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A device with a touchscreen and few buttons was obvious

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Re: A device with a touchscreen and few buttons was obvious

#91

Post by mbell »

slantyyz wrote: post #81
mbell wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the time the iphone was released I had one of the early HTC touch screen + slide out keyboard phones (Tytn or something like that). I recall laughing about the first iphones. Terrible e-mail support, no MMS, my year old phone had twice the capabilities. I couldn't understand why anyone would want such an expensive phone that was so functionally handicapped. What I didn't understand at the time was that the phone w…

>> The iphone wasn't so much a matter of technological inovation as it was one of market building I disagree. I think the iPhone was the first smartphone that worked. The killer app on the phone was that it was the first phone to have a modern mobile browser. It was not a browser that "didn't suck", it was a damned good browser. I had an Eee at the time, and I would pick the tiny-by-comparison screen of the iPhone's…

The problem is that it didn't work as a 'smartphone' at all. It couldn't connect to blackberry's e-mail server, it couldn't connect to exchange, it couldn't send an MMS, it couldn't multitask or run background apps, it couldn't copy-paste. The iPhone was completely incapable of replacing existing smartphones for quite some time. It took blackberry's monopoly on 'push' e-mail dying and several updates to iOS before it could actually compete in the existing smartphone market.

What original iPhone is, was the first 'smartphone' like device that every consumer wanted.

Re: A device with a touchscreen and few buttons was obvious

#92

Post by deerparkwater »

timmyd wrote: post #11

This has been spoken about over and over (refer to the heated discussion yesterday which wasn't my intention - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4431382 ). The core of the article again - looks at the concept of obviousness. Refer here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventive_step_and_non-obviousn... - "One of the main requirements of patentability is that the invention being patented is not obvious, meaning that a…

In those three months, Samsung was able to copy Apple's 4-year investment in the iPhone, without taking any of the risks—because they were copying the world's most successful product ... No one is trying to stop them from selling smartphones, all we're saying is: make your own. Make your own designs, make your own phones, and compete on your own innovations.

If its not obvious, why could they do it in 3 months without access to the great contributions to the art of computer science Apple's patent provide?

Re: A device with a touchscreen and few buttons was obvious

#93

Post by huxley »

drats wrote: post #28
timmyd wrote: post #11

This has been spoken about over and over (refer to the heated discussion yesterday which wasn't my intention - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4431382 ). The core of the article again - looks at the concept of obviousness. Refer here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventive_step_and_non-obviousn... - "One of the main requirements of patentability is that the invention being patented is not obvious, meaning that a…

This is silly, touch screen technology, faster ARM cpus and the rest make these things possible and came from elsewhere. My first computer with a GUI was 100mhz. As soon as smartphones got 600mhz+ and as soon as people get touch screens (foreshadowed endlessly in sci-fi) are you seriously suggesting that if you took a room of fresh graduates from a design school (which is a bar lower than "ordinary skill in the art"…

My first computer with a GUI was 8MHz. I used a touchscreen with a light-pen in 1979. There have been countless groups of graduate students brainstorming since then.

I think you'll find nothing is obvious until after it's been done. If you directly present someone with the problem, you are already leading them to the solution. The real difficulty is finding just the right problem to fix, there are millions of possible "problems" or things to change in a phone.

Re: A device with a touchscreen and few buttons was obvious

#94

Post by shasta »

arrrg wrote: post #29
w1ntermute wrote: post #16

This entire trial was a farce. The jury foreman admitted that they "skipped" prior art because "It was bogging us down."[0] > "Once you determine that Samsung violated the patents," Ilagan said, "it's easy to just go down those different [Samsung] products because it was all the same. Like the trade dress, once you determine Samsung violated the trade dress, the flatscreen with the Bezel...then you go down the produc…

I think the trial had a normal result given the legal framework. Sometimes trials like this might go a bit this or that way, but in general they will have results like this. My own position on this is very simple: All (yes, all) patents should be abolished. The current law is the problem, not Apple or Samsung or the Jury or the judge. I also think what Samsung did was – in part – morally reprehensible, but should hav…

But surely Apple deserves to be compensated for all the development work they did. Who's going to develop the next iPhone caliber innovation if the only reward they'll receive is to become the wealthiest company in history? Oh wait...

Re: A device with a touchscreen and few buttons was obvious

#95

Post by johndrinkwater »

tzm wrote: post #67

PDAs were not cellular devices. Cell phones were not PDAs. The iPhone was the first to converge them.

You’re not even wrong, there were quite a few PDA+mobile phones many years before the iPhone. Sony Ericsson’s p800 & p900 series was even referred to as PDA Phones.

Re: A device with a touchscreen and few buttons was obvious

#96

Post by zubiaur »

slantyyz wrote: post #81
mbell wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the time the iphone was released I had one of the early HTC touch screen + slide out keyboard phones (Tytn or something like that). I recall laughing about the first iphones. Terrible e-mail support, no MMS, my year old phone had twice the capabilities. I couldn't understand why anyone would want such an expensive phone that was so functionally handicapped. What I didn't understand at the time was that the phone w…

>> The iphone wasn't so much a matter of technological inovation as it was one of market building I disagree. I think the iPhone was the first smartphone that worked. The killer app on the phone was that it was the first phone to have a modern mobile browser. It was not a browser that "didn't suck", it was a damned good browser. I had an Eee at the time, and I would pick the tiny-by-comparison screen of the iPhone's…

Actually, a obscure one did. Picsel browser, available on certain sony clie (palm OS) pdas had a very decent rendering engine for its time, tap to zoom and very smart gestures for zooming in and out (tap tap-drag). Miles ahead of the competition (ie, blazer and such...)

Re: A device with a touchscreen and few buttons was obvious

#97

Post by gpcz »

silentscope wrote: post #60

I don't want to stir up bad blood, I'm just making a point so don't kill me =). Almost every one of those devices has at least 5 buttons (up, down, left, right center). That's not simple at all. One button is simple. The touch screen on the iphone takes those away so only one is needed. It's the reason the iphone got so dominant--it worked. It's the reason Jobs realized his foray into tableting in the 90s (with devel…

Jobs was running NeXT during the development of the Newton. Steve Jobs resigned from Apple in late 1985 and became interim CEO in September 1997. He discontinued the Newton project in March 1998 to refocus the company toward profitability again.

Re: A device with a touchscreen and few buttons was obvious

#98

Post by slantyyz »

mbell wrote: post #91
slantyyz wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> The iphone wasn't so much a matter of technological inovation as it was one of market building I disagree. I think the iPhone was the first smartphone that worked. The killer app on the phone was that it was the first phone to have a modern mobile browser. It was not a browser that "didn't suck", it was a damned good browser. I had an Eee at the time, and I would pick the tiny-by-comparison screen of the iPhone's…

The problem is that it didn't work as a 'smartphone' at all. It couldn't connect to blackberry's e-mail server, it couldn't connect to exchange, it couldn't send an MMS, it couldn't multitask or run background apps, it couldn't copy-paste. The iPhone was completely incapable of replacing existing smartphones for quite some time. It took blackberry's monopoly on 'push' e-mail dying and several updates to iOS before it…

>> couldn't connect to blackberry's e-mail server

>> it couldn't connect to exchange

>> it couldn't send an MMS

Didn't realize those were "must-haves" for a smartphone (an enterprise smartphone, maybe), because I never did that with any of my Windows Phones prior to getting an iPhone. I used my Windows Phone for my consulting work, by the way.

>> it couldn't multitask or run background apps

That's a double edged sword. That's one thing I hated on my Windows Phone. If you accidentally left the camera running in Windows Phone and sent it to the background, kiss your remaining battery life for the day goodbye.

>> it couldn't copy-paste

On my list of things to have on a smartphone, that's near the bottom. Yes, it was a pain, but far from being at the top of my list of "smartphone criteria"

>> The iPhone was completely incapable of replacing existing smartphones for quite some time

Well, I don't know about other people, but it replaced my Windows phone with no issue.

--edit--

To be clear, my primary business use of a smartphone is to manage my contacts, calendar and e-mail.

Re: A device with a touchscreen and few buttons was obvious

#99

Post by rpeden »

tzm wrote: post #67

PDAs were not cellular devices. Cell phones were not PDAs. The iPhone was the first to converge them.

The Treo 180g was a cell phone and a PDA with a touch screen and no physical keyboard. In 2002.

http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php?id=372&pg=...

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