Submitted by In product lore, high profile gadgets that get killed are often more interesting than the ones that succeed. The Kin, the HP TouchPad, and the Edsel are all case studies in failure – albeit for different reasons. Yet in the history of those killings, nothing compared to the Apple Newton MessagePad. The Newton wasn’t just killed, it was violently murdered, dragged into a closet by its hair and kicked to death in its youth by one of technology’s great men. And yet it was a remarkable device, one whose influence is still with us today. The Ur tablet. The first computer designed to free us utterly from the desktop.
‘First’ is debatable, but this was definitely an interesting product. It was far too complex though, and the simpler, more focussed Palm Pilot then showed the market how mobile computing ought to work – something Apple took to heart a decade later with the iPhone.
FROM THE OSAlert HEADLINE:
First is not “debatable” (but “interesting” is debateable).
The Newton was definitely not the first.
What was?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_tablet_computers
Thank you for that link.
I went through the history time line on that page, and there seems to be some significant omissions.
Most notably, the Sony PTC series of PDAs is not included. Here is the Sony PTC-300, which preceded the Newton by 2 years (1991): http://www.sony.net/Fun/design/history/product/1990/ptc-300.html
I think that there was version prior to the PTC-300.
Here is a video of the later PTC-310: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NXttjc–Us
Yes, but it wasn’t “successful”.
Just pre-empting the response.
Its wikipedia, if you feel its inaccurate, fix it.
Sony themselves describe it as a precursor to the PDA.
What is claimed in the article is that the MessagePad was the first PDA, which it easily is because Apple coined the term themselves.
Sure, there were earlier devices we’d describe as PDA’s, but then it was an unknown term.
It’s just a name and this reveals where it came from.
So really what you are saying is that others had created the PDA, but since Apple ‘invented’ the term PDA, then we must ignore the prior art & development. Instead we must acknowledge that he who invents the ‘word’ invents the ‘object’.
This is the problem I continuously have with modern Apple fans. The ‘Reality Distortion Field’ concept describe perfectly this phenomena. Apple was and continues to be an expert at marketing and using words in such a way as to distort the actual reality of a situation and to make it seem like they were first, better, etc.
I know this to be truth because I have watched this behavior for a very long time. I was a preteen before the Apple I was even out. This was how Apple survived once the PC & Windows gained ascendancy. You can’t compete on ‘Mhz speed’ so you distort this reality into things like the G4 being a super computer and use words like gigaflops (which by the way we all know the average Joe user has no idea what that is) but the faithful fell for it then and they fall for it now.
No, I said Apple coined the term PDA and I said that before the MessagePad there were devices we would describe as PDA’s.
What is claimed in the article is that the MessagePad was the first PDA, which it easily is because Apple coined the term themselves.
Sure, there were earlier devices we’d describe as PDA’s, but then it was an unknown term.
I know what I read, my short term memory is fine.
I think it’s pretty clear what I said and after your comment I added an explanation.
The MessagePad is the first device called a PDA, simply because they (Apple) invented the term “PDA”. The TERM, not the DEVICE class.
Earlier devices weren’t called PDA’s, because the term PDA didn’t exist. That’s why I said that we, who do know the term PDA, would call them PDA’s because they were.
That’s not what the article claims, it just says “it was Apple’s PDA” and that they coined that term. The claim is something quite different:
And I’d say that’s correct. I wouldn’t even call the Newton a PDA because the success of the Palm Pilot defined what we expect from a PDA and the Newton is just to big to be a PDA from that perspective. But it is what we call a tablet today, not only the form factor but also the basic functionality. And I’m quite sure that no other product from that time is really comparable.
PenPointOS.
I’ve never used that one or even seen it in action, but looking at the feature list I guess I stand corrected.
PS: funny detail that the EO Personal Communicator on which this OS run used the AT&T Hobbit CPU which Apple paid developing and originally wanted to use in the Newton.
Edited 2013-08-07 11:42 UTC
Really? Did Apple coin “PDA” before or after they coined the term “app?”
John Sculley apparently did in 1993.
I don’t know if it was before or after the word “app”, but I’m pretty sure it was after the birth of Jesus. Maybe that can help you with your timeline of non-connected words.
“In 1993, Apple’s MessagePad, more commonly known as the “Newton,” was the pioneer in this field, and Apple CEO John Sculley actually coined the PDA term for a pen-based device. However, PalmPilots, introduced a couple years after, popularized the technology. When the BlackBerry offered synchronized e-mail in 1999, the PDA was on its way to becoming a mobile office.”
Source: http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/_/dict.aspx?rd=1&word=PD…
By that token Smalltalk was the first object-oriented language, because it was the first to use the term, even though Simula already has classes, instances, virtual methods, etc.
Coining a name for something does not imply invention.
I do not claim the MessagePad was the first PDA, it wasn’t. It just was the first device called a PDA, which isn’t a great feat as Apple themselves coined the term.
To make that clear I added that earlier devices, which weren’t called PDAs at the time, were in fact PDAs as we would surely see them as such.
The only things that Apple really invented are the desktop trashcan, and possibly “Expose.”
Even the Apple enclosure designs are highly derivative.
If you doubt these assertions, please make a list of Apple inventions and let’s see what prior art can be found.
Hockey puck mouse.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/ba/Apple-hockey-puck-mou…
Apple ipod socks
http://cdn.cnet.com.au/cnet2/i/r/2006/mp3/accessories/22055240/appl…
I’m sure there are more uniquely apple inventions. Can’t think of anymore at the moment.
One Apple invention from the original Mac all the readers of this comment use all the time: regions in your GUI. The Xerox PARC Smalltalk system didn’t have self-repairing windows – you had to click in them to get them to repaint, and programs couldn’t draw into partially obscured windows. Bill Atkinson did not know this, so he invented regions as the basis of QuickDraw and the Window Manager so that he could quickly draw in covered windows and repaint portions of windows brought to the front. Think about that when you move or size the window you are reading this in on your PC.
That wasn’t the only thing Apple created.
Drag-and- drop file manipulation came from the Mac group, along with many other unique concepts: resources and dual-fork files for storing layout and international information apart from code; definition procedures; drag-and-drop system extension and configuration; types and creators for files; direct manipulation editing of document, disk, and application names; redundant typed data for the clipboard; multiple views of the file system; desk accessories; and control panels, among others. The Lisa group invented some fundamental concepts as well: pull down menus, the imaging and windowing models based on QuickDraw and the clipboard.
But ultimately isn’t the very premise that this discussion is based upon actually very puerile?
In what other area of human technical and productive activity does such silly discourse take place? Looking at the evolution of car design and production, or metallurgy, it is taken as obvious that on the one hand all important steps forward in technology flow from and are based on what came before, and on the other hand that certain moments are critical in shaping the unfolding of technological and industrial development.
Rather than using words like ‘invention’, a word that invites pedantry and the obsessive search for the proof or disproof of any claim of innovation, I think it is better to use metaphors drawn from the study of ecological systems, evolution and natural selection. Then one can start using terms like significant mutational events that create a pedigree of change that cascades up the evolutionary tree. Richard Dawkins has a great term, he often discuss what makes a ‘good ancestor’ and by that he means what speciation event, what mutational event, founded lines of new species which led to large scale and significant new lines of change and evolution.
If one looks at say, the history of the PC and of it’s GUI interface, then one can see several great mutational events, each of which connect to each other, the work of Douglas Engelbart, the work at Xerox on Smalltak, the work at Apple on the Lisa and the Macintosh, Microsoft’s work on Windows 95, were all critical in creating the world of modern personal computing, each contributed significantly to shaping the modern personal, computer, each took from what came before, added to to it and was in turn the foundation upon which what came after was built.
I know there are those who, for whatever reasons. love to argue that Apple invents nothing (that pernicious word again), that all Apple does is copy or adapt, etc, etc. But it is quite clear that Apple has been associated with a number of mutational events in the history of personal computing technology: the work on the Mac which made coherent a modern GUI and got it into a system that individuals, rather than corporations, could aspire to own and operate, the iPod and iTunes which completely changed the music industry, the iPhone which completely changed the smart phone market and the iPad which completely changed the tablet market and as a consequence is transforming the PC market. It is also clear that when Apple is functioning well and at it’s best, which it didn’t for quite long periods in it’s history, Apple can be the source of significant mutational events. Maybe it will never do that again, but even so it’s track record, by the standards of it’s peers, is pretty good.
Hard to argue with that. I just thought the ipod sock was fun/awesome. The hockey puck mouse was just about the worse thing they’ve ever made. In order to succeed you have to be willing to fail on some level.
I think when looking at apple or the things it does, people pay way too much attention to what they do, as opposed to why they do things when the do things. That’s the important thing. There is a certain time when a development will fail regardless of how good of an idea it is, because the things that will make that a great idea don’t exist yet. Having the idea for a steam engine 100,000 years ago, was kind of pointless as there wasn’t any material strong enough to build it. Kind of like Babbage and his machine. Having lungs to breath oxygen was a terrible adaptation, if there wasn’t any oxygen.
You keep getting it backwards. What you’re basically saying is:
“Rather than using objectivity, which leads to an obsessive search for facts, we should choose the line of reasoning which best fits with my a priori conclusion”.
I’ve read a lot of Dawkins, but I don’t remember the context of what you claim he said. From my own rudimentary knowledge of biological/ecological systems, though, your ancestor criteria doesn’t work because complex animals do not exchange genes easily.
However, ideas, like those built on technology have a lot of cross-polination, which happens very frequently in bacteria and is a main reason how drug resistance spreads that purely generational inheritance cannot achieve in time.
Technology simply does not evolve by sexual reproduction, and so you cannot limit the discussion such that you can only consider ideas when they originate within one company’s products.
If anyone should be credited for inventing “regions” it should be Euclid. He beat Apple to it by about…, oh, I don’t know, 2000 years or so.
The patent corresponding to your description is 4,622,505. What you are missing is it is NOT a patent on regions, it is a patent on non-retangular regions, actually a patent on a very specific method of implementing and storing them efficiently – it is primarily a compression patent.
It is so specific in fact that everyone pretty much just ignored it because they were already doing the same thing using BitBlts and it worked – it just required more memory. Contrary to your description, Xerox actually DID use regions (rectangular ones only) to update their GUI. I do not know if they had the issue with redraw you are describing, but they most certainly used rectangular regions in the Star GUI – because Apple references that fact in their patent.
Here we are like 30 years later – there are GUIs all over the place that work rather well – and not a single one of them violate this patent. It has never even been litigated.
Its a very neat optimization to be sure, but there is no debt the industry owes to Apple over it – its not like there weren’t other programmers in 1984 that knew geometry…
I actually don’t mind giving Apple credit where it is due… I give them credit for taking a poorly implemented concept (the Star GUI), realizing its true potential, and putting some serious brains and hours into getting it right. The Lisa was FAR ahead of the rest of the industry when it was released, and the Mac just widened the gap.
When Apple is firing on all cylinders, they don’t need patents – they had a built in 10 year head start based purely on level of effort required for anyone to catch up. The only reason Windows ever became dominate was they had a software only model for a platform that escaped captivity and got so cheap Apple simply couldn’t come close to price parity and stay in business…
Microsoft owes its success to pure luck – they just happened to be hitched to the right platform at the right time… It took them 15 years to honestly achieve anything close to parity with Mac OS.
Thank you for your response.
Unfortunately, you didn’t give a nice and orderly list of Apple inventions, but I have condensed your Apple invention points into a list below. Please correct any listings that are inaccurate.
TONY SWASH’S LIST OF APPLE INVENTIONS:
1. Self-repairing windows;
2, Pull down menus;
3. Drag-and-drop file manipulation;
4. Drag-and-drop system extension and configuration;
5. Direct manipulation editing of document, disk, and application names (renaming files directly?);
6. Control panels;
7. Regions in your GUI (which is somehow related to self-repairing windows?)
8. Resources and dual-fork files for storing layout and international information apart from code;
9. Definition procedures;
10. Types and creators for files;
11. Redundant typed data for the clipboard;
12. Multiple views of the file system;
13. Desk accessories;
14. The imaging and windowing models based on QuickDraw and the clipboard.
I do not understand the inventions claimed in items #7 through #14. Honestly, those items sound obvious and/or inconsequential, but you will have to further explain those items (#7 through #14) if we are assess them. Please do so in an orderly and succinct manner.
Please also explain the qualifiers to drag-and-drop in items #3 and #4.
As soon as we are clear on what is claimed to be invented by Apple, then we can proceed.
Perhaps the premise of this discussion seems puerile to one whose arguments don’t stand up to such scrutiny.
It is best for all here and for future discussions to determine once and for all what Apple has actually contributed to the computer and electronics world.
Sounds like a dismissive defense from someone whose belief system is close to being proven wrong.
I disagree. Most of this stuff is essentially “cut and dry.” There is tangible, non-Apple prior art for most of the things that fanboys believe Apple invented.
We are trying to determine what actually originated at Apple.
I think that what we really need to do is to just cut the BS. In many cases, we can pinpoint “who invented what.” Most Apple fanboys don’t realize that almost all of the the GUI that we use today was already invented, developed and in customer’s hands, before the Apple Lisa even appeared. Furthermore, significant GUI innovation prior to the Apple Lisa came from players other than Xerox.
A big problem with Apple fanboys relating to GUI history is that they never seem to remember these non-Xerox, pre-Lisa GUI players. In addition, fanboys ignore all of the GUI features included in the Xerox Star, which appeared one year before the Apple Lisa. Another thing about Apple fanboys is that they tend to take everything written in fokelore.org to be the gospel truth, even with all the contradictions, egos, and obvious lack of knowledege on the part of Apple employees regarding the internal development in the other GUI companies.
No doubt, the word “invent” is becoming more and more pernicious to Apple Fanboys, as the reality distortion field fades.
That’s BS. The GUI computer was invented and usable by novices ten years before the first Apple GUI appeared.
Again, BS. Apple did not originate any of those items. There were lots of MP3 players (including some with large HDs) prior to the Ipod. Furthermore, there was definitive prior art to the Ipod’s enclosure design.
In regards to Itunes, there were already desktop MP3 players that could download music, and there were repositories for such players, such as Napster.
Again, Apple didn’t invent the touch phone and there is definitive prior art to the Iphone’s enclosure design.
Once more, Apple did not invent the finger touch tablet, and there is definitive prior art to the Ipad’s enclosure design.
Apple is very good at selling products. Apple is not good at inventing nor actually originating.
I know quite a number of Apple users, people who you’d probably describe as “fanboys” because well, they are Apple users.
When the topic of who invented what first comes up most ehm… it’s hard to say what most say or claim because that topic never comes up.
People who appreciate Apple products appreciate Apple products (and not excluding other brands either) and don’t care much if Apple was or wasn’t the first.
if you are an Apple user in the here and now then ancient Apple products are very interesting.
I have a suspicion that for some strange reason a number of Apple dislikers project all kinds of bad things on “Apple fanboys” and try to make this group a large as possible and then try to explain why they are so wrong.
Should you visit me at home you’ll find a large collection of Apple stuff, not just technology but also clothes, watches, a flag, cups, ashtray (I don’t smoke), a jogging suit (unwearable without looking too retro), a jacket and probably a lot more. That should make me more a fanboy than most, but honestly I don’t give a crap about who was first with the GUI, PDA or whatever. For all I care Apple can finish last in each and every who-was-first category.
For me matters execution and end result. Apple does this very well and I like it. I also love old Hewlett-Packard calculators (RPN ones) and yes I have the legendary HP-16C.. and the 15C. I also love Commodore computers (and prefer Amiga OS over Classic Mac OS)… and Sharp Pocket PCs (I have the Sharp PC-1500).
What I’m trying to say is that people who use Apple stuff or even have a lot of Apple logo’s at home don’t necessary ignore or dislike other stuff or even care if Apple wins the Noble prize for inventions or doesn’t even qualify to be even considered.
[q]Thank you for your response.
Apple makes better products, on average, than the computer company you prefer. I guarantee it.
Use a million words to try to tell people that they don’t like something made better, designed better, supported better. But their products don’t change their value based on your wordy takedowns.
For many years Apple customers report higher satisfaction with their purchased product. Your arguments don’t address that whatsoever, because the proof is too strong. Products are made to be bought and enjoyed and then bought again from the same company when it is time for upgrade.
I’ve been using Apple and other companies’ hardware and software for 30+ years now. Apple is consistently better built and better designed, with a longer usable life, better user comfort, and higher resale value than other makers.
This site, and mainland europe in general, seems very anti-mac, but it’s based in so much ignorance of just owning and using the things.
Anyone who argues about inventions and patents re: apple has no idea what it’s like to just use one and count on one.
Well, if you guarantee it, that certainly makes it so.
How ironic.
I asked for a simple list of items that Apple originated. What I got back from the Apple camp was a verbose (800 words) that meandered around and avoided the scrutiny of an actual list: http://www.osnews.com/thread?568995 I had to make a concise list myself out of that hodgepodge.
I merely responded to all of the points in this lengthy response with diligence. I didn’t want to have to address all of those off-topic, avoidance points (as I am doing again with this post).
Soma users report higher satisfaction with their product, as well.
What folks in the rdf perceive has nothing to do with what is actually the reality.
I certainly don’t want to address that anymore than I just did, because it is irrelevant and, more importantly, off-topic.
Have fun in your continuous and costly cycle.
I have used Apple computers and software since the first Mac, and I still do (not by choice). Of course, I have used other computers, some by “other companies” and some not.
I have found (especially in the last 12 years) that Apple consistently puts form over function, at the expense of usability, reliability, upgradability and compatibility. I could go on and site examples and give links, but that is not the topic of this thread.
Huh?
Oh, believe me, I have had to count on many Macs for my living. How I wished I could have used something else!
You seem to be pretty religious about users of a certain OS. Of course all 0 engineers at Apple are stupid, can’t think for themselves, don’t do anything and marketing at Apple spends 100% of the budget (i. e. your holly war against Apple makes you look so smart).
Back on topic: By your definition, every invention can be traced back to another prior art invention e. g. the ‘THE WHEEL’ and ‘THE USAGE OF SYMBOLS’.
By induction, I can proof that Nobody invented anything and she did this before the big bang happened.
Do you have anything to add to the list of items that Apple originated?
Okay. Please let me know when you can prove that Apple invented something.
Apparently you are unable to give a single example of any company having invented anything by your own standards. Your definition of ‘invention’ is obviously useless. And yes: There is a clear distinction between invention and innovation, but why should I waste my time to educate you since you call everything that does not fit your world view BS. Grow up, kiddy ..
What? What is it about Apple fanboys that they become wildly incomprehensible when faced with reality.
I can give thousands of examples of companies inventing things, and it has nothing to do with any personal “standards.” I use the universally accepted definition of “invention,” which is a concept easily understood by everybody except for, apparently, Apple fanboys.
By the way, most things are invented by individuals — not by companies.
Edited 2013-08-07 20:39 UTC
Do you have anything to add to the list of items that Google, Microsoft or Samsung originated?
Edited 2013-08-07 20:59 UTC
In order to understand your position, can you please give us a list of what was invented by Google, Microsoft, Samsung?
You are aware that innovation is not invention, aren’t you? There is a very clear legal distinction. One is application and the other one is creation. Apple is great at innovation, there is no question here.
But there are a lot of areas in technology that the debates over who was first are no less heated.
You might want to stick your head into some other areas of technology and see for yourself.
No, there isn’t. That’s BS. Just because someone found a secondary definition of “innovation” on an online dictionary, doesn’t change the accepted (nor “legal”) meaning of the word.
Application of an idea from one thing to another is a common (and legally accepted) form of invention.
Such application of ideas can be original and non-obvious (or vice versa). Apple has very few original/non-obvious applications of ideas — they don’t really invent anything.
I am not sure to what Apple characteristic you refer with your definition of “innovation.” You can define innovation however you like, that won’t change the fact that Apple doesn’t really innovate anything.
There’s no heat here, except from those who are trying to avoid getting down to the nitty-gritty. Have you anything to add to the list of items that Apple innova… originated?
Edited 2013-08-07 17:40 UTC
Apple originated the idea that mass-produced machines should work the way humans want them to.
Apple originated the idea that mass-produced computers have a market at all.
Apple originated the idea that there is a such thing as superior product design and getting 95%+ satisfaction ratings from paying customers.
Apple originated the idea that all of their devices just work together without random driver updates.
Apple seems to be the only computer company these days willing to use real sales numbers, not shipped but not sold numbers.
Apple originated the idea that you can sell a product with just the right amount of features.
Apple originated good technology. Sorry you are so mad about it. My day is full of using my technology, I have a feeling yours if full of fighting with yours.
I program, produce, propagate, and consume all day and night from a mac, and have been running macbooks without a single hardware problem for about 10 years straight now. I run them hard too, moving to about 15 locations a week to work.
That’s not marketing friend, that’s production. Go into production centers of most companies and you see macs. Freelancers with no time to spare. People on deadlines with paying clients use macs more so than others, and it was that way even before itunes, ipods, iphones, and ipads. This consumer thing is relatively new for apple.
Edited 2013-08-07 18:43 UTC
Apple’s sold is more of a lie, than Samsung’s shipped.
Please explain this.
Apple reports “Sales” as those to real people for real uses at real prices. There aren’t 800k iPhones sitting at BestBuys and Walmarts around the world unsold, on clearance, counting as sales.
According to Apple itself(SEC10K filing) they define sold after liability is transferred, in layman’s terms they got paid and product was shipped to the retailer.
Or don’t you read SEC10K filing of the company you so like?
PS: It was Sony where most of the things that you listed originated.
but palettes of apple products aren’t sitting around, not in the states, they manage their channel better than most.
i still don’t believe they are getting out-sold to real consumers, not in the states, not to anyone spending more than $100 on a phone.
Their supply chain was very bad. When Steve Jobs came to Apple back he improved it some, but it was Tim Cook who optimized it tremendously to what it is today.
Actually the legal terminology has been established for more than a century.
Application of a technology is innovation, concrete implementation of an abstract idea is invention.
Example: using backlit LCD panels instead of reflective LCD panels in phones is innovation.
As opposed to: using liquid crystals to regulate the intensity of light passing through them is an invention.
No way. There is a very clear requirement for the inventive step to be present. As in – you have to adapt the existing technology and only that adaptation is protected.
Like adding a second, less powerful, radio to a phone to conserve energy when the radio station is close by. The radio itself is not protected, but the switching, detection and use of two radios is.
That’s like – your opinion. They invent and innovate, less than fanbois like to shout about and more than people like you like to say. (One of their recent inventions is their display tech in iPhone5)
You probably have never been present at any discussions between automotive fanbois…
No. You are just making that up.
Anything legal regarding inventions comes under patent law. Please quote/link the patent statutes that support your statement.
Uh, yes. My statement is correct.
Part of your statement is correct, too — if you apply an idea to an existing invention, you don’t have any claims on the existing invention. That’s just common sense.
However, your “adaptation” (I used the term application) is an invention that can be patented with you holding claims on it.
There are countless examples of patented inventions that are an idea from one field applied to another. The key is that the application must be novel (non-obvious).
Apple doesn’t have a lot of novel applications of ideas.
Okay. If you really believe that Apple invents and innovates (originates novel ideas), all you have to do is make a simple, orderly list of such items.
Edited 2013-08-09 01:14 UTC
Are there phones which do that?
Apple doesn’t really invent much of anything; they just give the rest of the industry the blueprint on how to do something properly. They’ll take an existing thing that sucks a lot of ass, turn it into something that people other than hardcore geeks would actually want to use, and then the industry builds on what Apple did, and improves it in most cases (although it usually takes them 2-3 generations of a product to obtain the same level of polish). Then the haters will look back at the suck-ass thing that nobody was using as the pioneer, and give Apple none of the credit.
Case in point – the iPhone. Of course there were smartphones, and maybe even one or two that were finger-based, but if you go back and look at the original iPhone keynote from 2007, you can see how Steve Jobs is explaining to people how it operates without a stylus. This was necessary, because it was redefining a market, and nobody had used anything quite like it before. Of course, I am an Android user myself, but I gotta thank Apple a little for all of Android’s goodness, as well as some of its flaws
The question wasn’t about if Apple is inventive or not, the question was “what came before the Newton?”
I have a number of PDA’s, including a few MessagePads, Palms and Psions and some I’ve actually actively used during their era.
The Psion 3a is the one I like most, but it’s more a palmtop computer than a PDA.
The MessagePad is much more advanced and better than the Palm Pilot, but I don’t think that really matters. What does matter, in this case, is size.
Palm Pilot’s are much much smaller and thus much much easier to carry around, use and store. Even if you can fit a MessagePad in your pocket the weight will distract you all day long and probably damage your clothing.
Also the text input of the Palm, Graffiti, while it is evil in ruining your real handwriting makes it easier to enter text than it is on the MessagePad.
So despite being not so advanced the Palm Pilot made a better PDA just by being simpler and smaller.
{citation needed}
By whose standards? The difference between the Newton and a PamlPilot really does come down to the launcher. As previously pointed out, the launcher in the first 2 generations of the PalmOS – right up to the Palm III, had no categories and no way to order the apps. They just appeared as a list of 3 columns and overshot the screen if too many were added. The first Palm devices had no public SDK, and no major support. It wasn’t till Pila was released by Darrin Massena, that anyone but large corporations had access to creating apps.
{citation needed}
The original PalmPilot was a companion tool. It was meant to augment not replace. It carried your note, agenda and task lists with you. It was never intended to become what it did, that was down to a bunch of users pushing the platform early on.
{citation needed}
I’m sorry, this is crap. Plenty of other platforms had reached the simplistic nirvana that *later* PalmOS incarnations had achieved. But there were enough common ideas in the iOS borrowed from Mac, Windows CE and other less well known platforms such as Qtopia and VT-OS (which in turn recycled Palm and Newton.) I still own a PalmPilot Professional, and have done so since 1998, so when you try to claim iOS has anything more than a superficial relationship to PalmOS or that Palm were solely responsible for the genre, I can tell you didn’t really use the devices when they first emerged.
I have written 22,000 words on this very subject. No need to repeat them here.
http://www.osnews.com/story/26838/Palm_I_m_ready_to_wallow_now
Go read it, and you’ll see why I claim Palm OS is the basis for what we use today, and why it is VERY clear that Apple took A LOT of inspiration from Palm OS’ design principles.
Edited 2013-08-07 15:43 UTC
Ah, independent research. I stand by {citation needed} because that is about all the importance that your personal opinion piece holds in the world of reality.
I did go and read it, you can go read my comments. I believe I, and others, corrected a few of your misconceptions.
As I said, I actually owned a PalmPilot Pro. I still have it. PalmOS 2.0 is positively archaic on it, and the launcher in palmos 3 stole/borrowed the categories in the launcher from Newton OS’s extras tray. Even down to having an “unfiled” category. PalmOS was written on Mac’s using Metrowerks Codewarrior. PalmOS stole a lot of its UI cues from the Mac OS (e.g. buttons style, popups style, the way the menu attached to the window) and the structure of a PalmOS app is basically a 68000 code fragment library in Mac exe binary format. They borrowed the resource structure of MacOS, so you could even open a PalmOS apps resources up in Resedit under a Mac and look at them. There was a guy who got Think Pascal under Mac OS to compile PalmOS apps written in Pascal – I can’t remember what his site’s URL is, but I got it to work, and messed about with it in the noughties. It really was a huge hack, and the OS was single tasking, even though the afx kernel could multitask, because of the way the exe’s were essentially shared libraries, not actual exe’s.
Selective history is a wonderful way to spread half truths. Pity some of us old timers were actually there to witness reality.
Here you go:
http://web.archive.org/web/19990224060519/home.wxs.nl/%7Ehswart…
Edited 2013-08-09 21:30 UTC
I don’t have names, perhaps internet will supply, but I had always heard that the Palm company was in part started as a spin-off of Apple’s newton team, or perhaps a contractor.
Funny to me —
name the company that delivers a new product after months of speculation, surprises most pundits with the offering, and then watches nearly everyone else in their market sell knockoffs.
now name the company that can’t innovate or originate anything.
that’s right, some company.
so — if apple is nothing but marketing hype with no engineering substance, what are the countless other companies that sell apple-wannabee devices year after year?
What Apple invented???
http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=relmfu&v=_xL19f48m9U
The snobby windbag in that video is just as myopic as most Apple fanboys — the history of computers in his eyes is limited to Microsoft and Apple. There were countless other significant players.
If you maintain that Apple invented anything, make a list.
So you did watch entire video?
Now whatch this http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=relmfu&v=c6SUOeAqOjU
and you will stop this silly war who invented what.
Btw where did you read that I wrote that Apple invented anything?
Edited 2013-08-09 06:50 UTC
Hell no!
It would really help if you were merely clear and succinct in your points. Just linking a lengthy video of a ranting, misguided windbag sort of makes your point incomprehensible and ponderous.
I scanned it until I could find some sort of tangible conclusion. That’s eight minutes of my life which I will never get back.
Of course, his conclusion is incorrect — “cut and paste” did not first appear in 1984 with the Mac (I can’t believe he took 14 minutes to get around to that claim). Cut and paste was included in: the Xerox Alto; the Three Rivers Perq (and it’s various OSs); VisiOn; and the later Xerox Star. All of these versions of “cut and paste” existed well before the Mac and even before the Apple Lisa.
Incidentally, he is also likely wrong about giving Xerox credit for the GUI trash can — I am fairly sure that Apple invented that (I have spent some time researching that very feature) — it’s one of Apple’s very few innovations.
There is no war. This is cut and dry. Everything is there for all to see what happened when.
When one does a little investigating, it is easy to see that Apple didn’t really originate much
I am not actually sure whether or not you think that Apple invented anything, which is why I used the word “if” in the preposition “If you think Apple invented anything…”
However, you seem to be an Apple fanboy, judging from the fact that your first statement in this thread was, “What Apple invented???,” immediately after which you linked the video ramblings of an insufferable Steve Jobs/Apple worshiper.
Still unable to give us some examples of a company who invented anything by your standards?
Typical fangirl behavior ..
My friend, there are millions of original inventions from thousands of other companies. However, most inventions come from individuals.
If you want me to list inventions from non-Apple companies (such as all the pre-Apple GUI inventions from Xerox, Three Rivers, Intran, Accent/Carnegie Mellon University, VisiCorp, etc.), then that is the topic for a new thread. Right now, we are trying to determine what Apple actually invented.
In regards to “my standards,” I am not sure as to your point, but my “standard” for an invention is the commonly accepted definition, which Apple fanboys never seem to comprehend.
If you think I am a fan of something, why don’t you state what that is.
I can help you a little in that regard: I am a fan of truth.
Heh tupp… Than you are still on lesser state of mind.
You still think that I defending apple?
Everybody copy “SHIT” for past three decades! And you want to know who best at it???
Better learn how world could look like without Xerox (and consequently Apple and Microsoft) OR return on ranting about who was first in producing shit: microsoft vs apple or google vs apple… …. …
Have a nice life in middle class
OR arrise! Search for Ted Nelson, Douglas Engelbart… And same goes to everyone captured in “google vs apple” … Paradigma.
I think that you should try to make a lucid point, so that your argument can be understood.
What? You’re dismissing all of the innovation of the last 30 years with the notion “Everybody copy ‘S**T?'”
It would look pretty much the same after Xerox’s initial work, as there were other GUI players who were on the same track and selling GUI systems, before Apple and Microsoft entered the fray. Your boy Ted doesn’t mention that fact.
I am not ranting. I am merely stating fact in a concise and orderly fashion. The only time I stray from that mode is when I have to respond to aimless posts such yours.
Huh? Would you care to explain that remark?
No need for the dramatics.
Okay. I searched Ted Nelson. He is responsible for “the longest-running vaporware project in the history of computing”: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.06/xanadu.html
Early on, it sounds like he had some good, visionary ideas — which are actually inventions. The fact that he usually doesn’t complete projects he starts is actually not that relevant.
However, the most important thing in regards to this discussion, is that he doesn’t have his facts straight when it comes to computer progress in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Please make a point here in writing. I’m not watching anymore linked videos.
As you confirm, you did not watch before
See you in couple of years. Research and learn.
Btw if Ted Nelson ideas were honored than we would not need separate projects as web.archive.org …
And we probably would not need goverments as we have today. Thing is prety big, and “fight” about Apple (or Google or MS) inovations is quite irrelevant. Somebody (Bob Taylor) choose wrong path for humanity 30 years ago. Everything that happened after is irrelevant.
I do not have time for explanation, i can only give you hints and you need to explore for yourself.
E. G. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/business/11stream.html
2009.
“Consider Zig-Zag, Mr. Nelson^aEURTMs foray into the world of databases. When I saw it years ago, it seemed to offer only an impossibly baroque interface. Only recently did I realize that he had simply anticipated the emergence of the semantic Web, now viewed by many computer researchers as the next step past Internet search.”
aka NoSQL.
Or Ted Nelson on PC and “Internet” BEFORE PC (pre 80s):
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Kasu0BhRFGo
Edited 2013-08-10 01:29 UTC
And Google Ballons project:
“Ted Nelson proposed ( a giant electronic library in satellites that would be available to any terminal on earth connected by radio and telephone lines. He named it Xanadu after the mythical country. It would serve as a global database. Hypertext eventually made this idea reality.”
http://austinyoder.wordpress.com/tag/web-nets/