Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple changed everything? Yeah, right.

www2.macleans.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 123 posts

Re: Apple changed everything? Yeah, right.

#51

Post by mayanksinghal »

Anechoic wrote: post #15
patrickaljord wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree though that Google has more impact than Apple. Every student, every high schooler or college student, professor, scientist etc around the world use Google to get access to knowledge, learn and get their job done. I live in Peru where every student use google to get knowledge, I haven't seen anyone with an idevice anywhere here. I think the service Google has done to humanity by making information accessible t…

I live in Peru where every student use google to get knowledge, Sure, but if Google wasn't around they would probably be using Yahoo or AltaVista to get knowledge.

To extend that analogy, we do have Yahoo!, Bing and AltaVista but Google is the leading search engine.

iPhone is 14% and Android 50% [Ref:http://www.fsyaonline.com/apple-iphone-vs-google-android-mar... So even if we look at the ideology that Apple takes up ideas and does brilliant executions that become insanely popular, then the game-point must go to Google for developing Android.

Re: Apple changed everything? Yeah, right.

#52

Post by mayanksinghal »

nirvana wrote: post #45
mayanksinghal wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GUI: No. [3] Touch: No. [1][2] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-touch#History [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchscreen#History [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_graphical_user_i...

If you want to disagree with what I said, you need to make an actual argument. Simply providing links is an automatic failure, because you're expecting me to go hunting for a counter argument to the statements I made, and none of those links were written in rebuttal to them. That being said, your links are not authoritative, nor do they even address what I said.

You can't make statements like X invented Y and then add earlier versions of Y weren't Y because they were not as good as X's implementation of Y.

That is very much like believing in Flying Spaghetti Monster. It's logically irrefutable, but sounds absurd.

[Edit: Spell]

Re: Apple changed everything? Yeah, right.

#54

Post by nirvana »

lotharbot wrote: post #49
nirvana wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GUI is a revolution from the command line. The personal computer is a revolution from the mini-computer and the mainframe. Apple invented both of those. The touch interface is revolutionary, compared to plastic buttons, and Apple invented that. I find it amazing that people can claim, with a straight face that Apple "combined things were were already doing in slick and usable packages" about things that did not e…

Recall that the context of this article is innovations over the last decade. Both the GUI and personal computers are 35+ years old (and neither were pioneered by Apple; Xerox invented the GUI, and other systems like the TRS-80 and Altair 8800 were on the market in the Apple I/II era). Even direct-manipulation touchscreen interfaces predate this decade; I remember ordering at Arby's using such a system in the 1990s. I…

The context of this article is denigrating Apple by misrepresenting, using falsehoods, its contributions to the computer industry. When you claim that "neither were pioneered by Apple" you tell an outright lie. The Apple I was on the market before the TRS-80, and the Altair 8800 was a kit that didn't even produce a complete computer, it was not a personal computer. Xerox did not invent the GUI.

The idea that an arby's touchscreen means Apple didn't invent anything with the touch UI is so dishonest that it boggles the mind that you could say it in public with a straight face, seriously. The only motivation for doing so is either that you're really uninformed about this stuff and are just repeating what you've heard from Apple haters, or you're an Apple hater.

Seriously. This is Hacker News. This is not uninformed barely-computer literate consumer news. If we can't be honest about the major contributors to computer science here, then the site is completely lost.

Re: Apple changed everything? Yeah, right.

#55

Post by [deleted] »

mayanksinghal wrote: post #52
nirvana wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to disagree with what I said, you need to make an actual argument. Simply providing links is an automatic failure, because you're expecting me to go hunting for a counter argument to the statements I made, and none of those links were written in rebuttal to them. That being said, your links are not authoritative, nor do they even address what I said.

You can't make statements like X invented Y and then add earlier versions of Y weren't Y because they were not as good as X's implementation of Y. That is very much like believing in Flying Spaghetti Monster. It's logically irrefutable, but sounds absurd. [Edit: Spell]

[deleted]

Re: Apple changed everything? Yeah, right.

#56

Post by nirvana »

mayanksinghal wrote: post #52
nirvana wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to disagree with what I said, you need to make an actual argument. Simply providing links is an automatic failure, because you're expecting me to go hunting for a counter argument to the statements I made, and none of those links were written in rebuttal to them. That being said, your links are not authoritative, nor do they even address what I said.

You can't make statements like X invented Y and then add earlier versions of Y weren't Y because they were not as good as X's implementation of Y. That is very much like believing in Flying Spaghetti Monster. It's logically irrefutable, but sounds absurd. [Edit: Spell]

You're knocking down a strawman. Your argument is that the guy who invented the internal combustion engine didn't actually invent it because the guy who invented the piston is the one who invented it.

Re: Apple changed everything? Yeah, right.

#58

Post by pederb72 »

georgemcbay wrote: post #34
hinting wrote: post #2

Article summary: All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

"Article summary: All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?" Wow, I think your comment is a perfect illustration of one of the author's points and the reason he had to speak up in the face of people going too far in extolling Apple's virtues. Apple makes fantastic products, but…

You should watch Life of Brian some time:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079470/quotes

Re: Apple changed everything? Yeah, right.

#59

Post by philwelch »

veyron wrote: post #33
raganwald wrote: post #9

Somewhat related: You know how we in the startup world are constantly chanting, "It's the execution that matters, not the idea?" Well, many of the discussions around Apple seem to boil down to one person saying that Apple copied/stole the idea, or the idea was inevitable, and the other person saying "Yeah, but Apple pulled off he execution ." To the extent that all of Apple's ideas in GUIs, mobile devices, music reta…

It's more subtle than that. Jobs had a preternatural ability to determine when a technology was sufficiently mature and when people were ready to accept a well-executed solution. Some would argue, for example, that Newton was executed well (but people weren't ready for it). I would imagine a lot of startups find themselves in a situation where people simply aren't ready for the solution that is brought to the table.

Newton was not only premature, it didn't fit any useful form factor (too small for a tablet, too big for a pocket device) and it didn't do anything necessary. An iPod plays music and an iPhone is a phone.

Additionally, the state of Newton's handwriting recognition was immature.

Re: Apple changed everything? Yeah, right.

#60

Post by nirvana »

nitrogen wrote: post #46
nirvana wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer to your question is a quote from Lucas that I read in a hardback book covering the history of Pixar from around that time. He essentially said as much. Also, at that time, Industrial Light and Magic was a practical shop, they were not doing "digital filmmaking" and Lucas wasn't yet a proponent of digital filmmaking, as this really didn't exist yet. So, Pixar was very much an odd duck there, they didn't hav…

...by google fans because they want to believe that it is ok for google to rip off the iPhone and give away a counterfeit operating system. Here you go too far. You don't have to like Android, MeeGo, or any other non-Apple OS, but calling any of them counterfeit is highly inaccurate. Google isn't stealing Apple's software and repackaging it as their own. In the form of the oft-used car analogy: you're accusing Hyunda…

Google is, in fact, stealing Apple's patented inventions and repackaging it as their own. Hence the sudden flare up in "patents are all bogus and a bad idea" propaganda.

Before the announcement of the iPhone the Android phones looked a whole lot like blackberries. Google didn't spend 7 years coming up with a multi-touch operating system, and the underlying technology. They spent one year copying what Apple did, right down to the icon placement, and then started licensing it to manufacturers who sell it to consumers who genuinely think they are getting iPhones.

I know google fans don't like to admit this, and so they claim that because in the past there was a touch screen somewhere, therefore, Apple didn't invent anything, but the standards of law are much higher and disprove this claim.

Post reply on HN