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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

#221

Post by parasubvert »

bornhuetter wrote: post #193
parasubvert wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The first iPhone was an expensive PoS - it wasn't until the app store came along and the price came down that it turned into a good phone." Huh? Market wasn't ready? This is completely revisionist fantasy. In 2007, it was the best overall phone on the market, period, and the market was ready. People lined up around the block to drop $499 to $599 on a locked phone. They sold over 1 million phones in their first two a…

> This is completely revisionist fantasy. Revisionist? No. Personal opinion? Sure. I personally remember the iPhone coming out and thinking it was awful. Fucking awful. And so did everyone I knew. When the G1 came out it was even worse. In my opinion, the only people that bought these awful phones were, to put it politely, "early movers". > That's what innovation is. Not invention, no. You're not really arguing again…

> Revisionist? No. Personal opinion? Sure. I personally remember the iPhone coming out and thinking it was awful. Fucking awful. And so did everyone I knew.

I had the opposite experience. So did everyone I knew - they wanted one, badly. So did millions of others.

My point was that it was dubbed the "JesusPhone" in 2007, not 2008. You're entitled to your opinion, of course.

> They don't deserve a monopoly. As you said, they didn't really "invent" anything

If they have valid patents, then yes, they deserve a temporary monopoly on their approach. I don't like the terms of patents, they should be shorter. But I do think they exist for a reason.

> But right now the courts are involved, and the US courts (in contrast to some other courts) are saying that Apple have an exclusive right to features such as "pinch to zoom on a phone" that Apple didn't even invent.

They invent the first implementation of pinch to zoom ever, no. But they invented their approach to it as part of the broader innovation of the iPhone. That's what their patents are about, and they're so far deemed valid.

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

#222

Post by confluence »

arn wrote: post #216
confluence wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Key point here is suing your competition to remain competitive is an indicator of a coming fall.

Or that losing a key look and feel lawsuit means the competition can copy you without fear, losing your distinctiveness. I don't think its that black and white but suggesting the lawsuit, and not the lawsuit outcome, is somehow responsible for a company's lack-of-success is silly.

> losing your distinctiveness

You honestly think that is why they lost?

They lost because the stopped trying to compete - and just ran off to "Mommy" government screaming "Microsoft took my toy!" instead of fighting back.

And I didn't sell on outcome - this was a relatively short case - I was just waiting for the market to increase my exit price - 660 - from 600 (http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:AAPL).

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

#223

Post by esolyt »

corin_ wrote: post #32
flatline3 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The groklaw quotes were taken out of context. As far as I can tell, there's no evidence from those quotes that they skipped prior art, so much as skipped the task to move forward on others before circling back around to it. > I don't like to think of Apple as a pure innovator - I think of them more as an assembler. When they see a market in which all the hardware pieces are available and waiting to be put together, t…

> All Apple does it pick up the legos and put them together? That's how I think of them, and it's what I have great respect to them for. It can be worded to sound like a putdown, but in my opinion it should be considered a compliment.

Yes, they pick up hardware and put them together. Why do you consider this as an insult to Apple? I don't think anybody implied what they are doing is easy. Obviously it isn't. If it were, anybody would easily be able to create a great product.

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

#224

Post by catch23 »

bornhuetter wrote: post #159
gnaffle wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What evidence was presented that Samsung had a similar phone in the works in 2007? One with a capacitive touchscreen and a user interface optimized for finger touch? For all I know they might have been "thinking" about it, but why didn't they do more than think about it if it was that obvious at the time that capacitive touchscreen phones would dominate the future? I didn't say the market wouldn't move. Of course it…

> Why didn't they do more than think about it if it was that obvious at the time that capacitive touchscreen phones would dominate the future? Because, as I said, the market wasn't ready for large capacitive touch screens. > All the biggest competitors in the mobile space had their own operating systems that were optimized for navigation buttons/softkeys moving a cursor around, and optionally a stylus. Because, as I…

> Because, as I said, the market wasn't ready for large capacitive touch screens.

Hm, I don't think the reason competitors had their own operating system and stylus-based touch screens had anything to do with the market being ready for touch screens or not -- nobody created something that was usable, so of course the market didn't adapt to it. Bear with me on my small straw-man argument here: It's kind of like couchsurfing.com existed before airbnb.com, but few people let random strangers stay at their home before airbnb existed. You could say that "the market wasn't ready" or you could say that airbnb executed in a way that transformed the market. If Apple did not create the intuitive interfaces for the iPhone, we might still say "the market isn't ready for large touch screens".

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

#225

Post by catch23 »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #165
eropple wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of those have a touch based UI. Touch means finger touches. This is dishonestly revisionist, given how common it was to see people thumbing through applications on Palm devices. That Palms came with styluses doesn't mean that they weren't touch-friendly in a lot of ways, and that should be taken into account.

Since I don't know, I thought I'd ask -- were Apple the first to create a multi-touch UI for a phone? That would seem to me to be the major innovation in touch UI if that's the case.

I believe so, according to wikipedia, no other multi-touch phones existed before the iphone.

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

#226

Post by gnaffle »

bornhuetter wrote: post #159
gnaffle wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What evidence was presented that Samsung had a similar phone in the works in 2007? One with a capacitive touchscreen and a user interface optimized for finger touch? For all I know they might have been "thinking" about it, but why didn't they do more than think about it if it was that obvious at the time that capacitive touchscreen phones would dominate the future? I didn't say the market wouldn't move. Of course it…

> Why didn't they do more than think about it if it was that obvious at the time that capacitive touchscreen phones would dominate the future? Because, as I said, the market wasn't ready for large capacitive touch screens. > All the biggest competitors in the mobile space had their own operating systems that were optimized for navigation buttons/softkeys moving a cursor around, and optionally a stylus. Because, as I…

So Apple brought it to market at the exact point in time that it became viable. The other companies were "waiting" as you say, so why did they wait so long? Didn't they see that the technology was about to become viable?

I don't buy that theory. By the sales of the first iPhone, the market was obviously ready. Had it been "barely usable" it would have flopped completely.

Capacitive touch screens use the same technology as touchpads, and I haven't seen any proof that those screens were too expensive before 2006 and that technological advancements broght the price down after that.

What I do think is that Apple was willing to bet on touchscreens and place bulk orders that made the price come down, whereas other companies happy with the status quo and unwilling to redesign their mobile operating systems to fit a new technology.

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

#227

Post by gnaffle »

tjoff wrote: post #219
gnaffle wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the market was just waiting for capacitive touchscreens to become available, why did it take all the others years to come up with anything competitive after the iPhone launched? Why didn't they all have capacitive iPhone look-alikes ready in the lab then? Isn't it more reasonable to assume that the mobile market would have stayed roughly as it had the previous 10 years, with incremental improvements in screens, di…

If the market was just waiting for capacitive touchscreens to become available, why did it take all the others years to come up with anything competitive after the iPhone launched? Because apple was the only one that hadn't invested in anything else. Simple as that.

My point exactly. :)

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

#228

Post by pazimzadeh »

confluence wrote: post #222
arn wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or that losing a key look and feel lawsuit means the competition can copy you without fear, losing your distinctiveness. I don't think its that black and white but suggesting the lawsuit, and not the lawsuit outcome, is somehow responsible for a company's lack-of-success is silly.

> losing your distinctiveness You honestly think that is why they lost? They lost because the stopped trying to compete - and just ran off to "Mommy" government screaming "Microsoft took my toy!" instead of fighting back. And I didn't sell on outcome - this was a relatively short case - I was just waiting for the market to increase my exit price - 660 - from 600 ( http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:AAPL…

What do you mean, they stopped trying to compete? Are you implying that Jony Ive and Scott Forstall are sitting on their butts right now thinking "good thing we won, we won't have to compete any more?"

What evidence do you have that they've stopped competing? Anyway, maybe you should have waited until the new iPhone and iPad come out before selling your stock.

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

#229

Post by confluence »

pazimzadeh wrote: post #228
confluence wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> losing your distinctiveness You honestly think that is why they lost? They lost because the stopped trying to compete - and just ran off to "Mommy" government screaming "Microsoft took my toy!" instead of fighting back. And I didn't sell on outcome - this was a relatively short case - I was just waiting for the market to increase my exit price - 660 - from 600 ( http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:AAPL…

What do you mean, they stopped trying to compete? Are you implying that Jony Ive and Scott Forstall are sitting on their butts right now thinking "good thing we won, we won't have to compete any more?" What evidence do you have that they've stopped competing? Anyway, maybe you should have waited until the new iPhone and iPad come out before selling your stock.

It's quite simple. If you sue your competition to win - you will lose because the reason for your success is not protecting your IP rights (which can and will be abused as soon as you succeed - relentlessly) - but by making new IP.

Disney rocks not because of Mickey Mouse - it rocks because of Pixar.

Google rocks not because of PageRank - but because of pushing the edge of search and AI.

Tesla rocks not because of the Roadster - but because of the cars yet to come.

What you've done in the past means nothing in intellectual pursuits - it's what you are going to do that matters.

The only places Apple can enter now are to continue trying to grow PC market share and Virtual Reality. Google does both better.

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

#230

Post by pserwylo »

vvhn wrote: post #168
BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #107

Also see openmoko (2006): http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/Cheap-hackable-Linux... "The Neo1973 is based on a Samsung S3C2410 SoC (system-on-chip) application processor, powered by an ARM9 core. It will have 128MB of RAM, and 64MB of flash, along with an upgradable 64MB MicroSD card. Typical of Chinese phone designs, the Neo1973 sports a touchscreen, rather than a keypad -- in this case, an ultra-high resoluti…

>I personally have always thought the iPhone was Apple taking the openmoko idea and running with it. From the linked article, " Cheap, hackable Linux smartphone due soon By Linux Devices 2006-11-07 " Presumably that means this was 7th November 2006. So, in exactly 2 months ( on January 9th 2007) , Apple was able to design a prototype based on this concept, write all the software and demo it onstage ?

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".
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