Wow. So you asked me to give you specifics, and when I do, you hide in a corner and say "Well, the creator of the color-screen phone doesn't own the concept."
What a pathetic argument. I'm talking about the design of a phone operating system from the bottom up and how it was completely different from anything that came before it (which is just a simple matter of fact) and you're throwing around crap like "color screens"?
I only discuss things with people who have actual points to make.
Have fun out there in la-la land, dracula.
I usually just lurk around here but this topic really worths discussion
@guch20
I’ll give you this, iOS is the most polished mobile operating system around, as well as almost other Apple products. But that's what Apple do best, take a device with certain funtions in the market and usually (but not always) better it - and definitely always market it very well. Just look back and you can see my point, iPod's hardly the first portable music/video player in the history, just the most popular because it's arguably the most functional/easy to use..whatever. Technology-wise Apple did add the ring control and a very good music store but that's about it. What if somebody did patent a portable audio player which transfer content from a computer, have a headphone jack, volume and track control, a screen and a rechargeable batt, what's about iPod then?
Likewise with iPhone, certainly not the first mobile phone with a touchscreen, intergrated wifi and GPS, can access e-mail, using the web, listening to music, taking picture and video...The ideas were always there, Apple just improved it in they own ways. As did Google.
Going into details, the app drawer in iOS and Android where user touch an icon to launch an application was there since ancient versions of Windows Mobile circa 2003 - it's certainly a great idea, isn't it, as did the onscreen keypad? So who has the moral high ground here?
Of course you've got valid points : pinch to zoom, slide to unlock were copied from iOS but seriously, those are the superficial ones, not important enough to the whole, and hardly what sold Android. And since we're playing the accusing game, what's the
pulldown notification and widget inclusion in the lastest and greatest version of iOS if not a ripoff from Android Day-One. Do you really, honestly think if Android didn't have pinch to zoom and/or slide to unlock then it'd be dead in the water?
No, of course not. Android successes because it's positioned at the right spot, a mobile OS for handset makers can't afford to create their own ecosystem, since Symbian was all but pronounce dead and Windows Phone didn't even exist. For users, it's cheap and it gets the job done.
IMHO, the only idea Google did take from Apple was very important but so vague that no one can patent it, that's it, the mobile ecosystem concept - handset OS together with online services and market for apps and contents. Which Microsoft is doing with Windows Phone, which Palm&HP (webOS), Nokia (OVI) and RIM (AppWorld) tried and failed.
My point here is trashing Android because it's another mobile ecosystem after Apple's iOS is like trashing Linux because it's another computer OS with GUI after Microsoft Windows.
I've been an avid follower of gadget since the first generation of Symbian Windows CE and Symbian S60, yet I'll be the first guy admit that Apple and not anyone else kickstarted the whole mobile revolution with the release of iPhone in 2007, and I appreciate Mr.Jobs for that. But the fact is the whole merry-go-round of Android, WP7, webOS, Maemo, BB...has been keeping 'the revolution' into the foreseeable future and more importantly, benefiting the average users - meaning us. Remember the mess with MMS/Copy&Paste in the £599 iPhone, that's when there
are cheaper competions around. What if there's not?
About your comment of “Android user kissing Google ass...” It's no secret how Google makes money with Android - as well as all of their online service, after all the OS is royalty free. Yet ask around and see how many people out there with non-Android phone are using Google search, Gmail and Google Maps...Aren't they sucks, more so because they let Google mine their data yet having to pay full royalty fee for their iOS, WinPhone, Symbian, Blackberry devices? Following your logic, at least Android users have some refund in form of OS license fee!
Shortly before his death, after years of breaking record after record of annual profit, Jobs promised to use every dollars in their $40Bs account to destroy a competitor - and in courtroom no less. What's ethical about that, making those big cat corporate lawyers richer by limiting consumer's choice?
But I'm not qualified to saying legally Google is right or wrong, and I don't even want to mention the infamous mess of U.S patent system. Just let's consider following scenarios:
(a) Cheap, widely available smartphones : a very large userbase can use e-mail, web, gaming with varied experiences/performances of their choice....
Floor price about £0 (w/contract) for mainstream handset to £399 for high-end devices (contract free). The cheapest iPhone 4S £499 (no contract). Right about now.
(b) You've got 2 choices : the £299-always-a-generation-behind WP7 handset or the venerable £799 iPhone 4S. Jobs got his way with Android.
Unless one is an Apple's shareholder, (a) is the obvious choice for the mass of us, including most fanatic Apple fanboys.
Lastly, about the technical aspect, I've been hearing the argument "Android copy all/most of iOS" around here many times, from what i know Android mainly comprises of a virtual machine (which only Oracle
maybe can claim infringement) atop of Linux kernel (which no one owns). All of Android's software stack are open source (probably some proprietary drivers in particular builds are not so) but the point if even one of them infringes iOS proprietary components then we'd known by now, wouldn't we? Instead, the fuss had mainly been about some element of Samsung custom UI - not Android codebase. So please be kind and enlight me of what really happened.
I made my points, now's your turn.