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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

#361

Post by KirinDave »

nirvana wrote: post #346
KirinDave wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But, ah, nirvana... where did I call anyone biased? Can you find a single instance? You're typing angry words at a phantom argument you created. I don't know who's face you glued on that straw man, but I'm bored watching you burn it down. Besides, you can take as pro or as anti-Apple a stance as you want. Personally, I think that's missing the point of this entire exercise . Do you really think that people are upset…

You didn't call someone biased, you made a conclusion about the meaning of the word bias, that reflects something we've seen here on HN very often. I was showing you how people on your side of the patent debate use the word, since you were on the, shall we say, receiving end of it this time. You were taking offense at the use of the word. I was, in a sense, agreeing with you, and asking you to recognize that bias doe…

> you made a conclusion about the meaning of the word bias,

From a dictionary.

> I was showing you how people on your side of the patent debate use the word, since you were on the, shall we say, receiving end of it this time.

No. You were burning down straw men.

> I was, in a sense, agreeing with you, and asking you to recognize that bias does not mean lacking in credibility.

It does, in fact, hurt credibility to be biased. When it stops being an opinion accompanied by honest reporting and becomes manipulation (be it deliberate or not) is usually where we start calling it bias.

> Hope that makes it more clear!

I have no idea what you are talking about. I can only assume this is part of some larger conversation you are having with everyone at once and no one in particular.

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

#362

Post by danielweber »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #326
brc wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Sigh. I'm sick and tired of people twisting reality to fit an Apple anti-hero narrative. Makes a change from all the Microsoft bashing. Hard to fit a $ into Apple, though. A$$le maybe? Apple might not have discovered or invented everything (macintosh GUI case in point). But Jobs and Apple in general have a habit of discovering useful technologies and commercialising them. It's a hindcasting mistake to say 'oh, well…

"Well, if it was so obvious, why is Apple continually breaking new ground?" Herds. More specifically group thinking and risk aversion. I can't say I really admire Steve Jobs but what I completely believe was that Steve's willingness to say "my way or the highway" on very very risky decisions and directions is the entire source of Apples "innovation." This trial, and the documentation around the web about prior art, b…

I really think that Apple's big breakthrough was in marketing, not innovative design.

This doesn't, by itself, mean that their design patents are invalid. But hopefully it gets rid of the strawman of "if they weren't innovative why did people buy so much of their stuff?"

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

#363

Post by danielweber »

mbreese wrote: post #243
c0da wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not seeing where they went back to it... It says: "Mr. Ilagan, who is 59, said they watched the video 'very, very carefully' but decided to move on when the two weren't swayed. 'We didn't want to get bogged down,' said Mr. Ilagan, who works in marketing for a company that makes circuit boards." Maybe I'm misreading it.

The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Another rationale is that they would have needed a unanimous opinion to overturn the patent on prior-art. And since they weren't going to get a unanimous opinion, they skipped it because they couldn't over turn the patent. Without knowing all of the jury instructions, it hard to know exactly what happened.

The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

I've been agreeing with your other points, but I must disagree with this specific. Absence of evidence is definitely evidence of absence. Keep in mind that "evidence" is not the same as "proof."

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

#364

Post by veemjeem »

pserwylo wrote: post #356
veemjeem wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue there are certain aspects of the iPhone that are truly revolutionary, even if the ideas may have existed in other contexts before. For example, the scrolling mechanism on the iPhone was not done by anyone else prior Apple's product, and now everyone implements scrolling with a flick/inertia. I think had Apple used the old style scrolling methods, we might still be using those today. LG had a 10 year head st…

I agree that Samsung has gone overboard with regards to the packaging. However I feel that a design patent on a tablet form factor is not the best idea. Perhaps it works for fashion designers, and I am not denying that there is creativity in designing hardware devices. However, as I look at all the various LCD monitors that are around the office right now, I can't help but think about what would happen if there was o…

I agree with your statement on LCD monitors, but where does one draw the line between design that can be patented, and one that cannot? While googling around, I found that philip morris has a patent on rounded corners for their cigarette boxes: http://www.google.com/patents/US5341925

There's probably only so many ways one can manufacture a box to store 10 sticks of nicotine, but they own a patent for the rounded corners box. Same may apply to handbags as well. Although you may perceive women handbags to be very different from each other, there are categories of handbags where it's harder to create extremely different designs due to constraints, for example many evening clutches are similar because they are all required to be small. Should cloning be allowed if constraints prevent designs to be significantly different from each other?

It would be an uphill battle to try and prevent all those fashion companies from filing design patents for products limited by constraints. So if one were to revamp the patent system, one would also need to be mindful of all those other companies who are not in the tech sector and may have a bigger voice.

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

#365

Post by danielweber »

nirvana wrote: post #31
equalarrow wrote: post #2

"Just to drive the point home: a device with a touchscreen and few buttons was obvious.." I still don't buy it. This still misses the mark - it wasn't about a 'few' buttons, the iPhone was about none. All those pda's in the picture don't really mean anything to me. Sure, some of them had cell networking and a lot (most? all?) had wifi. But I would never consider the old pda's a mobile device. 'Mobile' to me comes fro…

> if it's not Linux or open source, it bad/wrong/etc. It's ideological. There is a trend in these objections in articles like this and across hacker news. They simply ignore what was unique about the iPhone and trivialize it completely and then pretend like it was obvious all along. Notice the repeated comparisons to stylus based devices as prior art for multi-touch. They don't care about the differences, as long as…

If the iPhone wasn't revolutionary, how did Apple go from selling no phones to the selling the most popular phone in just a few years?

While I find a lot of the anti-Apple commentary here at HN completely frustrating, the fact that Apple made a lot of money is not proof that they were innovative or revolutionary. Steve Jobs telling them they needed it played a really big part. Another company putting out the exact same product probably would not have enjoyed the same success.

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

#366

Post by sjwright »

gergles wrote: post #130
sjwright wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like your problem is with the law, not Apple.

This is farcical reasoning. Apple chose to sue Samsung. They could have not sued them. Therefore, the problem is with Apple, who chose to be the aggressor in a bullshit rounded rectangle lawsuit.

Why hasn't Apple targeted HTC or Motorola with their bullshit rounded rectangle lawsuit? Could it be because the issues are more nuanced than you're giving them credit for?

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

#367

Post by veemjeem »

eropple wrote: post #323
corin_ wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could be wrong (?) but I think the first Prada was capacitive but not multi-touch.

You are correct - the Prada II was capacitive and multi-touch, not the first one. Mea culpa. It doesn't really change much, though, as "make a [Surface|Lemur|Diamondpoint] handheld" is about as obvious a conceit as one can want.

Hm, I'd argue it's not that obvious, otherwise companies would just try to miniaturize everything hoping that there's a market for it. Companies won't typically make this leap because it's fairly costly and their product manager may not get a bonus that year if the product is a flop. It's only obvious to you because everything is obvious in hindsight.

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

#368

Post by kamaal »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #326
brc wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Sigh. I'm sick and tired of people twisting reality to fit an Apple anti-hero narrative. Makes a change from all the Microsoft bashing. Hard to fit a $ into Apple, though. A$$le maybe? Apple might not have discovered or invented everything (macintosh GUI case in point). But Jobs and Apple in general have a habit of discovering useful technologies and commercialising them. It's a hindcasting mistake to say 'oh, well…

"Well, if it was so obvious, why is Apple continually breaking new ground?" Herds. More specifically group thinking and risk aversion. I can't say I really admire Steve Jobs but what I completely believe was that Steve's willingness to say "my way or the highway" on very very risky decisions and directions is the entire source of Apples "innovation." This trial, and the documentation around the web about prior art, b…

I think the point most people like to make about Apple or any other company with regards to patents is a little different. Especially in case of Apple fans, most of them act like Ayn Rand fans. Though I agree that a whole lot of hard work is done to take things to the finishing line. And Apple is in fact a innovative company and deserves much credit for its success.

The whole point is nothing today exists in isolation. The ecosystem around you and other people's innovation play a huge role and are in many ways are responsible for your own innovations. Its a little like social security and taxes. Objectivists may argue that they must get all the pie they earn without giving anything back, because they earned it. But for them to earn it, the society and ecosystem around you- Stuff like roads, national/internal security, education, schools, industries, infrastructure .... was already built for you. The ecosystem was conducive for you to 'earn' your pie. Without all that you would spend much of your life solving those problems first, leaving your actual accomplishments very little. Therefore if each person goes through the same thing, we go no where as a society or as a ecosystem. That is why 'giving back' is so important. Because that creates a feed back loop to achieve more as a society/ecosystem yet offering room for individual growth.

For Apple to be so successful. They had to stand on the shoulder of many giants. Even their design philosophy rests on the shoulder of a giant called Dieter Rams.

That is why their claims 'to carry the innovation burden of world' are not false but are ridiculous.

I agree that they had the what it takes to take risks. But to claim that they are responsible for all the innovation that exists out there and that they are innovating for the whole world is just ridiculous.

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

#369

Post by ktizo »

nirvana wrote: post #285
ktizo wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bespoke touch oriented UI systems have been around for a very long time, some of them surprisingly sophisticated and innovative. A mate of mine used to do interfaces for touchscreen information kiosks, for instance.

Right and Graham invented the telephone so there was no inventions going into making the cellphone.

There were phone handsets with buttons on before cordless phones, so as far as the UI goes, there was little major invention initially.

The main inventive requirement in touchscreen phones is in making small, thin, cheap touchscreen modules. The UI concepts that then run on those kinds of devices have however been the subject of design studies for decades before that, and have been implemented in various forms on commercial touchscreen installations.

Also, much of the graphic polish of many of these devices seem to draw a direct lineage to stuff like the old praystation series of websites by Joshua Davis and his experiments with tsunami menus and inertial scrolling elements.

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

#370

Post by wvenable »

catch23 wrote: post #236
pserwylo wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but at the very least, this shows that at the time the iPhone was released (or just before), many of the concepts were "obvious".

If they were so "obvious", why hadn't someone created something similar to iPhone's interface? I owned the Nokia 770 -- a great internet tablet for it's time. I even hack soldered a wifi extension dongle to it so I could get better signal, but the browser on that thing was just horrible. What other obvious ideas are out there right now that some company will make billions off of? There's a few right under your nose t…

> If they were so "obvious", why hadn't someone created something similar to iPhone's interface?

My Sony-Ericsson P800 (from 2002) was pretty close to the iPhone interface.

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