1984 and it only shipped in February 1985. The Development of the Amiga was mostly about its hardware until 1984, the Lorraine prototype still used BASiC as OS iirc. RC Mical only started in 1984 to write the Amiga GUI library Intuition. The Amiga 100 shipped in July 1985 (I got mine in 1986). So Apple was selling a working product before DR & AMIGA/Commodore had anything to show. I wouldn’t call that simultaneously development. Visi On was developed at the same time as Apples two GUIs and it was quite different.
Yes but unlike the monochrome, mono sounding Macs and their single tasking and non responsive Mac OS, the Amiga provide near photo quality color, stereo sound, real multitasking, and the closest to an Unix system a mortal user can get.
Yes, the hardware and the operating system where far better, but Thom was speaking about the GUI and the GUI was definitely inspired by the Mac Finder and not as refined. I switched from Amiga to Mac in 92 and I missed the smooth multitasking and the direct access to the system, but certainly not the GUI.
I know I am going to get crucified for this but I don’t think Apple is fighting touchscreen phones but more it’s business model of course there is prior art in all this but how far in the past can we go? I mean Apple had the MessagePad A.K.A Newton long before, even Start Trek had the idea of touch devices. But if you look at the first Samsung’s they copycat even the charging cable. Maybe they felt that they had the right to do so because they had been working with touchscreen phones.
Some people say that without Apple someone had come with the same idea and maybe they are right but the same idea does’t mean is the same product and the same timeline and the same success.
Most companies like to milk up technology until is drained so I’m sure that without Apple we would have had the same technology. I think we would still be using the same kind of phones we had before 2006. Apple did open up the market and push the technology.
The only reason these companies were able to get their products out is because of Android and the fact that is virtually cost-free. It took almost 10 years for Apple an OS experienced company to mature an OS and come up with an great operating system ready touch-based mobile phones. Look how much has cost to Microsoft do the same thing with Windows Phone and we are talking about the cash cow Microsoft. And the most ironic thing is that the copycat master manage to come up with something truly unique.
Edited 2012-07-31 16:26 UTC
The power cable that Samsung “copied” happens to be a standard non proprietary plug. Its meant to be copied. As for design, its very simple. Phones led to the design of a touch screen front on a device. Lots of examples of this. The iPad is just a giant iphone. If Samsung was truly copying Apple, Samsung devices wouldn’t lack the polish in certain places. Because its not so much the quality of the software (granted bad code leads to bugs) but the design which shows off the polish of the OS.
Sources please. No seriously, just wan’t to read that.
That’s got to be one of the most clueless comments I’ve ever seen.
An iPhone or iPod Touch is like looking through a key hole in a door. An iPad is like opening up the door and walking inside. VERY different. The bigger screens gives the app maker room to do things in very different ways which makes it a very different experience.
Which my iPhone I pretty much only consume information.
With my iPad I create things every day. I’m able to do about 90% of what I used to do on a laptop. I definitely wouldn’t be able to say that about my iPhone.
he said:
>The iPad is just a giant iphone.
You said:
>”That’s got to be one of the most clueless comments I’ve ever seen…..VERY different. The bigger screens gives the app maker room to do things in very different ways”
Since we are talking about hardware I think “giant iPhone” and “bigger screen” aren’t terribly far apart. Besides, here is a tablet concept from 1994: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBEtPQDQNcI
The idea goes back to the 60’s.
HAHAHA, please, elaborate on this. First, where do you get this 90% figure? And then what kinds of things do you “create” on an iPad/tablet? As a tablet owner, I can say my tablet experience is that of consumption, exactly the way my smartphone is, save for making phone calls. A tablet (iPad in your case being the Apple fanboy you seem to be based on this thread) is a form factor pretty much catered towards consumption. So, I am, and I’m sure others are too, curious as to what you do differently with this kind of device.
I agree with the original post you quoted, the iPad is really just a big iPhone, but with slightly less functionality since it doesn’t natively make phone calls.
I’ve got a 1st and 3rd gen Apple iPad with an Apple bluetooth keyboard.
What do/can I create on them?
Spreadsheets. No I don’t create thousands of lines in spreadsheets. I used to but I don’t work in a financial company anymore. Numbers is more than capable for this. And I can send my spreadsheets to people with Excel.
Note that people that makes big money don’t need big spreadsheets. Only the little worker bees do. No, I’m not rich or poor. I’m in between.
Pages. This is a place where I create large documents of over 200 pages. 200 pages is large for me and not a limitation of my iPad.
Websites. It is very easy to remote into a server and edit HTML and XML using an iPad.
Music with garage band. The limitations are my talent and not the program. Nine Inch Nails often use Garage Band on iPads to sketch out songs and even released an album with music only created and edited with Garage Band. Are they big enough to count?
Do you know that there are been quite a few magazine covers with artwork by renowned artists created on iPhones and iPads? No. Look up the New Yorker for one. I believe there is at least one Time magazine cover.
You can use the iPad and bluetooth keyboard to remote into a remote computer at home or at work and write and compile programs? I won’t put words in your mouth that this doesn’t count. Tell that to the programmers I know that do this and love the fact that the iPad and bluetooth keyboard weighs less than the Windows laptops they use to use.
People use iPads to write their blogs. Keeps in mind that some of these people make a LOT of money. Not because of what they write it on but because of the content. Oh, the stuff people say can’t be created on an iPad? Yes, content. Ok, maybe I did put works in your mouth that time.
Just because you can’t create things on an iPad doesn’t mean VERY successful people can’t because they can and DO.
So you have a laptop
.
A crippled one at that!
It’s only crippled if you can’t figure out how to use them. It’s not the device. It’s the user.
Sabon,
“It’s only crippled if you can’t figure out how to use them. It’s not the device. It’s the user.”
Clearly they’re holding it wrong
Thanks for the laugh!
I’ll have to remember THAT one!
Thom Holwerda,
“So you have a laptop
.”
+1 if I could. It’s funny that people buy tablets, and then add on laptopesque accessories. Though I can’t say I blame them, having played with my wife’s tablet with and without a keyboard, there’s no doubt that the keyboard is the uncontested winner for text entry. Maybe the pendulum of time will swing back again and give us tablets with swivel keyboards which give the best of both words, just like we used to have. Only this time they’ll be lighter and much more affordable.
You must do very, very little with computers if you can do 90% of the work you do using a tablet. Seriously – I would refrain from making comments like that if you want people to take you seriously.
and palm had it’s first pda (the zoomer) on the streets one year prior to the newton
and those palm-bastards iirc came from grid, a company you definitely should take a closer look at
you are kidding, aren’t you?
Well despite the argument that Apple copy Xerox (Although legally) they had the first comercial graphic OS and they had it for many many years (what like 20) and if you compare it with Samsung I haven’t heard they have an in house OS, plus Mac OS X was a really advanced OS back then although again they bought from NeXT (you all know the story) and please lets not get into the GNU is better, that is a really subjective issue. In any case Apple has been developing OS from more than 20 years I think I think they might have a little experience developing OS’s. If they don’t bring any more advancements is because money wise reasons
Interesting fact about the Palm Zoomer.
Edited 2012-08-01 02:36 UTC
What about the linux kernel? Android with a some specific changes uses it, and it’s 21 years old.
They did not. That honour belongs to the Xerox Star, launched in 1981. See what I mean with people not having a clue about history and just assuming Apple did everything?
I don’t even know what this is supposed to mean. Are you saying nobody had a graphical operating system for 20 years after the release of the first Mac? What does this even mean?
They have loads. Every one of their feature phones runs on an operating system, and, of course, they have Bada.
When you really break it down, Apple only developed the original Mac OS, and then failed utterly and completely at keeping it up to date. All their other projects in this space failed miserably – so they had to buy their way out.
Your post is a perfect illustration of what I meant in the article: people have no clue about history, and just parrot whatever they read in Apple forums without actually bothering to look up the facts.
Did Xerox actually have many commercial sales? As I remember it was a flop. May be “first commercially successful” would be accurate? And this isn’t the Mac, this is the Lisa.
Wrong. Or is the Mac OS X on my Mac Mini Scotch Mist? The Openstep on my old grey box bears almost no resemblance to Mac OS X 10.0, let alone 10.7. There are a few similarities, but then there are as many to Classic MacOS also. So, you are now belittling the 10+ years Apple worked on OS X?
Yep, indeed Thom.
That’s not relevant to if it was first or not. Lisa was also a commercial failure for Apple, btw.
Shifting the goalpasts. Apple fans’ favourite pasttime. Oh, so Apple didn’t invent it? So what, they were the first to be commercially successful with it! Oh, they weren’t the first to be commercially successful? Well, they were the first to do it right!
So predictable.
As far as I remember, the macintosh 128k was a success (or at least not a failure) and released in 1984. So you could say Apple had the first commercially successful GUI OS, just not with the Lisa.
Edited 2012-08-01 09:56 UTC
First Consumer GUI = LisaOS
First commercially successful GUI = MacOS
Yeah, I though on it a little and became dubious about the Lisa being all that successful.
But quantitatively, “commercial successful” is so subjective. If there was nothing competing, it had nothing to really compare it to.
Hmm..I’ll still go with Xerox Star on this one.
well, you could apply that to the Xerox Star too; it might not have sold much but there was nothing before it to compete with.
Or you can compare macintosh to the later Amiga which had many more units sold, at least outside the U.S.
Edited 2012-08-01 12:48 UTC
You keep the Star, I’d take the VIC-20:
The Xerox Star was not originally meant to be a stand-alone computer, but to be part of an integrated Xerox “personal office system” that also connected to other workstations and network services via Ethernet. Although a single unit sold for $16,000, a typical office would have to purchase at least 2 or 3 machines along with a file server and a name server/print server. Spending $50,000 to $100,000 for a complete installation was not an easy sell, when a secretary’s annual salary was about $12,000 and a Commodore VIC-20 cost around $300.
Might want to give source there (Wikipedia)
.
Hold on, hold on! I was just about to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Star
And you don’t ever shift goal posts? So, this entire tirade is based on evidence the court struck off. Want to print a retraction? No, didn’t think so. Because you’re happy to believe what you’re spoon feed by Samsung’s legal team.
Please provide a citation that disproves that fact. Whilst you’re at it, please verify the context that the original correction came from. I suggested that the OP was thinking of “popular” or “consumer” level sales. Have you ever seen a Xerox Star outside of a museum? Have you ever seen a Mac outside of a museum? I rest my case.
“*Mutter* *mutter* you damn kids GET OF MY LAWN!” Where should I mail you your pipe and slippers?
IIRC the Alto was never sold to the public, only to labs and universities. And not in great numbers.
Wether Thom likes it or not Apple brought the GUI to the homes and they didn’t rip Xerox off.
the alto wasn’t but the star was
and it still predates the lisa by 2 years
But the Lisa was stupidly expensive and the Star cost close to 10 times as much as the Lisa. I’d hazard a guess that the Lisa outsold the Stars sold from its release (so 3 years) in its first year by a high margin. Honestly, credit where it’s due, the Alto (not the Star) inspired the Lisa’s OS, but reality then kicks in – Xerox sold next to no units. Apart from a few magazine articles in the US, the Star was pretty much known outside of very specific circles.
Edited 2012-08-01 15:24 UTC
10k$ (lisa) vs 16k$ (star) is not 10x
and for it’s time and price 25k sold stars isn’t something to be ashamed of
Xerox Star sold 25k, Apple Lisa 100k. 70k Macs were sold in the first three months, thats a different league.
Lisa was a stand alone, single user system. The Star required (or maybe worked best) in a networked environment.
“When you really break it down, Apple only developed the original Mac OS, ”
“Wrong. Or is the Mac OS X on my Mac Mini Scotch Mist?”
I have no doubt that Apple would have preferred to use the Linux kernel for OS X but took FreeBSD as their liberal licence allowed Apple to take all their hard work and give nothing back. They made a pretty interface with many fans but can’t take credit for the underlying OS.
Oh yeah, as Thom says, you are guilty of trying to move the goalposts on the original argument on the first GUI… at least try to be objective.
You need to do some fact checking. Darwin for instance.
PS: If you don’t know how to use it, it doesn’t mean a lot of other people can’t.
So you have some fanboys voting for your ignorance, bully for you.
Apple take the BSD kernel, make minor contributions to make their stuff work and everything useful is closed source. You can’t run OS X apps on Darwin, no-one uses it and in fact OpenDarwin closed years ago; citing that it “become a mere hosting facility for Mac OS X related projects,”
I’m guilty of hyperbole but their contribution to the hand that feeds them is microscopic, you’re acting like a shill.
Webkit wasn’t created by Apple but they used it and gave back a lot of updates to it. So does Google and so does FireFox…
I’d say that it was because of Apple adding what they did to webkit that Firefox and Google became intersted in it. Surely you will give them this if nothing else.
PS: They are not going to give out all their code for free. They would have to be complete idiots to do that. If you were to run the company and do what you say Apple should do, it wouldn’t exist in two or three years.
Edited 2012-08-02 18:50 UTC
Where are those goalposts? Could have sworn the Apple OS ball was in there but via some kind of reality distortion, they’ve moved.
Not even going to get started on Apple (and others) trying to control web standards for their own ends… Go away troll.
I personnally have not moved the goal posts. I still back everything I’ve said in this discussion. If you can’t figure out how to use an iPad to be very productive and creative then it is the user and their lack of imagination that is slowing them down or stopping them.
I ADDED webkit to this discusision. I notice that you didn’t have anything to refute about what I said about this.
Exactly how is Apple (or Google or Firefox) controlling webkit to meet their own ends? Since it is open and they are all contributing to it I can’t figure out how your comment idea works.
Edited 2012-08-02 19:18 UTC
PS: Microsoft or anyone can (quite a few others not named have) create their own web browsers based on top of webkit. The rules are that you have to contribute back to it just like the previously mentioned companies/groups.
firefox is using gecko, not webkit
They did not. That honour belongs to the Xerox Star, launched in 1981. See what I mean with people not having a clue about history and just assuming Apple did everything?
I don’t even know what this is supposed to mean. Are you saying nobody had a graphical operating system for 20 years after the release of the first Mac? What does this even mean? [/q]
You misinterpreted everything, Mac OS X was the first successful graphical OS plus I was pointing out they have been in the business for quite some time
Interesting about BADA yet they released it 2 years ago and they are pretty much not using it. And using someone else maintained OS is not the same as developing.
As I pointed out we all know that Apple bought NeXT and so their experience, plus it doesn’t matter how bad pre-mac-os-x was you don’t make a mainstream OS without gaining experience. For instance Windows , before Windows 7 it was pretty much dated from the technological point of view yet the Microsoft Engineers are so good that they manage to keep a really crapy OS usable.
[/q]
Dude this is just a shallow discussion we are not looking world peace, take it easy.
Edited 2012-08-02 17:41 UTC
Well, if we are going to ignore:
– the Alto’s GUI;
– the GUIs of about a zillion ATM machines in the 1970s;
– the GUIs of 1970s home video games;
then the Three Rivers;Perq/Accent GUI is certainly the strongest contender for the first “commercial” GUI: http://toastytech.com/guis/guitimeline.html
The “GUI Timeline” shows that the Perq was released in 1980 (prior to the Xerox Star and anything Apple), but it was definitely shown around in 1979 and there were Perq brochures circulating in 1979.
A lot of Perqs were sold, but I fail to see the significance of their “commercialization” — the Alto had a GUI six years earlier.
Furthermore, I am fairly sure that there were several additional non-Apple/non-Xerox GUI players showing product around 1981-1982.
At any rate, this GUI first (and all of the other innumerable non-Apple firsts) has nothing to do with the quite obvious fact that Samsung didn’t copy the Iphone design and that the Iphone was not the first “fully” touch-screen smart-phone in its genre/”form factor.”
No, as Thom said that was the Xerox Star.
Uh, no. Seriously, wtf? Digital’s GEM came out in 1985, and so did Windows 1.0. Amiga and Atari ST in 1987. X Windows came out in 1984.
Bada. Not that it matters if they have decades of experience or not. It’s the end product that counts.
Yeah, it was SOOO advanced. Windows had nothing on it…
“Advanced” is more than a fancy GUI.
Ah, just like how you claim OSX was “really advanced”.
Sure, too bad they rested on their laurels for some 20 years and almost went under. I guess bad experience is also experience.
Ah, so they will stop innovating again and let the competition kill them? Because that’s money wise.
Edited 2012-08-01 09:29 UTC
And the Lisa was released in January 1983, and it had a wholly graphical OS. Your point is therefore moot.
My comment was about the 20 years which seemed to imply that there was no other commercially successful GUI in 20 years.
I’ve added in the aspects I believe validate the statement**, but even if you ignore them, in no way does that say “the only Graphical os for 20 years” or “only successful graphical os”. What it says is two statements joined with “and”. If you delete the and and replace it with a period, the meaning doesn’t change, but then maybe you might re-read it and realise your error.
Let me help you:
1) They had the first commercial graphical OS (LisaOS)
2) They had (Mac OS) for many many years
They did have the first commercial OS presented to consumers (LisaOS) and first widely commercially successful Graphical OS (Classic MacOS) and they did continue to produce MacOS right on into the 2000’s from January 1984.
** change “commercially successful” for “commercial consumer” if you want to, still true.
Well, I was pretty sure it didn’t really mean “no other GUI for 20 years” since that’s an absurd statement but the sentence was so badly phrased and ambiguous that I just had to pick on it.
If you want you can also read it as they kept using Lisa for 20 years.
Both the Amiga 1000 and the Atari ST were on the shelves in 1985, not 1987. The Amiga 500 was released in 1987.
And it’s X Window System, not X Windows.
Edited 2012-08-01 10:47 UTC
Ooops, remembered that wrong.
One must never forget the Amiga! Never mind the ST though.
…this Apple-bashing is becoming a little stale, Thom… Move along! Please..
(No, I used to own a iphone 3g, rooted, i liked it though it was slow as molasses, but now have an SEM Arc S, nicest design, but slow as well!)
Are you not exaggerating with Apple?
Even Google warned Samsung about the design of its early android phones!
You DO know that Apple negotiated with Xerox PARC stock and Xerox negotiated Apple stock with Xerox later cashed in for $16 million dollars. That was back in the early ’80s when $16 million was a lot more than it is now. So it isn’t like Apple ripped off Xerox like Microsoft and other companies did.
I claimed as such?
Huh. I think you might want to read that again.
I didn’t say that you said that. But others inferred that Apple ripped off Xerox so I wanted to correct that.
The main issue is that Samsung created their products so that people will see them and think they are an Apple device. Even Samsung’s lawyers couldn’t tell them apart.
It’s not just the hardware. It’s the visuals on the devices themselves. They purposely tried to make their devices look as much as possible like the iPhone/Touch/iPad.
We know what to look for, if someone where to cover up the hardware part, to tell if it is an Apple device or something else. A lot of people can’t tell though.
I’ve more than a couple of people tell me they had an Samsung iPad. That is their words. They were things they couldn’t figure out and showed it to me. They weren’t happy with the device and were complaining about it. They were shocked when I told them it wasn’t an iPad.
Note: The people bought them at Best Buy. They had gone in and said they wanted an iPad. The person acted like it was an iPad when they bought it. They took them back and got their money back then went to an Apple store and bought iPads. They are happier now.
The problem I have with this argument is that Samsung tablets have Samsung written on the front! Where does Apple have it’s name or logo? On the back! I would argue it is Apple that deliberately designed a device that was ambiguous. As for the people calling tablets in general iPad’s that is common in our world. Many cassette players were called “Walkman’s”, many MP3 players were called “iPods” and many vacuum cleaners are called “Hovers” by consumers. However that is a consumer terminology issue not proof of copying.
People may call other vacuum cleaners Hoovers (they are starting to call them Dysons now) but the companies that made them are not allowed to make them look exactly or almost exactly the same. They have to make them look different enough or the get sued.
The same is true for tablets or should be.
My main thing is. How lazy and pathetic is Samsung that they can’t come up with their own look?
Don’t all tv’s look essentially the same? Wouldn’t the salesperson be to blame for selling a Samsung TV to someone that wanted a Sony TV rather than blaming Samsung for making their TV’s look like black rectangles?
This is a trademark issue, or trade dress issue. It has nothing to do with patents.
If this anecdote is true, then Apple may have a case against the store and the salesman who was trying to pass off a Samsung tablet as an iPad. Samsung themselves do not try to pretend their tablets are iPads. There is no case against Samsung. The Samsung tablets bear none of Apple’s trade dress. Insofar as Samsung tablets do seem similar to iPads, this is due only to the fact that Samsung are making a competing tablet device, and it has to look like that.
Just as GM cars look superficially like Ford cars, because they are both cars, this does NOT mean that Ford gets to sue GM. Competition is an essential feature of a capitalist economy, the economy wouldn’t function well at all if no competing products were allowed.
Apple simply doesn’t win this case by throwing a hissy fit and saying “Samsung gear looks a bit like our gear”. Not going to happen. Is that clear?
Edited 2012-08-01 03:52 UTC
I don’t think most people are too stupid to notice the Samsung logo.
That happens sometimes, just like people used to call their Walkman a Walkman even if it wasn’t a Sony. There’s plenty of examples of this in history.
So it’s a Best Buy problem, not a Samsung problem.
I think you would be more surprised than me. I’m been supporting computers since 1979. I’ve been amazed at how many people mistake something for something else even though it is obvious to us.
And that last part is important. We know what to look for. A lot of people don’t and expect to have a certain experience with the product and get a “bait and switch” where sales people (and the company) are paid extra to push device X (such as Samsung) and pretend they are selling the person what they asked for.
Note that this happens a LOT with car dealers. They don’t switch brands but they purposely try to sell you a car with less than what you asked for at the higher price because the lower priced car hasn’t been selling so the boss tells them to “do whatever you can without lower the price much”.
Just ask someone what version of Windows they are using and you’ll meet people that don’t know, despite having a Windows XP splash screen while booting for years.
And some answer Microsoft, Windows 97, Office or even stranger things.
Some people buy an Android tablet thinking they now have an iPad. Not sure changing the shape or color would/could prevent that though.
These people are out there and have a vote in the next election.
They must enjoy paying the Apple tax and getting ass raped.
Did you guys remember that the DARPA founded Google, I don’t think they did just because they are cool guys.
No, I don’t remember that but that’s because it didn’t happen.
DARPA is not a founder of Google.
I remember clearly, some years ago I read the news. Not the same news but is an article about it.
http://bit.ly/NKxwGV
Edited 2012-08-02 04:03 UTC
Anyway, any American company has to do what their government says, otherwise people who does not obey… will go to jail.
The same can be said about communications companies and, of course, any government and its companies.
So your data should be where you trust it.
The lawyers for Motorola/Google need to look back at the MDT products, some of which had touch screens. These were mobile data products and can still be found in police cars.
If everyone else digs through their design history files which all ISO compliant companies will have, Apple will be left without any patents.
Hoping this cellphone be better than iPhone, so both can get better and also why not??? wait a drop in the prices
Who else would think it ethical to get the court to block key evidence that proves you are wrong and then calls Samsung unethical for making sure the public is aware of the facts?
Apple of course.
About being an artist and using an iPad. Here is another thing that makes an iPad flexible. Note that styluses are wrong for most things. Drawing is a different type of user. Here we go for those that can’t understand what can be done with an iPad. This from http://www.tuaw.com/2012/08/01/adonit-jot-touch-pressure-sensitive-…
Note: I have NO connection to http://www.tuaw.com nor the company that makes the follow product.
Adonit Jot Touch pressure-sensitive Bluetooth stylus for iPad
by Steven Sande Aug 1st 2012 at 6:00PM
Although there are many electrostatic styluses for the iPad for those who wish to use them, the seemingly unattainable goal of creating a pressure-sensitive stylus eluded peripheral manufacturers until now. Adonit’s Jot Touch (US$99.99) became available to the public earlier this week, becoming the first pressure-sensitive stylus for the iPad.
See the link for the whole article. It’s a very good website for things Apple. Don’t read it if you want to stay in the dark under your bed about what iPads and other Apple devices can create and do.
Sabon,
“Don’t read it if you want to stay in the dark under your bed about what iPads and other Apple devices can create and do.”
I think you are being overly defensive about legitimate criticism of your favoured tablet platform.
Just because one CAN do something doesn’t make it a good tool for the job. Obviously you *can* use your tablet to do things it’s not particularly good at, but that’s shifting to a “jack of all trades, master of none” philosophy – instead of using a tablet for what it’s good at, you try to use it everywhere.
Sometimes a tablet w/stylus may be an excellent artistic tool. On the other hand, many touch interface devices have regressed from the usability of physical counterparts and are far less efficient to use. Just because they can emulate physical devices doesn’t make them as good. A typing keyboard is an obvious example. I’ve seen ads feature a tablet piano and guitar, which a professional would only consider using as gimmicks, which is clearly what they were even in the ads. They certainly don’t replace the real deal for professionals.
We weigh the pros and cons between a number of competing factors: cost/portability/power/screens/data entry/interaction efficiency/etc. If the tablet adds up, then great! If not, then maybe you should admit that using a tablet can sometimes be like fitting a round peg into a square hole (so to speak). Just because it’s possible to jerry-rig it with accessories doesn’t mean it’s a good idea…pros and cons.
Edit: one example of a good tablet application is GPS. Our tablet makes an excellent GPS device. But let’s not kid ourselves and pretend they’re suitable for professional office work unless there are no other computers around.
Edited 2012-08-02 17:26 UTC
Just because it is not particularly good for you doesn’t mean it isn’t great, for the things I stated, for other people.
Take the typewriter for instance. A LOT of great movies and books were created on a typewriter. I’m guessing you would not think it would be a good device for creating these.
The same with a pen. You may think a pen isn’t of much use in society now. But remember that a pen is mightier than a sword. It’s the _person_ wielding the tool.
Sabon,
“Just because it is not particularly good for you doesn’t mean it isn’t great, for the things I stated, for other people.”
Again, we all know that you CAN do alot on these tablets, but the question is whether it enhances productivity/creativity or imposes a burden.
You brought up the spreadsheet example. Do you think a tablet spreadsheet app is as great as a desktop spreadsheet for entering data, copying data from other sources, and manipulating formulas? Of course not, textual data entry is a sore point for touch interfaces. You can mitigate some of the limitations with laptop accessories, but that’s an implicit acknowledgement that a laptop design is better for some tasks.
You also brought up web development…Absolutely unthinkable without a laptopesque keyboard. The inability to view multiple windows for control panels and user pages and code simultaneously is a sure set back. Looking up information/emails and copying code/HTML is awkward on a tablet. Viewing pages in various resolutions is difficult without windows. Selecting/transferring files is faster on a desktop. Running background tasks/monitoring logs while simultaneously hitting a page is impossible with a single window tablet UI. I don’t even know if the tablet can run network traces without cheating and opening a session to a “real computer” to do the work. Sure it’s *possible* to webdev from a tablet, it’s just not ideal. If you do it, don’t be surprised when your efficiency goes into the toilet.
“Take the typewriter for instance. A LOT of great movies and books were created on a typewriter. I’m guessing you would not think it would be a good device for creating these.”
What’s that got to do with anything? Unless they were a raving Underwood fanboy or lacked electricity, said person wouldn’t use a one over a computer today.
A tablet is great at some things, not great at others. It’s a simple plain truth.
First of all, have you read __anything__, actually read anything I’ve typed so far? If yes, you will see that I say that I have an iPad and a bluetooth keyboard.
HP now has a touch desktop computer where you can work on your desktop computer with a mouse and keyboard but just using your fingers on the screen. Even with the larger screen you need a keyboard and mouse on a computer. With an iPad, working with spreadsheets, you only need to add a keyboard.
I will ONLY admit that laptops can be better for some things if you admit that iPads can be better at creating things than a laptop. I said createing things, not consuming things.
I will admit that working in spreadsheets of any size entering numbers or letters requires not only a keyboard but a keyboard with a number pad (note that I have one of these that is also bluetooth and looks like Apple made it but it was made by a third party company and works very well with my iPad.).
Sometimes a laptop would work better. MORE often, most often, for ME, having a laptop would be a waist as it is heavier and cumbersome and feels like using a typewriter now after using my iPad with Apple bluetooth keyboard and 3rd party bluetooth number pad.
Sabon,
“First of all, have you read __anything__, actually read anything I’ve typed so far? If yes, you will see that I say that I have an iPad and a bluetooth keyboard.”
Yes, actually, it’s what I meant by “that’s an implicit acknowledgement that a laptop design is better for some tasks.”
“I will ONLY admit that laptops can be better for some things if you admit that iPads can be better at creating things than a laptop. I said createing things, not consuming things.”
Um…ok, although I never said otherwise. I just think your examples of web development and spreadsheets are terrible illustrations of a tablet’s superior creative potential.
“Sometimes a laptop would work better. MORE often, most often, for ME, having a laptop would be a waist as it is heavier and cumbersome and feels like using a typewriter now after using my iPad with Apple bluetooth keyboard and 3rd party bluetooth number pad.”
Alfman: “…We weigh the pros and cons between a number of competing factors: cost/portability/power/screens/data entry/interaction efficiency/etc. If the tablet adds up, then great!”
I’m going to assume that we are in agreement then.
I think we might both benefit from a light tablet/laptop combo, since for both of us – touch screens are not enough.
So we agree that iPads (and other tablets to a lesser degree) can be great tools for creating lots of different things including spreadsheets with say a couple thousand lines (and maybe more) and large documents and taking and editing video without another device and so on.
And that laptops can’t do some things that iPads, etc., can do, since they aren’t as portable and might not have as high a quality of video/still picture cameras built into them or would be combersome to use. But at the same time if you have using very big spreadsheets then for now (iPads are only a little more than two years old) it is easier to build big spreadsheets with laptops and desktop computers.
Then yes, I agree with you.
No they aren’t. My friends do this a LOT and are VERY happy with the way the iPad works as a device to remote into their home computers instead of lugging around their much, much heavier laptops. Yes they bring their bluetooth keyboards with them. But they are still happier than with laptops.
Your mileage will vary.
If you put on different filters on your telescope (visible light, infrared light, radio telescopes) you can see different things. If you are only willing to look at visible light, there are lot of things you will never be able to see in the universe. (That’s not a quote but my own words. I’m sure someone else said it a lot better.)
Edited 2012-08-02 23:35 UTC
Sabon,
“So we agree that iPads (and other tablets to a lesser degree) can be great tools for creating lots of different things including spreadsheets with say a couple thousand lines (and maybe more) and large documents and taking and editing video without another device and so on.”
In principal sure, but frankly you’ve chosen poor examples. If you want to highlight where the tablet truly shines, you really need to pick examples that benefit from touch interfacing, video editing might be one, CAD might be another, taking handwritten notes and annotations is another, etc.
“No they aren’t. My friends do this a LOT and are VERY happy with the way the iPad works as a device to remote into their home computers instead of lugging around their much, much heavier laptops.”
The need to remote into a desktop “a LOT” in the first place is a reminder of how the desktop is more useful than the tablet for those tasks, otherwise those tasks would be done on the tablet itself and no desktop would even be necessary.
“Yes they bring their bluetooth keyboards with them. But they are still happier than with laptops.”
I suspect many of them would be very tempted by a lightweight ARM touchscreen swivel laptop. It’d be better than toting around a separate keyboard all the time.
Actually no. This is a tech site and most of the people here are tech people including programmers. I’m here (on my own behest) to say that for techs that iPads are very good at things that including using a bluetooth keyboard _as_well_as just using touch. And I did list several things that I and a couple other people you that only work using touch.
Examples of this is iPhoto and iMovie, if you are limiting yourself to touch only. This, to me, would be the equivalent to saying that I’m going to remove my mouse since PCs were designed from the start to only need a keyboard and a mouse was added later. For me, it is a no brianer to add a bluetooth keyboard since you can buy word processing programs to my iPad, which I did, and that combination works _great_. I also works great for programming while tunneling in from an iPad to a home or work computer when you don’t want to lug the extra weight of a laptop but also want a device that is great at touch programs too. So what if they need to remote in.
I’m curious though. Again referencing the fact that this is OSAlert.com and we are techs here. Do you work for a company that uses VPN? If no, this is probably why the idea of remotely connecting to a computer to work is foreign to you.
For me, it stopped being foreign back in the 80s when I dialed into work remotely to manage servers and I set some users to be able to work from home with sensitive data (we had encryption software at both ends to encrypt the data …) on the companies computers.
“No they aren’t. My friends do this a LOT and are VERY happy with the way the iPad works as a device to remote into their home computers instead of lugging around their much, much heavier laptops.”
How do I put this that I haven’t already.
Just because device “R” is not the best device for you. It doesn’t mean that it isn’t the best device for LOTS of people.
Just because you are stuck thinking that typewriters are the best things for people that write books, doesn’t mean that computers are better for most people moving forward.
Is an iPad the best device for everyone. No. And I never said that.
Is it a device that can be great at doing everything that I have listed?
YES. Emphatically yes. It is a great device for myself and my friends that use them in the ways that I have listed.
The question is, why are you unable to believe this? Why can you not embrace the fact that there are other great ways to do things other than then the way that you do them?
Ah … so you are the equivalent of me but you are pushing ARM devices that do touchscreen swival but are a laptop.
This one is easy. VERY easy.
Because they aren’t always typing. Because the weight and shape and feel of those devices are not appealing to everyone. Some people might like them. Maybe lots of people might like them.
However, some people, LOTS of people will _not_ like them. I could use Dr. Seuss rhyms for you but some people don’t like them. Some people prefer a tablet to ARM laptops.
ARM laptops are very much the same as Intel chip laptops except that they have an ARM chip in them and they have a touch screen.
We’ve tried computers like this but they did not make a great impression on us. We tried them before we tried the iPad with keyboards.
Actually, if anything, these are what led us to get keyboards for our iPads and get Pages and Numbers and programs like those as we realized it (an iPad) was a MUCH better platform for “us”.
Oh, and your ARM tablets. They don’t have a store with 600,000 apps in it that is easy to buy and download and install if we should want any of them.
Yours?
As a Senior Programmer, I would fire anyone that would waste time trying to do any real programming using a tablet of any kind. Even with a bluetooth keyboard, using a tablet is a HORRIBLE waste of productivity. Someone that tries to build enterprise grade applications on a device with a tiny, single screen, obviously doesn’t comprehend the term productivity nor know what they are doing. It’s great that you “can” write HTML on those toys – good for you. But in the real world, such an activity borderlines craziness and shows real ignorance to one’s profession.
In reality, you are grasping at the concept of trying to make the tablet computer work, when in reality, you are killing your productivity. You don’t want to lug the weight around of a laptop, but you want to lug the weight around of a tablet with a bluetooth keyboard?
So, let’s go with that approach and that you don’t care about the size of the screen, and it’s all about the weight. Let’s break that down:
iPad 3 – 1.44 lbs
Bluetooth keyboard – 11.5 ounces
Total weight – 2.16 lbs
Asus U2E Laptop – 2.8 lbs
So, you contend that 10.24 ounces is so much of a burden, that you’d rather use something that would make you much less productive?
Again, nobody in the business world (when it comes to development) would ever go with that setup if they were actually professionals.
What is foreign is the setup that you’re trying to convince everyone here (and I think you’re still trying to convince yourself) is actually productive and useful. It’s not. It’s ridiculous.
Ummm…..so?
That’s a hypocritical attitude. You think YOUR way is best for “lots” of people? If it’s someone that isn’t using your setup for real, actual work, and maybe typing up little blogs, emails, etc…, then yeah, you should be really happy. The reality is that the setup that you are trying to convince everyone is so wonderful is absolutely ridiculous to anyone in the business world.
A typewriter is a precursor to the word processor. The poster never said that a typewriter would be best (although a novelist that I know does like to use one, whereas her husband prefers to use his computer). But, that is a red herring to your point that really falls flat when it comes to reality.
I take it you and your friends are unemployed/retired. If not, then it’s safe to assume your productivity lags behinds pretty much everyone else.
There are certainly other ways of doing things, but to say it’s “great” is, again, ridiculous. You can hammer a nail with a wrench, and it works. But, I certainly wouldn’t call it great. I’m getting dizzy from this spinning and watching you try to grasp straw….
*sigh* An extra 10 ounces is just so much weight to carry around. It would surely cause some sort of injury to strain oneself to lift that much extra weight….
I, myself, like Dr. Seuss. And you do prefer a tablet to a laptop. So, no argument there – except for Dr. Seuss – who doesn’t like Dr. Seuss?
Not all ARM based laptops are touchscreen.
If you are talking about laptops with touchscreens, I fail to see how that was worse than a tablet computer. That’s basically what you’ve attempted to turn your tablet into since you’re carrying around so much extra weight of that keyboard (yes, that was tongue in cheek since the keyboard weighs more than the difference I have pointed out above).
Kudos.
Irrelevant statement based upon your previous posts and statements. Stay focused and keep telling us about the glory of your little Apple branded toy.
You sound like the people I used to be around in the early 80s. They said similar things about PCs, those little toys that are a waste of the company’s money and of little to no productivity.
My friends program in C++ and Java. They make a very good living and our respected by their boss.
They are not respected to the price or size of their “toys”. They are respected to the quality and quantity of their code and their ideas for the major programs they help maintain and create new code for. Mainly they take sections of code, thousands of lines, and replace it will better, faster, more secure code.
Sorry but they prove every day that no only is this plausible for possible. Their boss sees no losss in quality or quantity of their code. He isn’t an ignorant smuck but like you is a senior programmer who knows his stuff and isn’t fooled by idiots. If he didn’t like their work he wouldn’t “put up with it”.
Fact is, it works for them and he is more than happy with their work. Sorry that your ideas of what is possible is so intrenched in the past.
They do their programming and testing all on a tablet? Or, are they remoting to another machine to do their work remotely? What platforms are their applications targeting?
If they do NOT remote to another machine, are you telling me the IDE that they are using is as functional and productive as something like Eclipse?
I look forward to your response….
Edited 2012-08-03 19:20 UTC
They are remoting into their work desktop computers through a program that encrypts their data going back and forth using 256 bit encryption.
Which brings up another thing. If you are taking your code off site there could be a case for being fired since the laptop could be lost or stolen.
That is part of the appeal of the iPads. None of the data is stored on the iPad. They remote in with encryption and all their data is back at work.
What they look at is the IDE on their desktop computer (which is locked so no passerby can see what they are doing) and the program is compiled/recompiled on their desktop computer.
If their iPad is lost or stolen, all they have to do is report it and the iPad is wiped remotely.
Sabon,
So you are acknowledging that the desktop software and OS are superior for programmers to the tablet’s native interface and software? If not, then why aren’t you using the native apps and interface on the tablet itself?
There is no product that has every been developed … yet, that is perfect for all situations. If you think so …
Also, if you think lugging around a desktop computer with your monitor, cpu box, etc., is useful, constructive, etc., I can only imagine you don’t get a lot done.
If you don’t think taking advantage of the best of everything “that is best for you” (let’s see if you can ever get past that last part) that again, I think that you are probably a lot less productive than you can be.
Sabon,
“There is no product that has every been developed … yet, that is perfect for all situations. If you think so …”
You don’t realise it, but this is *my* point exactly!
“Also, if you think lugging around a desktop computer with your monitor, cpu box, etc., is useful, constructive, etc., I can only imagine you don’t get a lot done.”
Instead of combating straw men like this, you could just admit that apple has a gap in their product lineup for a tablet/laptop hybrid. This hybrid is what you and I have both been promoting, you just need to quit denying that.
Entertaining discussion this, guys and girls. Seems like someone here is trying to solve a bit of cognitive dissonance. Always so fascinating to watch that struggle unfold
.
@thom:
it’s completely off-topic but google “Videopac G7200”
no real pc but still a funny piece of history
How is this an appeal of the iPad? Any laptop or desktop can use a VPN and remote access and it would work the same way.
If you enjoy carrying them around. Then I’m very fine with you doing so.
So, the tablet computer is serving nothing to them but as a means to remote in to another computer? And that is it? So, instead of carrying around a bulky 11 ounces more, they choose to remote in (hoping they have a decent internet connection) and use the desktop/laptop they are remoted into? That is because they can’t actually do their programming on the tablet – my point exactly.
PS – telling me about encryption doesn’t impress me. That is a given these days. It’s not the 1980’s, and it’s not new.
Our code is always taken offsite on our backups. Leaving your code in just one location is rather reckless and careless.
None of my employees (nor myself) have lost any of the company laptops. I guess that’s why I hire people who are responsible.
{p}That is part of the appeal of the iPads. None of the data is stored on the iPad. They remote in with encryption and all their data is back at work. [/q]
No, that is the appeal of remote access – it’s not the appeal of the “iPad”. You could substitute a variety of devices in place of the word “iPad” you are fixated on that would do exactly what you are talking about. Let’s try that:
“That is part of the appeal of the Galaxy Tab, Nexus 7, Ultrabook, Netbook, etc…”
You see how that works?
Exactly. They CANNOT actually do any work on their tablet. Wanna know why? It’s a toy.
And, about it being “locked”, no kidding there chief. Whenever you are remoted into a computer, it displays as being locked. This isn’t the days of PC Anywhere dial-up man….
Responsibility is a bitch……..
Seriously man….your “fanbois” is really being taken to the extreme. Your points are all foolish and antiproductive. I am also figuring out that you really don’t know much about modern day IT by your posts.
Edited 2012-08-03 20:57 UTC
Then a phone is a toy. Plus all the other devices that you can communicate over distance from one place to another is just a toy.
Wow, how wrong you can be.
Using a device to communicate over distance to do work is not a toy. Just can you can’t get your head around it.
It is starting to sound like you are very jealous that you are stuck at work looking out your window wishing you were someone else. And now that you found out other people can be, AND get lots of work done, must be making you angry.
Well, I’m on vacation. I’m going back to watching the Olympics. Oh wait, I’m doing this on a remote device and am not actually at the Olympics. I guess my tv is just a toy. Oh well, I’m enjoying myself.
Audios.
Edited 2012-08-03 21:23 UTC
Sabon,
I know the fanboy in you is going to keep denying it, but your use cases are begging for a laptop’s keyboard over a tablet’s touch screen. Even a hybrid device would be fine, the trouble is you don’t want to admit that apple has a deficient product line up in that area.
http://www.theverge.com/2011/04/20/talk-picture-samsung-f700/
“…About the Samsung F700 ^a~…
Speaking of The Verge, last year Nilay Patel had a good piece on the Samsung F700 ^aEUR” the phone that Samsung wants to present as trial evidence of prior art that they were designing iPhone-style devices before the iPhone was announced…”
“Unfortunately, however, it^aEURTMs also factually inaccurate: the F700 was announced in Feburary 2007 at Mobile World Congress, after the iPhone was announced in January at MacWorld, and it^aEURTMs actually a chunky 16.4mm-thick slider QWERTY that looks appreciably different than the iPhone. It also has a homescreen that^aEURTMs quite different than iOS ^aEUR” what you^aEURTMre seeing above is the function menu. (Remember, it was a dumbphone: no apps!) But that^aEURTMs been hashed out all over the place. I want to point out something else. Let^aEURTMs look at the F700 in a different context. Instead of looking at the similarities, let^aEURTMs try to highlight the differences.”
All comments were from that website and not mine.
The Sony device Samsung claims inspired Apple’s iPhone
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/08/01/the-sony-device-samsung-clai…
“…Philip Elmer-DeWitt:
It was not a phone at all, but a Walkman ^aEUR” the NW-A1200 ^aEUR” that according to Businessweek represented for Sony a new, cleaner, less cluttered design aesthetic. And what inspired that new aesthetic? Of all things, according to the Sony designers, an Apple iPod.
Apple wasn^aEURTMt copying Sony, dear bloggers. Sony was copying Apple.”
All comments above were from the website and not mine.
What Fraser Speirs uses on his iPad to be productive
http://speirs.org/blog/2012/8/2/thoughts-on-the-google-nexus-7.html
You have to scroll down a ways but here it is here. Some of which he likes, if it has it, on the Google Nexus 7.
Flipboard (the real tablet version), Pocket, iBooks and Kindle
iTunes U and Piazza
Keynote, Pages and Numbers
OmniPlan, OmniGraffle, OmniGraphSketcher and OmniOutliner.
Penultimate, Book Creator, Diet Coda, iTeleport, Bento, PCalc
iThoughtsHD, Explain Everything, PDF Expert
iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, Photos and Camera
Please, spam the comments even more…
(also, while you’re at it, could you be any more snide than in some of your comments above?)