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Microsoft is so original...

és: said:
Ok. I'll show you some to help you out.

Nokia:





LG:



Samsung:



Blackberry:



Palm:
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Other than being touchscreen, none of those are like the iPhone other than the Palm Pre.


And when I said the Palm Pre looks better, I meant it looks like a better phone (in terms of function), not that it looks prettier. I think the iPhone looks far better, although I still like the Pre's appearance better than phones that try to copy the iPhone's appearance.

I own the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, and if it was like the iPhone, I would have just bought the iPhone instead for around $700 US when I had the chance (yes, legally unlocked). I went with the Nokia because there were a number of things better about it than an iPhone, and nearly everything is done differently. It must be, since its OS is just Symbian S60.

és: said:
Nobody, not a single person, mentioned naming conventions before you bought it up. Again, you're trying to change the argument because the other is so preposterous.
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In a way, that was discussing naming convention because MS has used "My _____", so it's not really like MS just started doing that.

And the stuff I mentioned about personalization is that this is what the entire marketing industry has been doing for ages, so I don't think Microsoft copied Apple, or anyone else for that matter.

Also, if you actually think they copied someone, didn't they copy "MySpace"??
 
Abstract said:
That's because people were making fun of the silly names. Microsoft was accused of treating their customers like idiots. I guess this naming convention made sense with the introduction of Windows 95, because many people were afraid of these cold, distant machines back then, and weren't familiar enough with them to know where to put their stuff. Lots of people were just putting everything on their desktop until they got used to putting things in folders.
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It was apparent to many at the time that Microsoft's primary design goal for the Windows95 UI was to make it as similar to the MacOS as possible, so it would be good enough to keep Windows 3.x users moving along the Windows path instead of migrating to the Mac, and familiar enough to Mac users to lure some away from the Mac.
 
I hate it when people bash companies for being unoriginal.

Computer and software dev companies have been stealing from each other for years.
 
EV0LUTION said:
I hate it when people bash companies for being unoriginal.

Computer and software dev companies have been stealing from each other for years.
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True, but you'd think a company as huge as Microsoft would be able to express some originality in their products. The fact that they have done so little truly original work over the years is fairly astonishing when you consider it.
 
That's because they've spent all their time on Vista and Windows 7. Only took them 8 years. ;)

The only large company that I see pushing things is Intel. I know there was a short period where they weren't always producing the best chips, but now they're at the top again, and seem to be able to crank out better chips all the time even without any real competition from AMD.
 
és: said:
:D
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:D * 2 = :D :D

I agree. M$ is always late to the party and shows up half-drunk anyway..

Abstract said:
Actually, no I haven't. Other than the Palm Pre, which actually has its own UI innovations and actually looks better than the iPhone (IMO), I haven't.
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You have to agree that it's only been with the release of the iPhone that all these other companies have been going touch screen - and in a few cases even losing all the buttons altogether.

In that basic sense they are copying the iPhone, yes. If it weren't for the iPhone there would have been no big push to have glassy touch screens with glassy beveled icons. They'd still be equating "our phone is awesome it has more features" with "you can tell how awesome it is 'cause it's got more buttons."

The switch from 'buttons = features' smartphones to features-laden software on the smart phones is largely due to Apple. I'm not saying it wouldn't have happened sooner or later but in this case Apple led the charge - whether other companies can do it better or not.
 
Melrose said:
You have to agree that it's only been with the release of the iPhone that all these other companies have been going touch screen - and in a few cases even losing all the buttons altogether....

...The switch from 'buttons = features' smartphones to features-laden software on the smart phones is largely due to Apple. I'm not saying it wouldn't have happened sooner or later but in this case Apple led the charge - whether other companies can do it better or not.
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Yes, Apple definitely lead the way in the popularization of touchscreen, but yes, I also think smartphone makers (though not all mobile phone companies) were all going towards touchscreen. People were already asking for touchscreen desktops and laptops, UMPC, more Tablet PC options, etc. When the iPhone was announced, Microsoft was nearly finished Surface, which are now used in museums and restaurants.

I think Apple's real innovation was making a phone so good at multimedia. Nobody would have pushed the market forward in providing an improved multimedia experience for the user. All of the features were available on phones, but all of it was a jumbled mess and unusable. So even if the market was moving towards touch-based devices, there's a chance that music, video, and games would have been a complete afterthought in the mobile phone market, with most focus put on touchscreen internet, email, for high-end business clients.



And with regards to MobileMe and MyPhone, the entire market was moving towards creating web-based applications, file storage, file syncing, operating systems, etc. In this case, I don't know if one company can really "copy" another company. All arrows point in that direction, really.
 
Abstract said:
Other than being touchscreen, none of those are like the iPhone other than the Palm Pre.
Click to expand...

They are all copying the form of the iPhone. They are all trying to take little parts of the iPhone and jazz their phones up with scrappy implementation. When I say 'try to copy', I don't mean 'have successfully cloned'.

It's just what MS have done on many occasions, including this.


Also, if you actually think they copied someone, didn't they copy "MySpace"??
Click to expand...

Ah, he's off again. What sort of tangent is that. Anyway, the answer is no.
 
és: said:
Ok. I'll show you some to help you out.
Click to expand...

Damn, I had no idea that Apple invented the candybar style, your post has shown me the light.

Seriously, I would love to see how you would build a touchscreen phone without using this shape.
 
No1451 said:
Damn, I had no idea that Apple invented the candybar style, your post has shown me the light.
Click to expand...

Your post has shown me that you are good at missing the point.

Seriously, I would love to see how you would build a touchscreen phone without using this shape.
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They were perfectly happy with cheap plastic keypads on phones with very little function before the iPhone... curious.
 
és: said:
They were perfectly happy with cheap plastic keypads on phones with very little function before the iPhone... curious.
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What do you mean by this? We had smartphones before the iPhone, they didn't really do anything revolutionary with the phone.
 
No1451 said:
What do you mean by this? We had smartphones before the iPhone, they didn't really do anything revolutionary with the phone.
Click to expand...

As Abstract pointed out, it was already moving in this direction, but Apple spearheaded the software-in-the-sky model for cellphones. Things were going this way, but it really jump started with the iPhone; The world saw Apple do something that everyone else was more or less just talking about, and they wanted it.

If you can't see how the iPhone has influenced smart phones (and cellphones in general) I'd say you've got to be pretty blind (w/ respect)..
 
és: said:
They are all copying the form of the iPhone. They are all trying to take little parts of the iPhone and jazz their phones up with scrappy implementation. When I say 'try to copy', I don't mean 'have successfully cloned'.
Click to expand...

Come on, we all know EVERYBODY copied the OG --- Handspring Treo. ;) Touchscreen, colour display, mobile phone, PDA features (of course), icon view.........duuuuuude!! Or better yet, the Kyocera QCP-6035. The Blackberry Storm is an even bigger ripoff.

I loved Handspring (and Palm) in 2001/2002.
 
Originality gets copied all the time in the Tech industry

Both Apple and Microsoft are guilty

I love the competition to be as fierce as possible
 
Melrose said:
If you can't see how the iPhone has influenced smart phones (and cellphones in general) I'd say you've got to be pretty blind (w/ respect)..
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They may have influenced, but that doesn't mean anyone is COPYING them. Copying them would suggest that it was Apple's idea(which is what es seems to be pushing for). Popularization is not the same as creation, which is something a lot of people seem to miss.

That being said, this phone is going to suck if it uses Windows Mobile.
 
No1451 said:
They may have influenced, but that doesn't mean anyone is COPYING them. Copying them would suggest that it was Apple's idea(which is what es seems to be pushing for). Popularization is not the same as creation, which is something a lot of people seem to miss.
Click to expand...

You're right. Popularized is the correct term, however I was just stating the influence that the iPhone has had... I recognize Apple didn't start it, but they did certainly give it the huge mainstream push.
 
MobileMe and cloud computing are hardly new or original. And believe me, having worked with computer companies before, they don't just come out with ideas within a year or two - some of these things go back as far as 5 years, and they simply have to have the hardware catch up

And my bet is that MS will do a better job at this than Apple - certainly can't be worse than its launch :rolleyes:
 
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