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Apple changed everything? Yeah, right.

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Re: Apple changed everything? Yeah, right.

#61

Post by mcantelon »

nirvana wrote: post #39
georgemcbay wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I really don't understand the need to denigrate Apple." Me either, but I also don't really understand the need to sanctify them, and I don't see how anyone could read this article as a denigration of Apple unless they've already made them sacrosanct in their heads. Also, I don't think your history of Pixar is really correct. Lucas sold Pixar pretty much solely because he needed the money because of his divorce. It i…

The answer to your question is a quote from Lucas that I read in a hardback book covering the history of Pixar from around that time. He essentially said as much. Also, at that time, Industrial Light and Magic was a practical shop, they were not doing "digital filmmaking" and Lucas wasn't yet a proponent of digital filmmaking, as this really didn't exist yet. So, Pixar was very much an odd duck there, they didn't hav…

>[Google fans] want to believe that it is ok for google to rip off the iPhone and give away a counterfeit operating system

I love how in one breath Apple fanboys call Android a copycat and in the next claim it's so much harder to use than iOS. Which is it?

Re: Apple changed everything? Yeah, right.

#62

Post by nirvana »

Hyena wrote: post #11

I think this article gets the nexus of failure wrong. Apple didn't change everything because, ultimately, the Apple idea didn't spread. I'm a big fan of Steve Jobs and how Apple has approached products but the fact is that it's pretty much just Apple . Beyond Cupertino there's the same players and the same issues you had before. You can't change everything if everything refuses to change.

Apple's ideas did spread. Every android phone is an iPhone counterfeit.... it is a copy of the iPhone. Like the GUI, which Linux and Windows copied, Apple's ideas do spread... the problem is the people who steal them get away with the theft.

Re: Apple changed everything? Yeah, right.

#63

Post by oemera »

Oh come on! "Zappos did change how we buy shoes, so what?" really? No it didn't. Maybe for you in the USA but in Europe it didn't. But the iPod and iTunes store changed how we buy music in the whole world. See the difference? Changing something in the whole world is a way bigger challenge than just establishing a new shop with convenient shopping methods in the USA.

I'm sorry if this sounds like fanboism but you shouldn't underestimate the change and the hard work here. Apple is the most innovative company in the world and so it should get credit for that. Even if you don't buy Apple products you should be happy that Apple is pushing the bars for simplicity and innovative products!

Re: Apple changed everything? Yeah, right.

#64

Post by philwelch »

schrototo wrote: post #42
nirvana wrote: post #7

I really don't understand the need to denigrate Apple. It almost seems as this spawns from an instinctive respect for the significance that Apple, and Steve Jobs specifically, have actually had. Apple invented the GUI (using some ideas they licensed from Xerox), as part of a project that Steve Jobs led. The NeXT cube inspired the web to some extent and made the first browser much easier to write. Apple invented the t…

> But, what significant inventions can we credit to Microsoft? They put a computer in every home.

...and on every desk, all running Microsoft software. For some time in the 90's that was reality. Even if you owned a Mac.

Re: Apple changed everything? Yeah, right.

#65

Post by mayanksinghal »

nirvana wrote: post #56
mayanksinghal wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't make statements like X invented Y and then add earlier versions of Y weren't Y because they were not as good as X's implementation of Y. That is very much like believing in Flying Spaghetti Monster. It's logically irrefutable, but sounds absurd. [Edit: Spell]

You're knocking down a strawman. Your argument is that the guy who invented the internal combustion engine didn't actually invent it because the guy who invented the piston is the one who invented it.

Xerox is known to be the inventor of GUI. Apple made it popular. There is a difference.

It's very much like how Apple invented PC but MS revolutionized and captured the market. I am giving due credit to all parties; you are omitting/trivializing all the conceptualization that went into an earlier concept - the ones that Apple's products were based upon.

Re: Apple changed everything? Yeah, right.

#66

Post by runn1ng »

wzdd wrote: post #10

There is a good argument to be made that Google is a more influential company than Apple, but this article doesn't present it. Once you take away the unsubstantiated (at least in the article) fluff, such as "Google preaches openness because it benefits the company", here are Google's concrete accomplishments, according to the article: 1) Their core technology, Google search. 2) The fact that they bought YouTube. This…

Exactly. The author's argument with "It would happen anyway" can directly be applied to Google, too.

Re: Apple changed everything? Yeah, right.

#67

Post by oemera »

mayanksinghal wrote: post #20
nirvana wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every one of those people using Google are doing so on a system running a graphical user interface that Apple invented. In fact, it was Apple that invented the personal computer. Full stop.

But it was Microsoft that revolutionized it.

Yeah Microsoft definitely revolutionized graphical interfaces... Come on! Microsoft never revolutionized anything!

Re: Apple changed everything? Yeah, right.

#68

Post by nirvana »

nitrogen wrote: post #40
nirvana wrote: post #7

I really don't understand the need to denigrate Apple. It almost seems as this spawns from an instinctive respect for the significance that Apple, and Steve Jobs specifically, have actually had. Apple invented the GUI (using some ideas they licensed from Xerox), as part of a project that Steve Jobs led. The NeXT cube inspired the web to some extent and made the first browser much easier to write. Apple invented the t…

Apple invented the GUI (using some ideas they licensed from Xerox), as part of a project that Steve Jobs led. The NeXT cube inspired the web to some extent and made the first browser much easier to write. Apple invented the touch UI. Hell, just listing the significant inventions of Apple is almost embarrassing because any list is going to leave so many of them off. This is why people feel the need to "denigrate" Appl…

No, people denigrate Apple because they are invested, emotionally, in a competing product and they do not want to believe that Apple did innovate as much as they have.

You're right that there are a lot of serious misconceptions about the history of computing, but they are all on the side of the people who claim that products that came after Apple's products are proof that Apple didn't invent the category, etc.

As for companies that lacked the "desire", or "resources" to invent these things, well, they don't deserve any credit because they didn't invent them.

You seem to be operating under the misconception that inventions are just ideas... and you would do well to read the ragenwald comment you link to, where he notes that ideas without execution are nothing. Apple did invent these things because they took them from ideas-- which are easy-- thru the hard part of solving all the problems with the idea-- to fruition. All those people who didn't bring anything to fruition didn't earn any credit.

Just as those people who copied Apple's products didn't invent them either.

Frankly, I find it kind of amazing that people who clearly have very little knowledge of this history of computing will repeat these myths-- myths debunked over 30 years ago!-- and patronizingly claim that people who are debunking the myths are operating under "misconceptions".

It's like trying to talk to a non-technical person who heard someone from some pimply kid over at Best Buy and therefore they think he's an expert and you, with the CS degree don't know nearly as much about computers... but of course, they don't know anything either, so they just see him as an authority figure because hell, he's 17, and he works at Best Buy, right? Sigh.

Re: Apple changed everything? Yeah, right.

#69

Post by chernevik »

IMHO, "no individual has made as much of a difference" is clearly local to the thoughtspace defined by "what Jobs has meant to the world of technology", so refutations comparing Jobs to bin Laden should probably throw a compiler error.

And I suppose we'd eventually have music players and smartphones without Apple. But the schedule of their appearance, and the elegance of their demonstration of possibilities, seem pretty important to the shape of those eventualities. We can learn a lot figuring out why the Wright Brothers were the first to "just" figure out pitch and yaw -- or we can ignore them and focus on aerodynamics, knowing that all breakthroughs happen eventually.

Re: Apple changed everything? Yeah, right.

#70

Post by nirvana »

raganwald wrote: post #9

Somewhat related: You know how we in the startup world are constantly chanting, "It's the execution that matters, not the idea?" Well, many of the discussions around Apple seem to boil down to one person saying that Apple copied/stole the idea, or the idea was inevitable, and the other person saying "Yeah, but Apple pulled off he execution ." To the extent that all of Apple's ideas in GUIs, mobile devices, music reta…

You're right that the execution, which involves taking an idea thru the difficulty of solving all of its problems to fruition is what really matters.

However, the problem is that after Apple does this, and then everyone and their dog copies it, a few years later, people pretend like it wasn't Apple who actually had the idea, developed it, solved all the problems and then brought it to market!

Its as if, because there's an android phone on the shelf, there was nothing new in the iPhone.

This is some form of post hoc ergo proctor hoc history!

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