I would actually agree .. sort of - Apple did innovate but not by virtue of coming up with something new but by the virtue of making a better product out of earlier ideas.
Patents are supposed to be granted for technical innovation, not for better marketing and product quality's sake. It is not so much that the products were somehow revolutionary in the technical sense - they were for all fits and purposes just successful compilations of existing technologies. The thing that sets Apple apart is that they dare to go that extra mile that makes an interesting technical widget into an actually useful consumer product. In this sense, the iPod was simply a well consumerized evolution in the already growing but still marginal market of mp3 players. They completely slaughtered the competition of that market by making a product that was just so many miles ahead of any competition that it did not only wipe out the pm3 player market but it also ended up killing off and redefining the entire markets of portable music players. iPhone was yet another case of taking what's already there and improving on it so much that all the competition just pales in comparison. But if you take a look at what was actually technically that they brought to table: Probably the most innovative and controversial step they made was to do away with physical keyboard - a thought that, I am sure has sprung up before (I know I had wondered why no phone manufacturer had done this) but that was most likely just crushed by the "usability studies" and other misgivings about such a radical move. The various sensors they put into the iPhone were all known and used in other types of products. Apple simply had guts and smarts and most of all cojones to pull this off and offer a well thought through consumer product. iPad - How do we even start. In te early 2000's there was a brief time where almost every laptop manufacturer out there tried to come up with their variation of Tablet PC ... and failed. Not so much because the device was inferior, but because they failed to go that extra step and do away with the desktop computing paradigm. Apple did what needed to be done and combined the existing pieces the right way never listening to "experts" prophesizing gloom and doom for this new device. Apple made a consumer device, that has proven to be a very successful product. They innovate by making a better product. Not so much by making a technical breakthroughs. Maybe there is something patentable in that as well, but I doubt tat patents have made Apple succesful. It is still superior product lines that have earned them their profits. Now when a successful competitor comes along and makes the life ... umm ... difficult for them, it is all good for us, consumers, because healthy competition is exactly what we need - to be able to pick between good products based on their merits and to see competing products improve upon eachother. esmaspäev, 22. august 2011 21:33.37 UTC+3 kirjutas Karsten Silz: > > On Aug 22, 9:52 am, Kirk <[email protected]> wrote: > > My question is, what is new and innovative about touch screens. I seem to > recall using them prior to the iPhone's existance. OH. I see, someone > married and already existing technology with an already existing technology. > So un-obvious !!!! > > If it's so obvious how it all fit together, how come Apple built the > iPod, iPhone and iPad? Why is Apple the first to (at least mass- > market) very thin and light notebooks like the MacBook Air where they > solder the RAM directly on the motherboard and replace the hard disk > with a tiny SSD module? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/javaposse/-/u8ZWut2GWPwJ. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
