If Android is a "stolen product," then so was the iPhone • Hacker News Board

Re: If Android is a "stolen product," then so was the iPhone

#81

Post by wmf » Thu, Feb 23, 2012, 10:06 PM UTC

j45 wrote: post #51

YooLi wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that looks nothing like the iPhone, while most smartphones now look a heck of a lot like an iPhone.

Hi, just out of curiosity, did you own a smartphone from 96 to the early 2000's? The Treo was the original smartphone. The orignal smart phone that Blackberry copied was the Treo. Apple's spin was ditching the keyboard, but by then even the sony ericcson P800 had a full screen phone with a touch keyboard years before apple. http://www.google.ca/search?&q=sony+ericcson+p800

I owned a P800 and I consider the iPhone to be in a completely different class. Each of the individual differences is small, but when taken together the feel of using them is quite different.

Re: If Android is a "stolen product," then so was the iPhone

#82

Post by vacri » Thu, Feb 23, 2012, 10:08 PM UTC

sirclueless wrote: post #38

Let me put this in hacker terminology: Have you ever looked at someone else's product and said, "Well that's stupid, I could remake it in a week and it would be even better"? But even if that were true, you weren't the one who took the risk and built the damn thing. Other people here are talking about "vision" and "innovation" and while these are certainly things Apple had in abundance, the bottom line is that Samsun…

The sword cuts both ways - here on HN we've had a number of stories about the 'little guy' who makes a software package (eg cloud music manager), taking the risk, then apple comes along and implements the same thing, destroying the little guy. The little guy takes risk that's big from his point of view - does this mean he's entitled not to be copied by Apple?

Re: If Android is a "stolen product," then so was the iPhone

#83

Post by Anechoic » Thu, Feb 23, 2012, 10:10 PM UTC

huggyface wrote: post #62

zefhous wrote: post #9

> Jobs called Android a "stolen product," but theft can be a tricky concept when talking about innovation. This article is heartily missing the point. Android is basically a stolen product. It's a direct successor and competitor to the iPhone, and the direction of Android in it's current form has been and is extremely influenced by what Apple has been doing. Sure, the iPhone is a bunch of "stolen" technologies and id…

Nobody was making products that resembled the iPhone before Apple Years before the iPhone I was carrying around an iPaq. Now it isn't quite the same, most notably because the original device didn't even function as a phone. Yet I would argue that the phone part of smartphone is by far the least important part (and the only reason it is so prevalent is that carrier subsidization allows people to stomach $700 iPhones).…

Apple stepped in at the perfect confluence of technologies and made the iPaq v2.0.

And isn't the iPaq v1.0 just the Newton v2.0?

Re: If Android is a "stolen product," then so was the iPhone

#84

Post by vacri » Thu, Feb 23, 2012, 10:11 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #74

The iPhone isn't even the first thing called an iPhone with a touchscreen that makes telephone calls and connects to the internet. From 1997: ( http://groups.google.com/group/comp.dcom.telecom/msg/f62a1ff... )

Well... that's a desktop phone, not a mobile, but true, it's branded an 'iphone', connects to the internet, makes calls, and has apps

http://aaworldtrade.com/phones-accessories.html

Re: If Android is a "stolen product," then so was the iPhone

#85

Post by gnaffle » Thu, Feb 23, 2012, 10:16 PM UTC

huggyface wrote: post #62

zefhous wrote: post #9

> Jobs called Android a "stolen product," but theft can be a tricky concept when talking about innovation. This article is heartily missing the point. Android is basically a stolen product. It's a direct successor and competitor to the iPhone, and the direction of Android in it's current form has been and is extremely influenced by what Apple has been doing. Sure, the iPhone is a bunch of "stolen" technologies and id…

Nobody was making products that resembled the iPhone before Apple Years before the iPhone I was carrying around an iPaq. Now it isn't quite the same, most notably because the original device didn't even function as a phone. Yet I would argue that the phone part of smartphone is by far the least important part (and the only reason it is so prevalent is that carrier subsidization allows people to stomach $700 iPhones).…

I think Apple can rightly be credited with making smartphones and tablets mainstream. Smartphones and tablets were niches before the iPhone. Microsoft had tried for years pushing Windows Tablet Edition, but it only became a niche.

Do you think that was only because those devices lacked a capacitive touchscreen? If so, then why did every other company have to scratch their mobile platform after the iPhone came along? Why didn't Microsoft make Metro in 2006, after all, the techology was available (I tried a Panasonic Toughbook with a capacitive display way before that).

I agree that others should be credited for their inventions. Both RIM and others like Nokia helped pushed the technology forward, but they did so very gradually. It took an outsider to disrupt the industry (luckily, Apple had killed off the Newton, or they probably woudn't have had the incentive to do so).

Re: If Android is a "stolen product," then so was the iPhone

#86

Post by gnaffle » Thu, Feb 23, 2012, 10:25 PM UTC

orbitingpluto wrote: post #64

zefhous wrote: post #9

> Jobs called Android a "stolen product," but theft can be a tricky concept when talking about innovation. This article is heartily missing the point. Android is basically a stolen product. It's a direct successor and competitor to the iPhone, and the direction of Android in it's current form has been and is extremely influenced by what Apple has been doing. Sure, the iPhone is a bunch of "stolen" technologies and id…

Just to add to the list of previous art: The Nokia 770 from 2005/11 and the N800 which was released (2007/01) around the same time that Jobs was announcing the development of the iPhone. (These were Internet tablets with the hints of the telephony stack already included. Eventually the N900 phone did come out, too little too late unfortunately.) Android has much more in common with Maemo than Apple iOS.

..and sadly, the 770 and its user interface just shows too well why the iPhone won, and why the other companies had to go back to the drawing board with their operating systems. I used the 770 and actually got wrist pain from using it too much with the crappy plastic stylus that was included.

(And at the time, the 770 had a pretty amazing screen and user interface compared to most other mobile devices. If only Nokia had known that capacitive touchscreens existed and started porting the Hildon UI to multi touch in 2005..)

Re: If Android is a "stolen product," then so was the iPhone

#87

Post by shpoonj » Thu, Feb 23, 2012, 10:26 PM UTC

This conversation should have ended years ago... Are people really still bickering?

Re: If Android is a "stolen product," then so was the iPhone

#88

Post by binarybits » Thu, Feb 23, 2012, 10:32 PM UTC

amartya916 wrote: post #63

binarybits wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I link to that page in my story. I tried to interview Buxton but Microsoft's PR people turned me down.

Sorry, I'd missed that link in your article. Although I don't claim to know him personally, I've interacted with him a few times and I know that he takes an interest in getting the mainstream tech. media to cover or correct popular myths (such as Apple pioneering multi-touch). Next time around, drop him an e-mail. Never hurts to ask, although I know why Microsoft's PR might have turned you down :).

I did email him. He told me I needed to go through Microsoft PR, and after I explained the topic of my story Microsoft PR declined to let me talk to him.

Re: If Android is a "stolen product," then so was the iPhone

#89

Post by gnaffle » Thu, Feb 23, 2012, 10:38 PM UTC

vibrunazo wrote: post #67

jbrennan wrote: post #4

I'm not sure anyone is arguing the iPhone invented all these individual technologies, and if anyone is claiming that, they shouldn't be as the evidence is overwhelming to the contrary. I think the real meat of the argument is "iPhone synthesized all those individual pieces into something coherent and incredible.". It's kind of like how the Macintosh and Lisa took the ideas from PARC, perfected them, and turned them i…

I think it's a bit "pushing it" by saying the iPhone was a "big" technological revolution for having synthesized a few technologies together. Deep down, every invention is to some level, an evolution over existing inventions. As many great inventors said throughout history "I can only see this far because I'm standing in the shoulder of giants". But sometimes, to better see the whole picture, we need to take a step b…

While he was a genius at marketing, that's not the main lesson to take from Apple. The main lesson is that it's possible to focus on a few products and make them work really well. I don't think all the marketing genius in the world would have made the MacBooks and iPhones a success if they had been running Windows Vista or Windows Mobile 6 when they were released.

Re: If Android is a "stolen product," then so was the iPhone

#90

Post by zmmmmm » Thu, Feb 23, 2012, 10:38 PM UTC

zefhous wrote: post #9

> Jobs called Android a "stolen product," but theft can be a tricky concept when talking about innovation. This article is heartily missing the point. Android is basically a stolen product. It's a direct successor and competitor to the iPhone, and the direction of Android in it's current form has been and is extremely influenced by what Apple has been doing. Sure, the iPhone is a bunch of "stolen" technologies and id…

You say "Android is basically a stolen product" and then "We don't need to get all emotional about this". If you don't want people to get emotional then stop using highly pejorative, emotionally charged words like "stolen".

Aspects of Android were inspired by the iPhone. The iPhone itself was inspired by the Blackberry, Palm and Windows Mobile series of devices before it.

There really is no such thing as "stolen" when it comes to knowledge. Everything is built upon other things, emerging from the context where they are conceived. It is utterly impossible to not "steal" when you create because your creations are a direct response to the environment in which you create them, which by necessity is a result of creations that came before.