Slightly off topic, but I was under the impression that Ford didn't invent the automobile, Benz did.
Apple Never Invented Anything
171–180 of 217 posts
Re: Apple Never Invented Anything
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't even think medicines should be patented. I think government should fund the R&D and then let all companies manufacture and sell it at a low price. Then it is even better than medicare. The government can sell the production method to other countries for a profit though.
That's not government's role unless you're in Soviet Russia. The free market drives more innovation that government ever has. The Lada and the Yugo are great examples of what happens when central planners try to run things. Besides, if people aren't going to profit from their hard work, what's the incentive for hard work? I don't write code everyday for the good of humanity, I do it to try and build something someone…
About $26.4 billion, that is 28% of the total biomedical research funding in US are money from the government. Its the single largest player in medical research. In areas of core principles, cancer research, and motility effecting illness, they are 80-95% in total funding.
Government is not and has never been an referee in medical research. The drug companies would never allow it. Try removing a $26.4 billion of free R&D and see lobbyist doing everything they can to stop you. Additionally, anyone caring about sick people would join in in stopping that bill. One do not simply remove $26.4 billion of medical research in the name of free market.
Re: Apple Never Invented Anything
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
I understand the comment. Of course the thought has crossed my mind. But I'm not so sure there's any evidence to support it. Your post is vague enough that I have a hard time parsing it. No evidence for what? That there is such a thing as a "non techy" user? The evidence is overwhelming, including anecdotal evidence from practically every "techy" person here who have ever had to help their family/friends with a compu…
anecdotal evidence indeed. that's precisely the point. there is no empirical evidence behind the vast majority of comments like these. conclusions without evidence or any indication of the methods used to arrive at them. linux? are you kidding? this is exactly what i was referring to: assumptions. how did you conclude by booting an os i meant linux? a true apple fanboy. thanks for sharing.
Actually that's not anecdotal evidence. Anecdotal evidence looks like this:
"It has been my experience that XXX"
The parent has made a different formulation, specifically: "Every person belonging to group Y has had experience XXX"
This difference is significant, because the argument is basically stating that it is not only the experience of the person making the argument, but that the person making the argument is expecting that the readers of the argument are going to be able to confirm the experience for themselves. This is a much stronger argument than mere anecdote.
And for those that are already starting to lean on their keyboards to type "the plural of anecdote is not data", that platitude is a recognition that data is supposed to repose on a generalisable sample of reality, and if you are just going on anecdote, even multiple anecdotes, you are leaving yourself wide open to claims of cherry-picking. But this claim does not cherry pick, it says that a vast majority of "techy" peoply should be able to confirm the claim from their own experience.
Re: Apple Never Invented Anything
#174God, this is depressing, lots of whiny fandroids who can't even f---ing read.
These morons have taken the article title as a literal synposis, it is being ironic (and yes, we know that Americans famously don't get irony).
The authors (one of whom is a former Apple exec) are arguing that what Apple did was invention and does indeed deserve protection from the legion of lazy wannabes who would just otherwise simply copy from the smartest kid in class.
Re: Apple Never Invented Anything
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually the connectivity problem was 100% unsolved which is what lead to the end of the device. The supporting technology wasn't available unfortunately. The basic idea of the NewsPAD was exactly the same though. They decided to move into the cable/STB market after this as they could deliver the same experience with the connectivity that was already there. They did this successfully for a few years in the late 90's…
The supporting technology was available in 1996: https://www.msu.edu/~luckie/seahorse.html Apples innovations wasn't in "the basic idea", it was in lots of implementation details that make that basic idea into a usable product. If you don't see this, then there is no point in arguing further. I could just as well say that there has happened exactly zero innovation in the cell phone industry in the last 30-40 years, s…
It wasnt ubiquitous though as is 3G and WiFi which is why iOS works. If they didn't exist it would have had the same fate as the NewsPAD.
Re: Apple Never Invented Anything
#176One interesting point is he brought up Einstein's invention of relativity. Notice that in the scientific community, humanity has been building upon previous work for centuries with no copyright or patent protection, and nothing more than honor, citation, and shame against plagiarists. The fundamental defense made by many is that without patent protection for software, people would not put much effort into innovating.…
> But 20? It's absurd. If pinch and zoom is such a trivial thing then invent some other thing to use instead. The patent system by-and-large doesn't pick and choose patent durations based on the kind of patent. Theoretical physics and patentable technology are quite different things and the comparison is not helpful. Before patents we had a guild system where people who made almost anything -- pottery, telescopes, po…
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Re: Apple Never Invented Anything
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
You said: "Apple has invented or innovated precisely bugger all there.". I was simply trying to see how unreasonable such a statement is considering the companies that Apple bought and the work those companies had done in getting stuff like multi-touch to work right. If all Apple did was turd polishing, then they could have saved themselves a lot of effort by polishing a turd called Newton (which was also quite advan…
Apple didn't innovate stuff - they bought it in and stuck it together. I would be happy with anything, but not necessarily impressed with it. A paradigm shift would be innovation but there isn't one. I'm using a Windows Mobile 6.5 kernel based device to write this on ironically (WP7.5 Lumia 710). Sony's ability was to take poor grade American products and package them up with Japanese reliability and quality. I'm con…
"Apple didn't innovate stuff - they bought it in and stuck it together."
That's kind of the definition of innovation. Take something that exist and improve upon it.
Re: Apple Never Invented Anything
#178One interesting point is he brought up Einstein's invention of relativity. Notice that in the scientific community, humanity has been building upon previous work for centuries with no copyright or patent protection, and nothing more than honor, citation, and shame against plagiarists. The fundamental defense made by many is that without patent protection for software, people would not put much effort into innovating.…
> But 20? It's absurd. If pinch and zoom is such a trivial thing then invent some other thing to use instead. The patent system by-and-large doesn't pick and choose patent durations based on the kind of patent. Theoretical physics and patentable technology are quite different things and the comparison is not helpful. Before patents we had a guild system where people who made almost anything -- pottery, telescopes, po…
> If pinch and zoom is such a trivial thing then invent some other thing to use instead.
But isn't that the exact problem.
p&z is so trivial that any other thing would be less trivial which would be counter intuitive for human-computer interaction.
Re: Apple Never Invented Anything
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
"ok but nothing special"? You clearly didn't own a 1st gen iPhone... It's oh so easy to say that now with the current market.
I did. It wasn't that special when you've had several devices like that Treo 600, O2 XDA 2, Psion 5MX etc beforehand and spent several years developing software for such devices. My wife had it and I went back to an S60 device (Nokia E51). The iPhone was just prettier and substantially less functional.
So why, if the iPhone wasn't disruptive and just pretty as you state, has practically every manufacturer followed Apple's lead? I know that a haters gonna hate, but credit where it's due.
Re: Apple Never Invented Anything
#180Note this: Apple spends substantially less (as a fraction of revenue) on R&D, and gets substantially more, in terms of outstanding products, compared to every other tech company. What is it that they're doing so well?
Nothing besides of polished systems and good hardware. But I do not like the type of signal this can show to the tech companies around the world: that their patents of new tech that are life changing for everyone are worth less than a pinch zoom on a touch screen, now I don't think it was a obvious gesture but I do not think it should be covered by a patent. There should be a better way to protect new UI elements.