Why they had to stop Android?
Android was not changed, Android had touch only development from the start.
Do you have a source for this? I'm genuinely curious.
Why they had to stop Android?
Android was not changed, Android had touch only development from the start.
They were afraid of a future in which Microsoft dominated smartphones, because Microsoft has their own search engine, ad networks etc...
When Apple appeared, Microsoft suddenly became unimportant in smartphones and the threat of Bing dominating mobile search was averted.
Google was partnering with Apple from the start of the iPhone, they even had Eric Schmidt on the board.
There was no danger that Apple would have developed their own search engine, maps, videohosting etc, if Google had not threatened Apples business by releasing Android as a direct competitor.
Hey, if Android had been focused on Symbian-like featurephones, Apple would probably have never objected.
It's like having a well-paid job - and then you sleep with your boss' wife and tell him about it.
Interesting. RIM sued them for trademark infringement though.
And that Android was meant as a competitor to Windows Mobile is obvious, they were afraid of WM dominating mobile and Bing dominating mobile search.
But then a wild iPhone appeared, killed Windows Mobile and suddenly Windows Mobile was no longer a threat.
Too bad for Google that they didn't stop Android then and instead tried to change it to become an iPhone OS competitor/clone.
That angered Steve Jobs and instead of being best friends with Apple and being the sole/most important provider of web services on iOS they got kicked out with the release of iOS 6.
Aha, so that's why you're on an Apple forum...nothing interesting in the ecosystem you're tied to.
And its cheap right? Cheap and feels like Apple.
Do you have a source for this? I'm genuinely curious.
I'll answer for him.
One of the best public sources for Android info has been Dianne Hackborn, a well respected developer (*) who went to work for Android after Google bought it.
She has written detailed explanations of such things as why there was lag at first (partly from cross window security, which is what allows widgets). She also responded on a blog with this interesting comment on the UI history, when someone made a comment about Android being targeted to a different kind of device before the iPhone came out. As she put it:
"From a software perspective, Sooner and Dream were basically the same -- different form-factors, one without a touch screen -- but they were not so different as this article indicates and the switch between them was not such a huge upheaval."
--
(*) When someone says, "Apple / Palm / Google invented such and such", it's not quite accurate. Companies enable and market tech, but it is individuals who do the actual inventing of features that we love.
People don't realize that it's often the same group of developers that we see over and over again. Quite often you'll see a developer move between various companies until they find one that will use what they create. (Think of the Apple folk who left for Palm, to work on the Pre. Then some came back to Apple, others to Google.)
We were working on Sooner and Dream at the same time, they really weren't two different developments, they were both running the same Android platform.
The code names were what they were -- Sooner was intended to be the first device, using a modification to an existing hardware design so it could get out quickly; Dream was what we really wanted to do but its schedule was a lot longer because the hardware was all new with a lot of things that hadn't shipped before (from the hinge for the flip screen through the capacitive touch screen to things like the accelerometer). At a certain point (I am pretty sure before the iPhone was announced) it was decided to drop Sooner as a product because the schedule for it didn't really make sense and focus only on Dream.
well that's a big blow to apple, apple should stop these lawsuits and start innovating.
2. Innovation takes time, there were were long periods of "non-innovation" between the iPod, the iPod Nano (many don't count this one as innovative, but i'd say it was an important step in the direction of the iPhone), the iPhone, the MacBook Air (which has now, together with the unibody MacBook Pro, become the standard design for laptops, see for example HP Envy) and the iPad.
3. They have to defend their innovations, because it is much easier to steal someone else's innovations than to create your own.
With real innovations, it is often thought that something is impossible - until the innovator shows the world that it is not!
Ask a child to create fire with only two pieces of wood (and other necessary stuff) and it won't have a chance, because it doesn't know that you have to rub the pieces of wood together for a LONG time and will stop after 1 minute due to being bored.
Show the child how it is done, that it takes patience - and the child will be much more likely to be able to create fire.
Knowledge of what is possible and how it is done enables competitors to clone products in a very short time, if i remember there have been chinese iPhone 5 clones BEFORE the iPhone 5 was released - because some pictures leaked on the web months in advance.
Or take a look at iTunes 11.
The way the albums are display, with backgrounds that take the colors from the album artwork, is just beautiful.
It probably took Apple months to design this - not simply writing the code, but coming up with "Hey, wouldn't that look cool?" and approval, writing the code and testing that it looks good and better than other possible alternatives of showing albums.
Someone at panic recreated the effect in a few hours, because writing the code is not that difficult and because iTunes gave him the idea.
Imitation is so much easier than innovation and that is why Apple has to sue other companies.
Apple simply doesn't want to be the design agency for the world.
[1]Also, I should add that innovation is a word that's severely abused and applied very selectively around here.
[2]...wuh? WUH? What does this have to do with anything? This is so totally off the wall in comparison to the rest of your post, it's almost a complete non sequitur. I mean, if I go by the tone of the rest of what you've written, wouldn't someone making a fire after being shown how to do it constitute theft of intellectual property?
[3]...ahh. There we go. Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, and the bastard just stole your innovative idea for gathering sustenance from the sea, and should be sued.
Also he's probably Chinese.
Anyway, it's not that it'd be very hard to clone the iPhone 5 before release. All you'd have to do is go off rumors alone, because there wasn't really all that much new about it. I mean it was an iPhone 4...but taller. No one needed an inside source of information to guess what it'd look like.
[4]See what I mean about the over abuse of the word "innovation"? That's not a massive leap forward. It's a fluff feature. Window dressing. Sure, it's cool looking. Pretty nice in a lot of ways. But do you really think it took Apple months and months of R&D to produce? No. It was probably during a "wouldn't it be cool if..." brainstorming session.
Since it doesn't add functionality in any way, improve the way we interact with our technology, or make anything easier, it can't really be considered innovative. At least no more innovative than the Aero Glass effect in Vista.
Yeah .. that's what you get for biting the hands that feed you with supplies.
I would still buy Samsung products. Just like Apple does
Last time I checked, Samsung makes great plasma TV, good memory chips, storage, fridge, and even the best Android products around.
Apple does not even make a TV, or relatively speaking Apple does not make a single product by themselves.
If you think Samsung is the biggest patent troll, than you're looking it wrong. See the logo in the back of your iPad? Yeah .. that's more like it.
They also sell great life insurance. Thats what you look in a tech company.
Would you make the same bizarre commentary about GE. They do everything from finance to healthcare to technology, etc.