Vaporware are things that are announced but never shipped. The Courrier was never announced as an actual product.
Ah, my bad! I was thinking in terms of a product that people act as if it existed, but it doesn't. Your definition is the correct one and I should have used that definition.
Why would anyone be tired of that? Rather, embrace it. If everyone were forced to leapfrog everything, and never build cumulatively, we'd be far worse off in pretty much every way possible. And, Apple are no different than anyone else. They too follow at times; like expected. Further, its not so much an excuse as a reason. Like i said: Business 101.
That is probably what we should do. However, when this happens repeatedly, it gets tiring. Apple make such successful products and then people try to imitate the success without really
understanding why it's so successful.
I was talking about the software side of things, rather than hardware design. Point still remains: MSFT were the successful one: why should others (read: Apple) be allowed to free-ride on their success?
What a lot of people say around here are just as senseless as the paragraph above.
I don't think Apple free-rode on Microsoft's success. They were the first to bring the GUI to the consumer market and Microsoft popularised it by making it cheap, not by improving on it in any way.
Apple popularises because they actually create something people want. Microsoft and some others popularise by making it cheap, and people buy because they are not tech-savvy and believe they will get a similar experience for cheap. As people are finding out that's not true, Macs are getting more and more popular, while PCs are being left behind.
Why should everyone else do this, but not Apple? For example, Apple were extremely late to running apps natively.
This was a response to consumer demand, not to someone else deciding to do it. It wasn't like they saw a successful way to do something and thought, "we should do that!" It was that they decided to do something different and they took a risk, and even when allowing software natively, they still did it differently and took a risk with that.
Similarly, they were late on having 3G (and subsequently 4G), front-facing camera and god knows.
3G and 4G are hardly Apple copying someone. They're carrier networks that (almost?) every carrier offers. They're standard features. Kudos to the first company to add cameras onto phones, but it's hardly like getting rid of almost all the hardware buttons on a device and using only a touchscreen, a home button + volume buttons, silencer and power button. The second is a
massive risk.
Apple takes a lot of risks. The problem with these other companies is that if something is too much of a risk, they'll wait for Apple to do it, then do the same if it's successful. If that isn't free-riding, I don't know what is.
As for never seen before, new, features: what are you referring to? GUI - seen and done.
Once before and not really successful. Apple took a risk. I keep using that word, but it's true. Plus, Steve went to Xerox and didn't just look at the system and decide to take it for himself. The Xerox employees were paid for the privilege of having their work copied. Plus, Steve added many elements that the Xerox computer didn't use and didn't just copy outright.
Multitouch - seen and done.
Touch was done.
Multitouch, I believe, wasn't. Apple bought a company called FingerWorks and used their multitouch technology and not only that, made it the focus of the whole phone, so that if it failed, the whole phone failed. That was another risk.
And, why should anyone be able to protect the never before seen or done, per se?
Like I said, the other tablet makers shouldn't be forced to change their designs. But Samsung is not just copying Apple or following their lead, but blatantly ripping them off.
Like stated, that would leave the world far less behind progress wise. Wright brothers made a plane. Should no one other than them have been allowed to make a plane after they succeeded with theirs? Does that seem right, good and sensible? I think not.
It's not nice when you make something and it's repeatedly copied. Your successes are free-rode off of and you become the guinea pig that other companies wait to try new things.
But you present a good conundrum. How to not let people free-ride of anothers' success, while allowing the world to progress? I think it's just a matter of at least adding your own worthwhile changes.
So far, Android hasn't done that, in my opinion. Sure they've offered features that Apple doesn't, but these were features that were known that certain people wanted and they just shoddily added these on and waited for the money to roll in. They don't care about their users or progressing the world. Apple does! That's what makes them different.
I think the people who
want to progress the world can and
will do that without free-riding on others' successes. They
will add their worthwhile changes, because after all, they want to progress the world, right?