"Apple Pay? Big whoop, Google Wallet came first."
Add it to the list of things they didn't invent, like tablets, mp3 players and the mouse.
Secondly, let's see what Google announce at I/O 2015. I have a feeling Google Wallet might get mentioned.
These quotes always make me laugh: Apple didn't invent this and they didn't invent that.
People point to inferior products that came first and show how they were the real invention. It is so very tiring for two reasons:
Firstly whatever product they choose could be picked on just as much as the Apple product they are hating. There are very few explosively new ideas out there and, like you and me, they are products of evolutionary progress, each one only slightly different from its predecessor. The universe evolves and our ideas are not separate from that: no ancient Greek could have had Einstein's insight into the universe becaus there were not enough fundamental ideas on which to build. "Standing on the shoulders of giants".
Secondly, having a good idea is only part of it. If you fail to capitalise on and drive the idea forwards then it is next to useless. Pointing to an unsuccessful item that never got any momentum and saying Apple just copied it is just plain stupid. Apple made it work and that's their genius.
It's not always Apple's size either, lest we forget that it was nearly broken before the first iMac, and still not that successful by the time the iPod came out. They killed the old phone manufacturers who had 20 years on them.
So please let's stop this Apple didn't invent something. I love the stuff going on in the technology world right now; Google's use of Big Data, their not unique driverless car technology (not in anyway unique, but the only one that anyone really knows about because they make so much of it); Microsoft's vital stand against the U.S. government's assumption that it has right of access to any data held by a U.S. firm in any part of the world (an idea that could cripple US technology firms); the list goes on and on - as do I ;-)
Apple are a big part of it all and let's just embrace this wonderful momentum and rejoice in the fact that we have the Googles that rapidly iterate new ideas and are happy to let them live or die inpublic and Apple who make solid and pave the ground that others have churned up before them, so that we can all travel on the path.