An Inside Look at Google's Reaction to the Original iPhone Introduction

[Michael Scrip]

In terms of IP, it's more like "there are a thousand ways to skin a cat, and you can claim ownership to some of the ways to do it. But you can't include the skinned cat itself in your patent".

That sounds correct.

I always thought you cannot own the idea itself... but the specific implementation of the idea.

 

[titanz91]

So if Apple copied from Xerox... then that means Microsoft copied from Apple and Xerox.

Doesn't that make Microsoft an even bigger fraud?

My point is... ALL these companies... Apple, Samsung, Google, Xerox, Motorola, HTC, Sony, Panasonic, Acer, Lenovo and more, take and copy ideas from each other, and sometimes, do very good things with these ideas. Microsoft is not innocent, nor are any of the companies I mentioned. I mean, if Samsung made a virtual copy of iOS and just called it, for example, 'Samsung OS', then yeah, sue them, but what, sue them over the way a box scrolls? Seems a tad much. Apple blatantly copied Androids notifications, but I'm glad, because it adds more functionality to iOS with less need to jailbreak. Again, all these companies have copied someone. If that makes Microsoft fraudulent, so it does for the above mentioned companies (including apple).

 

[Michael Scrip]

My point is... ALL these companies... Apple, Samsung, Google, Xerox, Motorola, HTC, Sony, Panasonic, Acer, Lenovo and more, take and copy ideas from each other, and sometimes, do very good things with these ideas. Microsoft is not innocent, nor are any of the companies I mentioned. I mean, if Samsung made a virtual copy of iOS and just called it, for example, 'Samsung OS', then yeah, sue them, but what, sue them over the way a box scrolls? Seems a tad much. Apple blatantly copied Androids notifications, but I'm glad, because it adds more functionality to iOS with less need to jailbreak. Again, all these companies have copied someone. If that makes Microsoft fraudulent, so it does for the above mentioned companies (including apple).

Ok... I just wanted to clear something up.

You said "they didn't come up with the idea themselves, they copied someone elses."

You should have expanded on it to say how Apple improved what Xerox came up with... but you did just now.

It makes more sense... thanks!

 

[blouis79]

as "old" as it looks, some people still prefer QWERTY keyboard on phones, and that's even today

Since QWERTY was specifically designed to minimize typebar jamming, the alternate hand typing technique required by QWERTY may perhaps be close to optimal for the ubiquitous two smartphone thumb typist.

Has anyone done a proper test of Dvorak vs QWERTY for two thumb phone typing???

 

[kdarling]

Since QWERTY was specifically designed to minimize typebar jamming,

That idea has been under fire for years.

Most recently, the Smithsonian magazine published an article citing research that said the QWERTY arrangement was made to aid Morse Code operators who were transcribing messages.

Has anyone done a proper test of Dvorak vs QWERTY for two thumb phone typing???

The article also noted a new layout called KALQ, which is apparently designed for typing with thumbs.

 

[kdarling]

You know that famous quote about destroying Android because it is a stolen phone?

There's a section in the book about how Jobs visited Google to threaten them with lawsuits if they included gestures that the iPhone used.

The Android programmers showed Jobs videos of stuff like flick-scrolling from the early 1990s, but he still refused to acknowledge that Apple didn't invent everything.

In our casino touch systems of the same year, we also used inertial scrolling (and bounceback!) in our slot machine simulations. I would not be surprised if an Apple developer got his bounceback idea while on vacation in Las Vegas

In any case, either Jobs was the dumbest person on the planet (for not understanding that such obvious gestures had already been invented), or the smartest bully on the planet (for pretending like Apple invented everything and then acting mad about others "stealing" them).

Maybe i'm missing something, but why does it matter so much that Android was "initially" targeted at the Windows phone, ...

Good question.

It points out the wide range of devices and input methods that the Android developers were targeting.

Windows Mobile and Windows CE were widely used in everything from cursor driven flip smartphones, to full touchscreen phones, to touch tablets, to handheld barcode scanners, to standlone instrumentation pods, to touch control systems, to car entertainment systems.

Likewise, Android was meant to be a general purpose OS that could be used with a keyboard, a trackpad, a touchscreen, or any other type of input, or a combination.

What it most certainly was NOT, was an OS designed to only operate from a keyboard and trackwheel / ball like the Blackberry.