Did everyone copy the Iphone? (revisited)

Hello everyone,

I apologize if I am bringing a dead horse, but this whole "apple is so innovating" and "the world will be behind without apple" thing as well as patent trolls is starting to make me angry so I am seeking some clarification.

One side note, I hate apple with a passion and their products as well as their cult (no offense) and but dont have the time right now to state the reasons why.

Now, I'm sure everyone already knows that Samsung DID indeed copy from apple, no doubt about it, when samsung first made the galaxy s1, which does look like an clone for the Iphone 3gs.

However I do notice that many phones today are exactly the same as each other, pieces of glass and metal with little to no buttons on them. It makes me wonder whether or not there was some copying done here and some of these companies dont seem to be getting the heat like samsung is.

But my main question, or questions, should apple have not made the iPhone, would we be set back technologically? Were other companies, besides HTC, already developing rectangle smartphones?, especially with gesture recogniztion and multitouch? (No, multitouch was not invented by apple). How come some smartphone companies got to do slide to unlock without any problems from apple or other companies, specifically sony.

Finnaly, should I be thanking steve jobs that I have an Sony Xperia device or the guys at IBM, HTC, Sony Ericsson and Xerox?

reply to post by sneaglebob12


I'm not going to jump on or off the Apple bandwagon, but what I think Apple deserves credit for is sparking extreme competition. As for copying one another, that's been going on for years in the cell phone industry.

Just remember though, back in 2006 - a year before the iPhone.. phones like the SideKick 2 and the Motorola Razor were all very popular, that and a slew of blackberry devices along with some Windows CE powered phones not doing that bad.. Blackberry is now almost irrelevant, SideKick I think died off entirely, or became a budget device.. I know they had/have a few more models that came out.. Razor is back but only in name..

So that is the one thing I have to say, the iPhone sparked competition .. The SideKick 2 went from being hugely popular to relatively unknown in no time.. Apple had virtually no competition after it gained momentum in the cell phone world, and now they do.. especially with Android devices and the sheer volume there are.

It needs to be small enough to fit in the pocket.
It needs to be simple to operate.

A thin slab is about the only way they can go so they all look the same.

However, I've a sneaky suspicion that if paper trails were followed we'd find a lot of these companies are owned by a small group of very wealthy people who needed a way to get the whole world to carry a tracking device.

sneaglebob12
But my main question, or questions, should apple have not made the iPhone, would we be set back technologically? Were other companies, besides HTC, already developing rectangle smartphones?, especially with gesture recogniztion and multitouch? (No, multitouch was not invented by apple). How come some smartphone companies got to do slide to unlock without any problems from apple or other companies, specifically sony.

Yes there were rectangle smartphones but they usually had a big keyboard and a horizontally oriented and smaller screen.

You'd probably have touch sensitive phones but with a fairly basic interface-Symbian or Blackberry would be state of the art. It would be used for simple button pushes because that's what the underlying user-interface code would support, a colorized Palm Pilot. Some games might implement multi-touch as a gimmick, but as it wouldn't be universal on the hardware or operating system, it would be a niche feature.

Android would be a low-end Blackberry clone---which is exactly what it was when it was under development up until iPhone ("Jesus Phone") day. Competition would be strong between Nokia Blackberry and Android, with Android getting increasing attraction and attention because of Google Maps which would be the 'killer app'.

Windows Phone would still suck horribly and look like a mini Windows XP.

From time to time various national level agencies may tip their hat to one company or another. It is how formerly top secret patents are put into public use.

I would not be surprised if Apple didn't come up with it on their own. There was some march in nnovation that would support such a notion. But it could also be a think tank helped with some of the coordination of concepts. Because that is all the IPhone is: a clever coordination of known concepts (their Ipods had a touch wheel already, so developing the glass was the only real difference).

Its impact on computing, however, will be devastating. Power users will be replaced with technological morons who particpate in a "pay to play" type of system, where the OS's "store" provides all the content you will be able to use. They figured out how to put a meter on it, and we will be charged. That is the real innovation to what Apple has done: made a device where they can control what is used on it. And you pay every step of the way.

This isn't the computing I grew up with, where we would launch the new game we got from a floppy drive and a dos prompt.

bigfatfurrytexan
This isn't the computing I grew up with, where we would launch the new game we got from a floppy drive and a dos prompt.

Dont forget to set up your sound blaster in the autoexec.bat and config.sys files!