Proportional computer fonts, the modern mouse-based GUI, the PMP, smartphone, tablet, laptop. What haven't they innovated? Whatever they don't invent in-house, they buy up or license(FingerWorks, Anobit, AuthenTec, LiquidMetal, Corning Glass).
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Why Apple is superior to Microsoft
- Thread starter smoledman
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Proportional computer fonts, the modern mouse-based GUI, the PMP, smartphone, tablet, laptop. What haven't they innovated? Whatever they don't invent in-house, they buy up or license(FingerWorks, Anobit, AuthenTec, LiquidMetal, Corning Glass).
And burns you if you use it on your skin, and the aluminum pits if your palms get sweaty. Seriously, are you that daft? If I put an SSD in my Dell it would be silent too.
Basically. They get their CPU's from Intel or Samsung, Motherboard reference designs from Intel, RAM from Samsung, Hynx, etc, their displays from Samsung or Panasonic, etc etc etc...
Honestly, the first innovation that I've seen from Apple in a long time is the A6 chip, as it's an ARM cpu (they didn't invent ARM btw) with some special Apple bits added.
Apple's Ax chips have routinely the last few years been best in terms of GPU benchmarking.
Wait, so now they innovated the mouse based UI, tablets, and laptops? What happened to PARC, IBM, and Palm? All Apple was able to do re:tablets was to be the first to manufacture a tablet based off of a capacitive screen, which was technologically impossible before ~2006.
----------
Which is actually a PowerVR SGX543MP2 GPU... Apple didn't invent it, they just pushed their big red "Invent" button and assembled a few parts into a single die.
If a tablet based on capacitive touchscreen was only possible in 2007, then why was Apple the first to market by March 2010?
Also regarding GPUs, why does Apple always have the best?
Neither is superior to each other, they both are in their own leagues. Come on now, without them, Pirates of the Silicon Valley wouldn't exist!
No, any sort of touchscreen based off of capacitive touch was impossible before around 2006. the LG Prada was actually the first capacitive touch screen, Apple was simply able to use this technology and keep supporting the OS it ran on, unlike LG who didn't cultivate an app store for Flash UI.
A few years later, when Apple introduced the iPad, the only reason no one else had created a tablet like that was because Windows used a stylus for more specific input, and Android didn't yet have a tablet OS. Having said that, tablets very much existed before 2010.
Regardless of what degree they invent something or innovate something it still takes significant amount of R&D to bring all the finished products to market and that was my point to G51989 who said that no Apple products require any R&D.
There's a big difference between invention and innovation and earlier you were crowing about everything Apple invented and now you are talking about what they've innovated. So, my question again, do you want to have a discussion about what Apple has invented or do you want to have a discussion about what Apple has innovated?
Don't get me wrong, Apple's R&D for industrial design is very good. I'm simply trying to show the OP that, maybe, Apple didn't invent (or even innovate) the "best" GPU that's in the iPhone. They simply licensed it from Imagination Technologies and put it into a shiny case.
I agree that some people give Apple too much credit. Honestly, I think most large companies get too much credit for inventions and innovations. I feel like many times a small company is really pushing the boundaries on a certain tech, they get bought (or their tech gets licensed) by a larger company that releases Product X containing the cutting edge tech and the larger company gets the credit for the great new tech that the smaller company was actually responsible for.
I mean, I give credit to MS for what they've done with Kinect and I give credit to Apple for what they've done with the iPhone but MS did not develop the foundations of the Kinect hardware and Apple did not develop the foundations of consumer smartphones.
Heck Apple didn't invent the concept of retail stores either. Gateway had a chain before them. The difference is not about what Apple invents, but what they envision as user experiences. They bring a great user experience to market before anyone else. By the time everyone else copies them, Apple has already brought the new thing.
I agree that Apple's biggest strength and focus is the end user experience (which is bolstered by a walled garden approach) and not being first to market with new tech. They'll wait and see what other companies do, how consumers react and then try and do it better. "The computer for the rest of us" was there slogan in the early 80's and that mindset is still w/the company today.
Apple is sometimes first with tech. F.e. Retina Display, app store, AAC format, magsafe connector, AirPlay, Mirroring.
Sorry but no on Retina display and AAC format.
AirPlay is a knock off of DNLA and they sure as hell are not the first with mirroring.
They also were not the first app store.
The ONLY thing on your list that they can even get any credit for for being first is the magsafe connector. Everything also sorry but products were out long time before hand.
AirPlay is not based on DLNA, it's Apple's proprietary streaming protocol. Also who else provides devices within an ecosystem that just work like that? Again with Mirroring, who else provides it with just a tap?
Other devices that have stuff stream with just a tap. Umm anything that has DLNA in it. Oh damn that is a lot of devices right there. Hell I was using DNLA quite a bit to play stuff from my computer to my TV controlled by my phone. DNLA is a system that work. If it is a DNLA device guess what it just works.
The fact that you call mirror some revolutionary thing is a joke.... Sorry that trick has been around for years. At most Apple provided a short cut to something that is hardly ever used. Oh man a short cut icon is SO HARD to do. It must of taken years to do it.
So what you're saying is that everyone else has AirPlay & Mirroring buried deep inside the settings while Apple makes it one-tap away. That just proves Apple has its finger on the pulse of the consumer and the rest of the industry does not.
Again you fanboyism is blinding you.
Airplay is Apple proprietary bull ****. It is nothing more than a DNLA knock off. Only difference is it will only work with Apple stuff. Big issue unless you want to lock your self into only Apple stuff. Stuff that plays the fewest file formats and only works on one product and requires you using the POS known as iTunes.
Now DLNA if it has DLNA on it guess what it just works. It is a much larger ecosystem and ties together really nicely. But guess you do not get that.... What you are saying is like give me an ecosystem and can play 360 games on it. Guess what that answer is only going to be the 360.....
I agree with Rodimus Prime that Apple wasn't first with these but this goes back to what we'd previously mentioned about user experience. Take DLNA and AirPlay for example. Even though the basic functionality is the same you'll probably have a more consistant user experience using AirPlay and Apple devices because Apple controls the whole ecosystem. Where as with DLNA I can share media on my household NAS with any DLNA-enabled device (such as an Xbox360 or certain HDTVs) but the user experience could change with each device as they use different media players.
I think Apple deserves a lot of credit for pushing forward the 'desktop revolutions' for print/publishing, video editing, DVD authoring and color correction.
No, what he is saying is that you are wrong in stating that Apple was first to market with those technologies.
Last edited:
I wouldn't go that far, but yeah, that is kind of Apple's shtick. They're a company mostly focused on the experience rather than the technology. As in, take what everyone else has done, grind it down til it shines, make it end user friendly, then market the hell out of it.
It's the reason why their R&D isn't as high as MS. Polishing and designing doesn't require nearly as much money as inventing from scratch. It's also why they get more returns on their relatively smaller investments. Everyone loves something that's nice to look at and easy to use.
Historical note...
Capacitive (even multi-touch) screens have been around since at least the early 1980s.
I worked for a company developing electronic games on capacitive screens in the early 1990s that were used in casinos by people all across the world.
Absolute ********. Apple spent $10 million to make the first iPod. Pure engineering excellence. You don't have to spend billions if you have the right people. Apple always seems to have the best engineers from Day 1.
