I think Steve should have mentioned the fact that it was also a mobile applications device in addition to the other three. That would have been even more impactful in his presentation.
Jobs showed actual "desktop class" email & web apps that Apple had created in advance for launch. It wasn’t an apps platform until the next year, when developers were beating down Apple’s door to get an SDK. Contrast Android, which announced a Java-like apps platform with no really good apps at launch, and no really spectacular demand for creating apps years later.
Same thing at iPad launch. Apple came out with mobile iWork apps. Google’s Honeycomb shipped with stretched phone apps but nothing very usable except for YouTube and web. Years later, Apple’s iPad is the standard for enterprise custom apps for tablets (~90% share) while Google’s tablets are still a big iPod touch, without many really significant tablet apps of any kind.
iOS is designed to be a computing platform, while Android is designed to present ads and collect data on users for marketing purposes.
What's really on trial here is the patent system. The fact that blatant and slavish copying took place is not in question. If Samsung and Google had any balls they would simply state "Yeah, we copied the iPhone... So what are you going to do about it?" It's time to dispense with the theatrics and decide as a society which human endeavors we are going to reward and which ones are we going to punish. As a technologist I'm sick of the endless war of litigation that serves no one other than lawyers. It's stupid and distracting. By granting a US patent the US government is granting the holder certain rights and those rights should be clear and enforceable. All the second guessing and endless lawsuits are a clear sign that the people who are making the call on awarding patents are rediculously unqualified. It's like having an idiot in the control loop, e.g., like having monkeys in congress passing laws. To have teams of highly intelligent people arguing about laws after the decisions have been made by the monkeys is an exercise in futility. Either fix the root cause of the problem, fire the monkeys, or resort to some sort of game of chance like a roulette wheel to resolve claims. Give the patent holder a much higher probability of winning but settle it quickly and move on.
In all fairness, Google had a dozen plan Bs. Whatever was more popular, they would've copied that one.
I believe this too.
Google knew because SJ told Larry as his mentor... that mobile was going to be where the action was and Google's own (ad) customers needed to be in ASAP. SJ was also counting on and courting Google to offer services in the form of Apple getting preferred access to Google's APIs to work with the iPhone, i.e. Maps and YouTube.
However... some clever little cookie at Google saw the "danger" of betting everything on Apple doing this right, and being shut out of mobile search and services if Apple didn't. I doubt SJ told anyone how far along they actually were with the iPhone. Regardless, it was a far better strategy, easier, and cheaper to purchase Android and let Andy Rubin come up with something that they could control 100% in case Apple failed... as everyone predicted they would... than to barter with Microsoft to be the preferred search and services on Windows phones. That would've surely cost Google a pretty penny at the time if it was the only route to mobile left for them (if Apple failed that is).
The look of the mobile devices was always going to be left up to OEMs I think. Google was only concentrating on the operating system that they would all use. After seeing the iPhone, it was pretty obvious to most tech engineers that it was going to be a force to contend with, and that simply duplicating Blackberry wasn't going to get Google services ubiquitous across mobile devices of all stripes, color, shapes... and UX... and it had to be finished "yesterday".
What's the fastest way to develop an OS that needs to ship in less than a year? Copy, paste, steal, and appropriate as much as you can get away with and worry about the lobbying, lawsuits and consequences later. Microsoft did something similar with the development of Windows and later with Explorer, which turned out pretty darn well for them, DOJ judgement included.
Which leaves us exactly where we are today. Sorting through the mess and trying to determine which shortcuts were made... and how much monetary damage should be paid. I doubt Google thought that the idiots at Samsung would take the whole "copying" thing as far as they did... heck... Google even warned them against it. Whatever. If this ever comes back to bite Google in the a**, it will be an even longer process and payment due date than these trials against Samsung.
NOTE: It is odd that they rather hastily killed "keyboard compatibility" though(?). I don't think anyone really expected that BB-style phones were going to be relegated to the "Island of Misfit Tools" as soon as it was.
There are two stories going around, the one about Eric Schmidt knowing about the iPhone before release and that of Android suddenly changing course after the presentation of the iPhone (which DED is making an attempt to defend here). Both stories can't be right at the same time, they contradict each other. If Eric Schmidt saw the iPhone before release then Google wouldn't be surprised. It's one or the other or neither, but the Eric Schmidt story seems very unlikely to be true.
iPhone was unveiled at the beginning of 2007.
Schmidt left Apple’s board in late 2009 after Google's release of ChromeOS.
A lot happened in those roughly 30 months, a period of time longer than it took Google to launch Android.
Google started denigrating the iPhone and tying its features (like Maps) to Android. Apple had to compete directly against Android, even as Schmidt was making dismissive, arrogant comments about how Android would/was/will destroy iOS. So he had to go.
There were more strategies to leak after the iPhone shipped than at launch. Where would Apple take the iPhone SDK? iOS 3? iOS 4? What about the iPad? Had Schmidt stayed, it would have been harder for Apple to stay ahead of Android.
Since his departure, Apple has earned all the money in mobile, even if the media and Android Enthusiasts have decided Android was winning because it was serving the low end of the market.
History is interesting but the future is even more so. For instance, how will Google take the high end back from Apple after failing to even get the low middle with the failure of Moto X, Nexus 7, etc? And what will happen to Android if Apple releases a low end iPhone to sell in developing countries?
I find those questions far more interesting and relevant than "what do predisposed fans who didn’t have any real access to the relevant facts think about Schmidt’s role in his position on Apple’s board?" I leave that to GatorGuy and the rest of the Android spin-defense team.
please stop this "idea not patentable" crap. in hi-tech world, idea most of time is the implementation. loving tech does not mean you know/understand the tech.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Philotech
There's good reason to the fundamental principle that there is no (legal) ownership to ideas. I know the US patent system has its difficulties with this principle because it makes it far too easy to overcome, creating a whole industry of patent trolls and legal abuse.
But every time I read how Apple stole an idea from Android, or Google from Apple, of X from Y, and how one copied the other, I am getting sick. All progress comes from copying, even what makes mankind unique compared to all other animals is our ability to copy and learn something new from it (I know, some other species have a similar, but reduced ability to do so too).
So all please get over the conception that using ("copying") and improving upon other people's / companies' ideas is evil.
Does innovation guarantee success? It only guarantees that you'll be different. Do you really think that the market would support 4,5,6 different OSs, and ecosystems? SJ himself said that devs would not support a third OS.
In answer to the question: no of course not... although at the time, isn't that what the market was supporting for better or worse (mostly worse) across the mobile landscape?
"SJ himself" was often wrong on many things and as a visionary was even more ahead of his time than anything else. As much as he willed it and did everything in his power to make it happen... the market still had to have it's say in whether he was right or wrong.
So up until that point, "4,5,6 different OSs" was the order of the day for all of the manufacturers jockeying for PHONE (device) market share... not to be misunderstood with "SMART mobile market share" as we know it today. Which as Google and Apple saw, was where the action and money was going to be at.
NOTE: you really have to wonder what the heck infected Microsoft to fail so badly and so long on that realization. They were so close but so far away... 60% OS share if I'm not mistaken... :no:
Getting sick again... Of course this invention of the iPhone using a full-screen phone with no keyboard was a great idea. Maybe there were phones (existing or under construction) before it, but totally obviously it was only Apple who made this concept fashionable and provied that it was a viable concept of a phone.
But still, this is an IDEA, and alleging that such an idea can be "stolen" (in a legal rather than just business ethics sense) has got it WRONG!
The idea of a full touch phone with an OS designed for it was not pioneered by Apple (though documents reveal that as far as I can tell they had the idea first internally).
My favorite concept phone even still was the 2006 BenQ black box that sadly fell through.
What happens if we get a 5" iPhone from Apple this fall? Or how about actionable notifications, better inter-app communications, 3rd party support for Siri and Touch ID? Won't the anti-Apple crowd claim Apple is lifting that from the competition?
some fandroids will, sure, but most Apple sites make little to no mention of Apple and if they do it is mostly positive.
The flat screen TV is actually a very good analogy and you're right. The iPhone was an evolution (in some points, a step backwards in other areas) in the smartphone market. This evolution ended up becoming hugely popular so of course it will be picked up by others. But does that mean that Apple is the only one who can make a mulittouch capacitive display smartphone? Other examples, because iRobot made the first Roomba does that mean no other manufacturers can enter that market? And so on...
When it comes to Android, anyone who has actually used Android (and I mean vanilla Android not Touchwiz), and definitely the early versions, will know that Android is anything but a direct iOS copy. So because Apple made a touchscreen OS no one else can anymore? Touchwiz on the other hand was clearly meant to be as much a iOS look-a-like as possible.
Android 1.0-parts of 2.3 were some of the worst stock mobile experiences of my life. The few months I spent with an iPhone 4 when my Android broke were glorious. Then 4.0 came out and it was a passable stock experience.
If Jesusfreke never rooted the G1 back in early 09 I'd have jumped ship to the iPhone that week.
Unfortunately, it appears that you can take whatever you want, confuse consumers if you're fast enough, create a "dead-ringer copy" (pun intended) and drag the innovator through the dirt by paying off media outlets and purchase channels to push your copy-cat device.
THAT is what is so despicable about Samsung.
THAT is what is so very frustrating for Apple fans and should be looked down upon by any and all a technophile.
THAT is what is at stake here for future tech gadgets and serious innovation.
The very demanding profession of engineering is at stake, because you will not be paid much more than those that only reverse engineer your products and science. Your timespan to recoup investment (ROI) is not 1, 2, 5, or even 20 years... it just became about 6 months.
I personally can't wait for some of the new devices Apple has rumored to actually come to market... especially wearables. At this point everyone "knows" it can't be protected no matter what Apple files in the way of patents, trademarks or copyrights. No matter what those wearables may be or look like, "exact copies" (lookalikes really) will be on the market within 6 months. At this point it wouldn't even surprise me to see a "faux Apple logo" being legally sold and "marketed" from assorted blog and media outlets. The faux logo was the only thing missing from the first Samsung Galaxy packaging and accessories if anyone cares to remember.
This whole scam is surely far more frustrating for Apple employees and engineers: they are expected... no... demanded to recreate/redefine another device/market every 6 months... or else they are DOOMED! Some of those employees and engineers have a lot of their sweat, tears and hard sacrifice paid in stock options and benefits that are tied to the market well-being of Apple. Who's going to want to do this anymore, when it's easier to skip over to Google or Samsung's new SV spy office and reverse engineer/scan what their colleagues at Apple created ... for the same compensation... maybe more! Former Apple engineers are quite valuable I've heard.
Software, trade dress, and assorted tech patents and protections aren't ideal at the moment and should be reformed. The powers that be better have something planned to stem the tide of "court sanctioned IP theft", or this is going to be the last straw that broke America's back.
You've handed manufacturing on a silver platter to Mexico, Latin America and most of all Asia. You allow massive holes in your tax code to allow even Apple to drive a truck with billions through them without recourse. So now you're on the road to allowing massive reverse engineering of your IP to be sold alongside your American innovations for practically nothing, calling into question why anyone would want to study math, physics and engineering.
In summary, it's not Apple that is doomed. Technology and innovation itself is doomed if this injustice is allowed to proceed in the direction it seems to be heading. You will be "communizing" tech... rather than democratizing it. Is that really what we want?
Contrary to what I've seen here even a lot of Android fans are not Samsung fans. I'm one of them. **** Samsung.
Apple had to compete directly against Android, even as Schmidt was making dismissive, arrogant comments about how Android would/was/will destroy iOS. So he had to go.
To be fair it's not like Steve Jobs minced his words .
Quote:
Originally Posted by Corrections
I find those questions far more interesting and relevant than "what do predisposed fans who didn’t have any real access to the relevant facts think about Schmidt’s role in his position on Apple’s board?"
I was just answering PhilBoogie's question regarding the board of directors and members recusing themselves.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Corrections
History is interesting but the future is even more so. For instance, how will Google take the high end back from Apple after failing to even get the low middle with the failure of Moto X, Nexus 7, etc? And what will happen to Android if Apple releases a low end iPhone to sell in developing countries?
I agree, the future is more interesting than the past. Though I wouldn't exactly call the Nexus 7 a failure.
Do we really see Apple releasing a low end iPhone? I have my doubts if they ever will. I think Apple is pretty content with its position in the market at this moment in time. I personally don't see Apple releasing a low end iPhone unless it was really necessary and one always has to ask the question whether or not releasing a low end iPhone would result in that line consuming some of the more high-end products shares. If that is the case then launching a low end iPhone doesn't make much sense as it is very likely that the margins on the low end phone will be a lot lower then on the high end ones.
It's my personal opinion that Apple is very unlikely to release a low end phone anytime soon.
iPhone was unveiled at the beginning of 2007.
Schmidt left Apple’s board in late 2009 after Google's release of ChromeOS.
A lot happened in those roughly 30 months, a period of time longer than it took Google to launch Android.
Google started denigrating the iPhone and tying its features (like Maps) to Android. Apple had to compete directly against Android, even as Schmidt was making dismissive, arrogant comments about how Android would/was/will destroy iOS. So he had to go. . .
I leave that to GatorGuy...
Thanks for inviting me to comment.
When was the first comment dismissive of Apple made by Schmidt, or came from any other Google executive if you can't find one from him, and what was said? I'm not aware of even oneprior to Schmidt's departure from Apple's board. You generally get your facts straight tho so perhaps arrogant comments from him or denigrating comments made by other Google execs did contribute to Schmidt's departure. I think a lot of folks missed them besides myself so perhaps you can refresh their memories.
What I'd rather see as an outcome of the lawsuits is not any financial exchange but for Google to be forced to put a message somewhere inside Android that says 'inspired by Apple' and it would be somewhere Android users would have to see it frequently.
You are correct, there are IP laws that prevent some forms of blatant copying. but full touch screen is not covered in that context... not to mention seeing article after article after article about android stealing apple's ideas (this is what? article number 1278 since 2007), is just distasteful. not only is it counterproductive, but if any of the apple exces or the die hard apple fans truly think android owes anything to apple for "copying" the full touch screen capability... then perhaps apple owes a portion of its revenue to LG since they came out with the full touch screen prada in advance of the first iphone announcement. i'm sure someone over at LG could come up with pretty little timelines showing how their phone design inspired the iphone. but no one gives a crap about any of this except the blowhards at apple. just food for thought.
Uh.. bullshit.
Clearly you've never actually put in the time and effort that it takes to build something genuinely new. iPhone may have borrowed from existing things but it put them together in a novel and inventive way that seems inevitable in retrospect but that was so counter-intuitive at the time that people thought it was an awful idea.
Every little «obvious» detail that Android copied represents countless hours of thought and sweat - great investments of time, effort, and money by Apple with no guarantee that it'd actually pay off. Once the hard work was done and the gamble paid off Google, Samsung, et al. took the finished product, stole Apple's investment by copying (often with low fidelity because having not actually done the work and merely cheating off of the smart kid's homework they didn't actually understand the whys and hows of all of the details they slavishly ripped off (and even before they made a crap copy of the iPhone they were in the process of making a crap copy of BlackBerry).
Also it's «so obvious and inevitable» and yet Microsoft of all companies somehow managed to come up with something radically different.
Imagine how much better off we'd all be if instead Android put that time and effort into doing the hard work and coming up with their own solutions.
Gaaah! This zombie meme drives me crazy, particularly since it is so easily disproved by a quick trip to Wikipedia:
So, the "official press release" of the LG Prada was 1/18/07, nine days after Jobs officially introduced the iPhone...which they'd been working on, in secret, for 3 years. There were leaked images of the Prada on the internet perhaps a month or two earlier and certainly the concept of the phone was established earlier by LG.
So, did LG copy the iPhone with the Prada? Obviously not. Did Apple copy or borrow from the Prada, or otherwise change the design of iPhone a month before it was introduced to the world? You'd have to be the most blinded Fandroid to believe this.
In answer to the question: no of course not... although at the time, isn't that what the market was supporting for better or worse (mostly worse) across the mobile landscape?
"SJ himself" was often wrong on many things and as a visionary was even more ahead of his time than anything else. As much as he willed it and did everything in his power to make it happen... the market still had to have it's say in whether he was right or wrong.
So up until that point, "4,5,6 different OSs" was the order of the day for all of the manufacturers jockeying for PHONE (device) market share... not to be misunderstood with "SMART mobile market share" as we know it today. Which as Google and Apple saw, was where the action and money was going to be at.
NOTE: you really have to wonder what the heck infected Microsoft to fail so badly and so long on that realization. They were so close but so far away... 60% OS share if I'm not mistaken... :no:
What infected MS was laziness, and complacency. Windows CE languished with little to no updates. MS didn't consider what the smartphone would evolve into until Apple showed the world. I think they'd be in Android's position had they immediately gone back to the drawing board and come up with something people would find worthwhile to use.
The fundamental richness of the American tech ecosystem is supported by the Patent system. The casual correlation of our Patent system and technological innovation seems to be dismissed by the no software patents people. If your idea as implemented in a completely new device class such as touch screen phones can be copied then why would anyone bother doing it? The answer is of course they wouldn't. But they do make new devices and types of devices here in America. We don't have the most vibrant ecosystem for the development of electronics by chance. We have it because we nurture it by protecting new ideas and devices from blatant copy cats.
Asia and China are far more involved in the manufacture of modern electronics than America is. Why doesn't Asia and China have companies that originated new product categories like: Google, Apple, Microsoft, Qualcom, Intel, and Facebook? It is not because America has more smart people. In point of fact, China has 60,000 trained engineers to make production of a product like the iPhone possible in a period of time less than 1 year. We don't have that large of a supply of engineers. We do have designers of a much higher quality. Those designers are here because smart people move here to create things so they can personally benefit from their own work. Off the top of my head examples such as Jony Ive, Sergy Brin, Max Levchin, and Elon Musk are all people who immigrated to America to work in Silicon valley.
So do we have a broken Patent system or does the rest of the world have one? My vote is the rest of the world has a broken system and we have a system in need of improvement.
I find those questions far more interesting and relevant than "what do predisposed fans who didn’t have any real access to the relevant facts think about Schmidt’s role in his position on Apple’s board?" I leave that to GatorGuy and the rest of the Android spin-defense team.
Spot on. Serious people here don't give a rat's a** about the Schmidt/Board nonsense. Just straw-men pulled out by some regulars...
Comments
I think Steve should have mentioned the fact that it was also a mobile applications device in addition to the other three. That would have been even more impactful in his presentation.
Jobs showed actual "desktop class" email & web apps that Apple had created in advance for launch. It wasn’t an apps platform until the next year, when developers were beating down Apple’s door to get an SDK. Contrast Android, which announced a Java-like apps platform with no really good apps at launch, and no really spectacular demand for creating apps years later.
Same thing at iPad launch. Apple came out with mobile iWork apps. Google’s Honeycomb shipped with stretched phone apps but nothing very usable except for YouTube and web. Years later, Apple’s iPad is the standard for enterprise custom apps for tablets (~90% share) while Google’s tablets are still a big iPod touch, without many really significant tablet apps of any kind.
iOS is designed to be a computing platform, while Android is designed to present ads and collect data on users for marketing purposes.
When I got the iPhone 3S
I couldn't believe how brilliant it was
Apple turn the phone industry upside down
People have a short memory
I believe this too.
Google knew because SJ told Larry as his mentor... that mobile was going to be where the action was and Google's own (ad) customers needed to be in ASAP. SJ was also counting on and courting Google to offer services in the form of Apple getting preferred access to Google's APIs to work with the iPhone, i.e. Maps and YouTube.
However... some clever little cookie at Google saw the "danger" of betting everything on Apple doing this right, and being shut out of mobile search and services if Apple didn't. I doubt SJ told anyone how far along they actually were with the iPhone. Regardless, it was a far better strategy, easier, and cheaper to purchase Android and let Andy Rubin come up with something that they could control 100% in case Apple failed... as everyone predicted they would... than to barter with Microsoft to be the preferred search and services on Windows phones. That would've surely cost Google a pretty penny at the time if it was the only route to mobile left for them (if Apple failed that is).
The look of the mobile devices was always going to be left up to OEMs I think. Google was only concentrating on the operating system that they would all use. After seeing the iPhone, it was pretty obvious to most tech engineers that it was going to be a force to contend with, and that simply duplicating Blackberry wasn't going to get Google services ubiquitous across mobile devices of all stripes, color, shapes... and UX... and it had to be finished "yesterday".
What's the fastest way to develop an OS that needs to ship in less than a year? Copy, paste, steal, and appropriate as much as you can get away with and worry about the lobbying, lawsuits and consequences later. Microsoft did something similar with the development of Windows and later with Explorer, which turned out pretty darn well for them, DOJ judgement included.
Which leaves us exactly where we are today. Sorting through the mess and trying to determine which shortcuts were made... and how much monetary damage should be paid. I doubt Google thought that the idiots at Samsung would take the whole "copying" thing as far as they did... heck... Google even warned them against it. Whatever. If this ever comes back to bite Google in the a**, it will be an even longer process and payment due date than these trials against Samsung.
NOTE: It is odd that they rather hastily killed "keyboard compatibility" though(?). I don't think anyone really expected that BB-style phones were going to be relegated to the "Island of Misfit Tools" as soon as it was.
There are two stories going around, the one about Eric Schmidt knowing about the iPhone before release and that of Android suddenly changing course after the presentation of the iPhone (which DED is making an attempt to defend here). Both stories can't be right at the same time, they contradict each other. If Eric Schmidt saw the iPhone before release then Google wouldn't be surprised. It's one or the other or neither, but the Eric Schmidt story seems very unlikely to be true.
iPhone was unveiled at the beginning of 2007.
Schmidt left Apple’s board in late 2009 after Google's release of ChromeOS.
A lot happened in those roughly 30 months, a period of time longer than it took Google to launch Android.
Google started denigrating the iPhone and tying its features (like Maps) to Android. Apple had to compete directly against Android, even as Schmidt was making dismissive, arrogant comments about how Android would/was/will destroy iOS. So he had to go.
There were more strategies to leak after the iPhone shipped than at launch. Where would Apple take the iPhone SDK? iOS 3? iOS 4? What about the iPad? Had Schmidt stayed, it would have been harder for Apple to stay ahead of Android.
Since his departure, Apple has earned all the money in mobile, even if the media and Android Enthusiasts have decided Android was winning because it was serving the low end of the market.
History is interesting but the future is even more so. For instance, how will Google take the high end back from Apple after failing to even get the low middle with the failure of Moto X, Nexus 7, etc? And what will happen to Android if Apple releases a low end iPhone to sell in developing countries?
I find those questions far more interesting and relevant than "what do predisposed fans who didn’t have any real access to the relevant facts think about Schmidt’s role in his position on Apple’s board?" I leave that to GatorGuy and the rest of the Android spin-defense team.
phil
please stop this "idea not patentable" crap. in hi-tech world, idea most of time is the implementation. loving tech does not mean you know/understand the tech.
There's good reason to the fundamental principle that there is no (legal) ownership to ideas. I know the US patent system has its difficulties with this principle because it makes it far too easy to overcome, creating a whole industry of patent trolls and legal abuse.
But every time I read how Apple stole an idea from Android, or Google from Apple, of X from Y, and how one copied the other, I am getting sick. All progress comes from copying, even what makes mankind unique compared to all other animals is our ability to copy and learn something new from it (I know, some other species have a similar, but reduced ability to do so too).
So all please get over the conception that using ("copying") and improving upon other people's / companies' ideas is evil.
In answer to the question: no of course not... although at the time, isn't that what the market was supporting for better or worse (mostly worse) across the mobile landscape?
"SJ himself" was often wrong on many things and as a visionary was even more ahead of his time than anything else. As much as he willed it and did everything in his power to make it happen... the market still had to have it's say in whether he was right or wrong.
So up until that point, "4,5,6 different OSs" was the order of the day for all of the manufacturers jockeying for PHONE (device) market share... not to be misunderstood with "SMART mobile market share" as we know it today. Which as Google and Apple saw, was where the action and money was going to be at.
NOTE: you really have to wonder what the heck infected Microsoft to fail so badly and so long on that realization. They were so close but so far away... 60% OS share if I'm not mistaken... :no:
The idea of a full touch phone with an OS designed for it was not pioneered by Apple (though documents reveal that as far as I can tell they had the idea first internally).
My favorite concept phone even still was the 2006 BenQ black box that sadly fell through.
Android 1.0-parts of 2.3 were some of the worst stock mobile experiences of my life. The few months I spent with an iPhone 4 when my Android broke were glorious. Then 4.0 came out and it was a passable stock experience.
If Jesusfreke never rooted the G1 back in early 09 I'd have jumped ship to the iPhone that week.
Contrary to what I've seen here even a lot of Android fans are not Samsung fans. I'm one of them. **** Samsung.
Apple had to compete directly against Android, even as Schmidt was making dismissive, arrogant comments about how Android would/was/will destroy iOS. So he had to go.To be fair it's not like Steve Jobs minced his words
.
I find those questions far more interesting and relevant than "what do predisposed fans who didn’t have any real access to the relevant facts think about Schmidt’s role in his position on Apple’s board?"
I was just answering PhilBoogie's question regarding the board of directors and members recusing themselves.
History is interesting but the future is even more so. For instance, how will Google take the high end back from Apple after failing to even get the low middle with the failure of Moto X, Nexus 7, etc? And what will happen to Android if Apple releases a low end iPhone to sell in developing countries?
I agree, the future is more interesting than the past. Though I wouldn't exactly call the Nexus 7 a failure.
Do we really see Apple releasing a low end iPhone? I have my doubts if they ever will. I think Apple is pretty content with its position in the market at this moment in time. I personally don't see Apple releasing a low end iPhone unless it was really necessary and one always has to ask the question whether or not releasing a low end iPhone would result in that line consuming some of the more high-end products shares. If that is the case then launching a low end iPhone doesn't make much sense as it is very likely that the margins on the low end phone will be a lot lower then on the high end ones.
It's my personal opinion that Apple is very unlikely to release a low end phone anytime soon.
Thanks for inviting me to comment.
When was the first comment dismissive of Apple made by Schmidt, or came from any other Google executive if you can't find one from him, and what was said? I'm not aware of even one prior to Schmidt's departure from Apple's board. You generally get your facts straight tho so perhaps arrogant comments from him or denigrating comments made by other Google execs did contribute to Schmidt's departure. I think a lot of folks missed them besides myself so perhaps you can refresh their memories.
Oh that'd be awesome!!!
prokip,
You are correct, there are IP laws that prevent some forms of blatant copying. but full touch screen is not covered in that context... not to mention seeing article after article after article about android stealing apple's ideas (this is what? article number 1278 since 2007), is just distasteful. not only is it counterproductive, but if any of the apple exces or the die hard apple fans truly think android owes anything to apple for "copying" the full touch screen capability... then perhaps apple owes a portion of its revenue to LG since they came out with the full touch screen prada in advance of the first iphone announcement. i'm sure someone over at LG could come up with pretty little timelines showing how their phone design inspired the iphone. but no one gives a crap about any of this except the blowhards at apple. just food for thought.
Uh.. bullshit.
Clearly you've never actually put in the time and effort that it takes to build something genuinely new. iPhone may have borrowed from existing things but it put them together in a novel and inventive way that seems inevitable in retrospect but that was so counter-intuitive at the time that people thought it was an awful idea.
Every little «obvious» detail that Android copied represents countless hours of thought and sweat - great investments of time, effort, and money by Apple with no guarantee that it'd actually pay off. Once the hard work was done and the gamble paid off Google, Samsung, et al. took the finished product, stole Apple's investment by copying (often with low fidelity because having not actually done the work and merely cheating off of the smart kid's homework they didn't actually understand the whys and hows of all of the details they slavishly ripped off (and even before they made a crap copy of the iPhone they were in the process of making a crap copy of BlackBerry).
Also it's «so obvious and inevitable» and yet Microsoft of all companies somehow managed to come up with something radically different.
Imagine how much better off we'd all be if instead Android put that time and effort into doing the hard work and coming up with their own solutions.
Oh yeah!
Let's get an unbiased source ; )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:LG_Prada
What infected MS was laziness, and complacency. Windows CE languished with little to no updates. MS didn't consider what the smartphone would evolve into until Apple showed the world. I think they'd be in Android's position had they immediately gone back to the drawing board and come up with something people would find worthwhile to use.
Asia and China are far more involved in the manufacture of modern electronics than America is. Why doesn't Asia and China have companies that originated new product categories like: Google, Apple, Microsoft, Qualcom, Intel, and Facebook? It is not because America has more smart people. In point of fact, China has 60,000 trained engineers to make production of a product like the iPhone possible in a period of time less than 1 year. We don't have that large of a supply of engineers. We do have designers of a much higher quality. Those designers are here because smart people move here to create things so they can personally benefit from their own work. Off the top of my head examples such as Jony Ive, Sergy Brin, Max Levchin, and Elon Musk are all people who immigrated to America to work in Silicon valley.
So do we have a broken Patent system or does the rest of the world have one?
My vote is the rest of the world has a broken system and we have a system in need of improvement.
I find those questions far more interesting and relevant than "what do predisposed fans who didn’t have any real access to the relevant facts think about Schmidt’s role in his position on Apple’s board?" I leave that to GatorGuy and the rest of the Android spin-defense team.
Spot on. Serious people here don't give a rat's a** about the Schmidt/Board nonsense. Just straw-men pulled out by some regulars...