Has Apple Really Ever Invented Anything?

[Kashchei]

The real question has anyone besides Apple invented anything? Last I heard Microsoft had something like 10K patents.

http://www.latestpatents.com/category/microsoft/

Microsoft had 118 patents granted just yesterday.

Here's one they filed some time ago

http://www.theonion.com/articles/microsoft-patents-ones-zeroes,599/

 

[Peace]

Here's one they filed some time ago

http://www.theonion.com/articles/microsoft-patents-ones-zeroes,599/

That's in dispute. Some company claims to have patented the zero.

 

[smoledman]

If you look at those patents, many of them are filed as far back as 2006.

 

[iAppl3Fan]

agree and fair enough... but what about taking those $INVETORS to court and sue the **** out of them? like...

you brought the part, I refined it, so right now the WHOLE THING is mine and you gotta pay for your own invention... This attitude just doesn't fell right

Not necessarily. What's special about Apple products is the software. For example, in one of the recent court evidence or whatever Samsung does comparison with Apple to improve their products. Here my beef with that....It okay to compare products from your competitors to see how your own company's product measure up that is just competitive analysis. Nothing wrong with that. It becomes a problem when you're focus on one company (Apple) to compare your product against theirs to copy their innovation. For example that one image of the iPhone end button where samsung wanted to do something to extend to make the bar bigger.

As for hardware, if apple does not built the part they source it out to other companies like Samsung to provide the part and it gets assembled. The problem is other companies like Samsung would create their products to look identical to Apples because of it cool factor or iconic designs and that what they are suing for.

I believe Apple was first to do the slide to unlock so they patient it. That's a smart business move. Other companies try to mimic it and cannot. There were many ways to unlock a phone but the slide to unlock was unique to Apple. At one point other companies try to copy too but since they couldnt they finally came up with that connect the dots thing that android does.

 

[smoledman]

I believe Apple was first to do the slide to unlock so they patient it. That's a smart business move. Other companies try to mimic it and cannot. There were many ways to unlock a phone but the slide to unlock was unique to Apple. At one point other companies try to copy too but since they couldnt they finally came up with that connect the dots thing that android does.

Slide to unlock is overrated. On my Windows Phone, I slide the entire lock screen up, which is FAR easier then trying to move a little slider control horizontally.

 

[Born Again]

No but they are great copiers

That is a form of modesty.

I'm a huge apple fan but we fanboys know apple copys better

 

[G51989]

Where were the great versions of Windows before OSX?

Windows 3.1: I started out on this, had great luck with it. Never had any kind of major issues. It was very good at what it was supposed to do. Before OSX.

Windows 95: Yes, Blue Screen of Death, but once you had your drivers sorted out, you were TYPICALLY good to go. ( Apple's OS's at the time were no more stable ) I found it to be a great operating system, yes it had its flaws, but GUI wise anyway, it was lightyears ahead of anything apple had at the time. Before OSX as well.

Windows NT 4.0: Used this a lot as well, it was lean, fast, stable. And very very good at what it was meant to do. Before OSX

Windows 2000: Same thing again, lean, fast, easy to use. Very very stable. I'd say its one of the best OS's ever made. Before OSX.

Windows XP: Pretty much came out around the same time OSX did, and went on to be one of the most popular peice of software ever sold, it's also one of the longest lasting OS's ever put out, It brought the NT system to the Masses, and I had multiple versions on multiple machines, never had any serious issues here either. ( Yes, it came out a few months after OSX, but if you really think you can re work an entire OS, test it, then ship it in a couple months, you clearly have no idea how complex a desktop operating is )

Where were the great consumer PCs before the iMac?

Everywhere, I had computers before the imac, WAY before the iMac, and lots of them were great. No offense, but you sound pretty young with statements like this. There were tons of great computers before the iMac.

Where were the great laptops before the PowerBook?

There were tons of portables before the powerbook, some good, and some not so good.

Where were the great MP3 players before the iPod?

In my pocket, my Gateway DMP had longer battery life than the orginal iPod, could play far more file formats, had 3 times the hard drive space. And was overall a nicer a product. Before that? My Achros Jukebox had 9 gigs of space ( more than the original iPod ), slightly longer battery life. Tho I admit the interface was kinda ******.

Oh yeah, I also had a Rio Karma around the same time, which had 20 gigs of space ( as well as my DMP ), and could be turned into a music server via Ethernet.

Where were the great ultrabooks before the MacBook Air?

The sony Vaio

A couple of companies also did very similar products to the Macbook Air, some of them even had Auto Throttling transmeta processors. All before the Macbook Air

Where were the great smartphones before the iPhone?

Ah, there was one in my pocket for one, I had a Windows Mobile Phone that blew the hell out of the original iPhone. I had MMS, 3G, GPS, and 3rd party Apps, the iPhone had none of these when it came out. There was also RIM and Palm, made great phones to.

Where were the great tablets before the iPad?

All over the place, you just probably couldn't afford an early one. I had an HP Convertible Tablet with a full desktop OS, touch screen, and detachable keyboard in 2005. To bad it was like 2 grand lol.

2002.

Yes, there are are good, compelling and cheaper alternatives to Apple now. But we have Apple to thank for them. Bottom line and end of story.

No we don't, Apple literally didn't invent ANYTHING it sells, they just polish things up to be super shiny, and market the living **** out of them.

Either your really young, and don't remember all these peices of software and hardware when they were new, or you drink way to much iKoolAid

----------

Slide to unlock is overrated. On my Windows Phone, I slide the entire lock screen up, which is FAR easier then trying to move a little slider control horizontally.

Yeah it is, always hated it. Hopefully I'll ditch my S3 for a windows 8 phone when they come out, I love the interface.

 

[G51989]

I had a Sony Ericsson camera phone and even that was better than the original iPhone at nearly every task.

Indeed, at my first post college job, I just had a LG flip feature phone as the phones they gave everyone as the " company phone ", and I think you could pick these things up with contracts at verzion for like 130 dollars. And the damn thing had MMS, 3G, GPS, and a bunch of little neat apps, and a ghetto but workable browser.

 

[iAppl3Fan]

Slide to unlock is overrated. On my Windows Phone, I slide the entire lock screen up, which is FAR easier then trying to move a little slider control horizontally.

That's fine but that's a personal preference. The bottom line is Apple had a phone out before Windows joined the party. If Windows cannot use a slide to unlock because it patented by Apple then they change it a little bit. Either way it still a slide to unlock gesture whether it a bar or an entire screen. The idea in general came from Apple but Apple probably only owns the slide to unlock bar.

----------

Windows 3.1: I started out on this, had great luck with it. Never had any kind of major issues. It was very good at what it was supposed to do. Before OSX.

Windows 95: Yes, Blue Screen of Death, but once you had your drivers sorted out, you were TYPICALLY good to go. ( Apple's OS's at the time were no more stable ) I found it to be a great operating system, yes it had its flaws, but GUI wise anyway, it was lightyears ahead of anything apple had at the time. Before OSX as well.

Windows NT 4.0: Used this a lot as well, it was lean, fast, stable. And very very good at what it was meant to do. Before OSX

Windows 2000: Same thing again, lean, fast, easy to use. Very very stable. I'd say its one of the best OS's ever made. Before OSX.

Windows XP: Pretty much came out around the same time OSX did, and went on to be one of the most popular peice of software ever sold, it's also one of the longest lasting OS's ever put out, It brought the NT system to the Masses, and I had multiple versions on multiple machines, never had any serious issues here either. ( Yes, it came out a few months after OSX, but if you really think you can re work an entire OS, test it, then ship it in a couple months, you clearly have no idea how complex a desktop operating is )



Everywhere, I had computers before the imac, WAY before the iMac, and lots of them were great. No offense, but you sound pretty young with statements like this. There were tons of great computers before the iMac.



There were tons of portables before the powerbook, some good, and some not so good.


In my pocket, my Gateway DMP had longer battery life than the orginal iPod, could play far more file formats, had 3 times the hard drive space. And was overall a nicer a product. Before that? My Achros Jukebox had 9 gigs of space ( more than the original iPod ), slightly longer battery life. Tho I admit the interface was kinda ******.

Oh yeah, I also had a Rio Karma around the same time, which had 20 gigs of space ( as well as my DMP ), and could be turned into a music server via Ethernet.



The sony Vaio Image

A couple of companies also did very similar products to the Macbook Air, some of them even had Auto Throttling transmeta processors. All before the Macbook Air



Ah, there was one in my pocket for one, I had a Windows Mobile Phone that blew the hell out of the original iPhone. I had MMS, 3G, GPS, and 3rd party Apps, the iPhone had none of these when it came out. There was also RIM and Palm, made great phones to.



All over the place, you just probably couldn't afford an early one. I had an HP Convertible Tablet with a full desktop OS, touch screen, and detachable keyboard in 2005. To bad it was like 2 grand lol.

Image

2002.



No we don't, Apple literally didn't invent ANYTHING it sells, they just polish things up to be super shiny, and market the living **** out of them.

Either your really young, and don't remember all these peices of software and hardware when they were new, or you drink way to much iKoolAid

----------



Yeah it is, always hated it. Hopefully I'll ditch my S3 for a windows 8 phone when they come out, I love the interface.

Back in the days, Sony had the best ultra portables on the market hands down. Very expensive but it was a thing of beauty that I was lucky enough to had own some of them back then. Today's ultrabook is nothing more then the same thing back then with a different terminology. The MBA is the same thing and falls into this category as well as one of Apples offering. It's just the little thing in OS X today that stands out to the the differentiator between Apple and the ultrabooks.

 

[G51989]

That's fine but that's a personal preference. The bottom line is Apple had a phone out before Windows joined the party. If Windows cannot use a slide to unlock because it patented by Apple then they change it a little bit. Either way it still a slide to unlock gesture whether it a bar or an entire screen. The idea in general came from Apple but Apple probably only owns the slide to unlock bar.

Windows Phone uses an evolved version of the Zune HD UI, which has had slide up to unlock since the day it came out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Mobile

Microsoft had a Smartphone OS out in 2000. 7 years before the iPhone.

----------

Back in the days, Sony had the best ultra portables on the market hands down. Very expensive but it was a thing of beauty that I was lucky enough to had own some of them back then. Today's ultrabook is nothing more then the same thing back then with a different terminology. The MBA is the same thing and falls into this category as well as one of Apples offering. It's just the little thing in OS X today that stands out to the the differentiator between Apple and the ultrabooks.

Pretty much, I don't understand why everyone likes to say Apple invented a thin laptop. Its been done before. I think Fuji had one out before the Vaio that was just as thin and light, only had one of those garbage Transmeta Processors.( Intel bought Transmeta, and those processors eventually became the atom from what I remember )

 

[iAppl3Fan]

Pretty much, I don't understand why everyone likes to say Apple invented a thin laptop. Its been done before. I think Fuji had one out before the Vaio that was just as thin and light, only had one of those garbage Transmeta Processors.( Intel bought Transmeta, and those processors eventually became the atom from what I remember )

I couldn't agree with you more! I remember seeing those Fujitsu and Sony VAIOs which were very thin and small just like an ultra books. With the evolution instead of being 3k or so back then now they are around 1k more or less and rebranded as ultra books.

 

[InuNacho]

Where were the great laptops before the PowerBook?

My old man had some Compaq Win 98 Laptop with a dock that his work supplied that played Tomb Raider a million times better than our upgraded Performa 6400, with and without the dock.

 

[anonymouslurker]

These all came from the original Mac group at Apple:

• Drag-and-drop file manipulation
• types and creators for files
• direct manipulation editing of document, disk, and application names
• multiple views of the file system
• desk accessories
• control panels

These came from the lisa group at Apple:

• pull down menus
• the clipboard

So yes, Apple has really invented things.

All of these were improvements from Xerox.

Apple is the best company in the world at refining things... adding some wonderful functionality and advancing the evolution of both hardware and software.

Yes, they do invent things, but mostly while standing on the shoulders of giants.

 

[BaldiMac]

Most of this thread, like so many others, is just people making up their own arbitrary definitions in order to defend their own preconceived notions. The Tower of Babel at it's finest.

 

[LorenK]

First off... I have a bunch of apple products that I really like! I think they're awesome and i totally enjoy using them, but...

It just gets ridiculous of how this entire patent thing goes on and in particular HOW apple fanboys think apple came up with pretty much everything on their own... like curved edges, laptops that look like laptops and ****.

I'm sure that you're getting flamed all over the place for posting this on an Apple fan site, but I think that by your statement you expose your ignorance of "this entire patent thing". As you are apparently unaware, patent law allows Apple certain protections of its inventions and designs, the same protections that are relied upon by every other manufacturer, such as Samsung, which has made similar claims to protect its own inventions and designs. What someone doesn't get to do when there is a patent is make something that copies the patented item. You can reverse engineer and figure out a different solution to the process, you can use elements of the design, so long as the look and feel remain sufficiently different, you can do all sorts of things, but what you can't do is copy and rely upon consumer confusion as to the source of item to sell the item.

Looking at the Samsung products in question, the court is going to decide whether the designs by Samsung are sufficiently different, even though by the documents that have been introduced in court, Samsung had access to the Apple designs and used them in their design of their products. That Apple users have tended to think that Samsung slavishly copied the Apple designs is not unexpected because, you must admit, they look a whole lot alike and there is no practical reason that Samsung had to make them so similar (there is usually more than one way to design a cellphone, look at the other cellphones out there). So to say that Apple fanboys think that Apple came up with this ignores the very fact that even if Apple didn't come up with it, why then did Samsung have to make their product look so similar to Apple's? Sorry, owning and using Apple products doesn't necessarily make you smarter, and apparently in your desire to judge their love of the products, you've ignored the obvious problem with Samsung's defense - they didn't have to make them look so much like Apple's.

 

[astrorider]

My old man had some Compaq Win 98 Laptop with a dock that his work supplied that played Tomb Raider a million times better than our upgraded Performa 6400, with and without the dock.

The Powerbook came out in 1991.

 

[elppa]

All of these were improvements from Xerox.

Apple is the best company in the world at refining things... adding some wonderful functionality and advancing the evolution of both hardware and software.

Yes, they do invent things, but mostly while standing on the shoulders of giants.

Improvements in terms of not existing until teams at Apple invented them...

 

[anonymouslurker]

Improvements in terms of not existing until teams at Apple implemented them...

Fixed that for you.

 

[kdarling]

If Windows cannot use a slide to unlock because it patented by Apple then they change it a little bit. Either way it still a slide to unlock gesture whether it a bar or an entire screen. The idea in general came from Apple but Apple probably only owns the slide to unlock bar.

Almost. The idea for general swipe to unlock did _not_ come from Apple.

We had gesture security unlockers available for touch PDAs at the end of the 1990s. Those gestures were simplified into a non-secure left-right invisible unlock slide on the Windows CE based NeoNode smartphone in 2002.

Years later, Apple got a patent on using a visible sliding object along a visible predetermined path... then later they went back and kept adding onto that patent when they realized that there were plenty of other simple patterns.

 

[iAppl3Fan]

Almost. The idea for general swipe to unlock did _not_ come from Apple.

We had gesture security unlockers available for touch PDAs at the end of the 1990s. Those gestures were simplified into a non-secure left-right invisible unlock slide on the Windows CE based NeoNode smartphone in 2002.

Years later, Apple got a patent on using a visible sliding object along a visible predetermined path... then later they went back and kept adding onto that patent when they realized that there were plenty of other simple patterns.

Interesting points! Thanks for the info.

 

[Heynonny]

Apple invented the personal computer. I describe that as consumer mass market, plug and play (a phrase first used in 1977), qwerty keyboard, memory, storage, CPU, screen output (not lights/digits), ports for input & output interfacing. Starting up in an easy-to-use language/OS with the capability of performing useful tasks.

The earlier Apple I and the Altair and a dozen other kit/hobby candidates, or business market minis, were not personal computers as I understood the term, then or now.

Personal computers had been discussed, theoretically, long before, and there were kits. I don't know the official dates in 1977 and the common wisdom was that the Pet came out first, but I do know I had cash in hand looking for a device like that. Before anybody had a Pet or a Trash80 for me (not to advance order, to buy), the Apple II was actually for sale. Walk in, hand over the money and walk out with a personal computer. Apple II.

They sold millions of them before IBM knew what had happened, and the world changed.

 

[kdarling]

Apple invented the personal computer. I describe that as consumer mass market, plug and play ... snip

Apple did not solely invent "the" personal computer (or home computer, as they were often called back then). They invented "one" of them. So did Commodore and Tandy at the same time. It was an idea whose time had come.

They sold millions of them before IBM knew what had happened, and the world changed.

The mass consumer world changed because of Tandy and Commodore, and later Atari, who all sold computers that the common household could afford, versus the far more expensive Apple II (starting at double the price of a TRS-80).

1977:

• Apple sold 600 Apple IIs.
• Tandy sold 100,000 TRS-80s.

1978:

• Apple sold 7,600 Apple IIs.
• Tandy sold 150,000 TRS-80s.

1979:

• Apple sold 35,000 Apple IIs.
• Tandy sold 200,000 TRS-80s.
• Atari sold 100,000 of their 400/800 models.

1980:

• Apple sold 78,000 Apple IIs
• Tandy sold 225,000 TRS-80s.
• Atari sold 200,000 of theirs.

Apple didn't reach a million total Apple II's sold until ~ 1984, when it hit its peak sales. By 1981, the IBM PCs were hitting, and they soon zoomed past everyone. By 1983 IBM types were already selling at double the rate of the Apple II. Personal Computer Market Share 1975-2005

 

[iMcLovin]

I would say apple invented the ease of use to computers, phones etc... Maybe they haven't really invented the computer or the phone to the extent they claim....but I would say they have invented such an amount of features and minor details - and also always turned existing stuff into a new level of quality that you could call it an invention. I think computers and phones would not have been at the level they are today if it wasn't for Apple and Steve jobs eye for perfectionism.

 

[Heynonny]

Apple did not solely invent "the" personal computer (or home computer, as they were often called back then). They invented "one" of them. So did Commodore and Tandy at the same time.

The Tandy Trash80 wasn't in stores for a full six months after the Apple II. The Commodore PET shipped fewer than 100 demos to stores about three months after the Apple II, and a very few of those may have actually been sold (I offered several stores a premium over list price but was refused), but the first bulk shipment was not until 1978.

I know the Apple II is officially described as "one of the first" and more specifically "one of the first three" (the others being the Tandy TRS80 and the Commodore PET. But I was there. The Apple II was first. Approximately 6 million Apple IIs were sold. I do not know how many of the original Trash80s or PETs were sold, but useless as they were I doubt either sold anywhere near a million.

Apple invented the personal computer.

 

[patrick0brien]

This is a very deep and complex question: where is the line between just improving upon something that already existed, and inventing something truly new?

Did Mercedes not invent the car because they re-used the wheel?
Did the Earl not invent the Sandwich because he didn't create the chicken?

IMHO Apple did invent many things, and they did take and re-use others.

A Paraphrase of a definition in a previous post:
An invention is a collection of parts that may have existed before, but the sum of them does something new (enough) <- there's the line I'm talking about.
I don't know about you guys, but I'm certainly not the arbiter of invention, but thankfully the USPTO is. Love 'em, or hate 'em, if you get a patent number, it's an invention.
Further, if there is litigation of the patent, and that patent holds up (e.g. no prior-art is discovered and argued successfully to invalidate the patent), that invention further proved. I'm sorry, but there is no higher authority on it.