
Apple Never Invented Anything - chmars
http://www.mondaynote.com/2012/09/02/apple-never-invented-anything/
======
cromwellian
One interesting point is he brought up Einstein's invention of relativity.
Notice that in the scientific community, humanity has been building upon
previous work for centuries with no copyright or patent protection, and
nothing more than honor, citation, and shame against plagiarists.

The fundamental defense made by many is that without patent protection for
software, people would not put much effort into innovating.

1) If you look at science, open source, fashion, food, and other areas where
humans continually build on culture, you see plenty of continued innovation
without insane legal protection.

2) The amount of effort pales in comparison to the monopoly granted. You could
make the argument for say, pharmaceuticals, that if it takes 10 years from lab
through human trials and hundreds of millions of dollars, that a 2-decade long
protection period might be needed. But there is no FDA for software, and Apple
actually spends far less on R&D than other companies, and with $100 billion in
the bank, you can't claim that haven't gotten an incredibly good return in
their investment.

Therefore, it is insane to grant 20 year protection to Apple for stuff like
pinch gestures. 2 years maybe. But 20? It's absurd.

~~~
podperson
> But 20? It's absurd.

If pinch and zoom is such a trivial thing then invent some other thing to use
instead.

The patent system by-and-large doesn't pick and choose patent durations based
on the kind of patent.

Theoretical physics and patentable technology are quite different things and
the comparison is not helpful. Before patents we had a guild system where
people who made almost anything -- pottery, telescopes, pots and pans -- would
obfuscate their techniques and if possible their products. Knowledge of key
manufacturing processes was a trade secret. This is the world that we'd be in
without patent protections.

~~~
cromwellian
Trivial doesn't mean valueless. A "1 click buy" patent is trivial, but forcing
everyone to "invent something else instead" (e.g. 2 clicks) is stupid. And
what if 2-click is patented? Then the next guy to come along has to have a
3-click system, or some obfuscation that convinces a jury.

Pretty soon, consumers are confused, because every website they go to has a
radically different user interface brought on by patents on ideas that should
be _basic commodities_.

When we had the guild system, we also didn't have universal public education,
and instantaneous near zero cost publication of ideas.

Plus, you analogy makes pinch-zoom patents look even worse. You can keep how
it is implemented a complete trade secret, and from looking at it for a few
seconds, I can produce an equivalent implementation.

Apple has already obfuscated their techniques anyway. Why not release iOS as
open source then, if it's protected by patents? The reality is, these patents
are read by no one except lawyers, and in many cases, they under specify the
implementation by being very abstract.

I really don't see how anyone who writes software for a living can defend
these things and defend the status quo of not even supporting reform. You are
asserting that something like an XOR-cursor (another dumb patent) is
equivalent to a manufacturing process deserving 20 year protection?

~~~
podperson
> I really don't see how anyone who writes software for a living can defend
> these things and defend the status quo of not even supporting reform.

I agree that it seems like things are a bit screwy right now, but I don't
claim to know what the solution is, and I'm not sure that things haven't
always been a bit screwy (Alexander Graham Bell got the telephone patent
because he was ahead of some other guy in line, Farnsworth died poor having
invented TV).

Abolishing software patents is -- in my opinion -- not the solution since --
given the direction technology is headed -- this is going to be disturbingly
similar to abolishing patents altogether. Most suggested "reforms" of the
patent system seem to satisfy Mencken's criteria ("neat, simple, and wrong")

Note that genetic and chemical-engineering patents are pretty close to
software too.

1-click is one of my least favorite patents, but it really comes down to an
argument about obviousness -- an argument it appears to have lost in Europe
(where the patent was never granted). The patent has been challenged, most of
its claims thrown out, and its remaining claims narrowed:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Click>

I'd suggest that in the end its a question of application not theory. In this
case the Europeans have arguably done a better job of applying patent law than
the US.

~~~
vibrunazo
The solution already exists, in parallel with patents. If the whole goal is to
"incentive innovation", then there are many ways of doing this. And we've been
doing it already. If all you wanna do is incentive innovation then just give
innovators what they need to innovate. That's what angel investors, angel
groups, startup incubators, accelerators and even kickstarter backers do.

There's absolutely nothing about the concept of "incentive innovation" that
says you must punish other innovators by giving monopolies to each individual.
Of all ideas for promoting innovation you can think of, granting monopolies
are among the worst ones. If before the invention of Intellectual Property, if
you asked people to come up with new ideas to incentive innovation, no one
would come up with "let's promote innovation by punishing innovators to pay
fees to a select few". And in fact, no one did, that's not how IP was
invented, it was the other way around. It started with UK monarchy monopolies
with the explicit goal to make money for the monarchy. The excuse that IP
protects innovation was made up later by those who were profiting from it when
the monarchy fell.

Solutions to replace patents always existed, still exist and are working
great. YCombinator is a great example of that. If you think it's the
government who should grant some kind of incentives. I don't know about the
US, but in my country we have many government programs for innovative
startups. Many high tech and bio tech startups only exist because of
government granted funding, incubation and mentorship.

Humans will always innovate. Solutions already exist and are working. Patents
just need to stay out of our way and the rest will keep working fine.

------
AnthonyMouse
I think the article is right in what it says but is wrong because of what it
doesn't say. Apple succeeded where others had failed, and that is certainly
commendable, but now we have a problem: Apple doesn't have a patent on "an
iPad" meaning a device with all the individual characteristics that make an
iPad an iPad and make it successful, instead they have individual patents on
all the individual features.

But the individual features are the things that Apple _didn't_ do. Yet that's
what they sue over because that's how patent law is set up.

So now we see Samsung lose big in court and popular reaction is split, and
here's why: People looking at the actual facts of the case are outraged that
Apple could win that way because the actual grounds of the win had nothing to
do with copying or Samsung's actions and everything to do with the fact that
anyone with a million over-broad patents on obvious "inventions" and laws of
nature and mathematics can win in court against anyone who produces a
computing device, arguing that any actual copying on the part of Samsung is
irrelevant. On the other hand, we have the people who look at the result and
the fact that Samsung's devices do actually look entirely too much like
Apple's and think Samsung got what was coming to them, ignoring that in order
to do it Apple had to adopt a long list of bully tactics that they've now
demonstrated that they or anyone else with a sufficient patent arsenal can
successfully use against their competitors (including those whose devices
aren't intentionally copied, because there are too many patents to possibly
even attempt to avoid them all).

Nobody seems willing to say that Apple should potentially have some remedy
against Samsung for actual copying but that what they got is the wrong remedy
in the wrong way, not least which because the same tactics can be used against
_anyone_ whether they've done anything wrong or not.

~~~
robertskmiles
Agreed entirely. To make the metaphor accurate, the chef would then have to
sue someone else who was making mayonnaise by a similar recipe.

~~~
swombat
If no one else could make mayonnaise successfully and a chef came up with the
process for making it, that chef should damn well get some kind of protection
from the IP system for his innovation, invention, or whatever the hell you
wanna call it.

That is, after all, what will make him want to share his methods instead of
keeping them a secret. That's the fundamental principle of the patent system:
you share, and we give you a temporary monopoly defended by law.

This patent system is obviously broken, but in the mayonnaise case it wouldn't
be.

~~~
001sky
Mayo: Its a trade secret, not a patent.[1,2]

 _The law of protection of confidential information effectively allows a
perpetual monopoly in secret information - it does not expire as would a
patent. The lack of formal protection, however, means that a third party is
not prevented from independently duplicating and using the secret information
once it is discovered._

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_secret>

[1] Like Coke. Ingredients and technique are, independenltly, common prior
art.

[2] Also, this is not to be snarky: the protections are different.

~~~
swombat
Yes, and that's the bargain that patents give. Either you keep it a trade
secret, and live in constant fear that someone will leak it someday, or you
get a patent, publish all the details, and get a government-supported monopoly
so that you _know_ that for 28 years no one else can make mayonnaise like you
do.

------
drats
I made this case last week.

"Apple products are like a good classy restaurant or hotel chain. They take
ingredients everyone has and put a lot of work into fit and finish, they make
the customer feel special for a slightly higher price."[1]

And I stand by it. I'll go even further actually, I think Apple is one of the
_least_ innovative big companies. Look at all the big research labs at
Microsoft, Yahoo, IBM or Google. Anyone who seriously follows this stuff knows
a) Apple doesn't have a profile in the academic world and b) knows enough
computer history to know Apple is claiming things invented _decades_ ago.

[1]<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4435504>

~~~
potatolicious
UI and UX _are_ innovations. The silly notion that only hard, technical
inventions with academic papers attached are innovative is the reason why
Apple has eaten _everyone's_ lunch up till now.

"Fit and finish" is as innovative as a new algorithm, it's shocking how much
of the industry still treats it as a footnote and a detail, despite the
_entire_ history of the tech world since iPhone 1 would indicate.

~~~
w1ntermute
> The silly notion that only hard, technical inventions with academic papers
> attached are innovative is the reason why Apple has eaten everyone's lunch
> up till now.

No, the reason why Apple has eaten's everyone's lunch up till now is because
they're interested in being profitable, not innovative. The GP is correct in
stating that Apple isn't innovative - they just take other people's
innovations and monetize them by polishing things up and running effective ad
campaigns to gain marketshare among the masses. And there's nothing at all
wrong with that - if your primary interest is making money.

~~~
potatolicious
> _"take other people's innovations and monetize them by polishing things up"_

The devil is in the polishing up, evidently.

Your post is almost scarily indicative of the industry attitude that has
allowed Apple to take over to the degree they have. Only hard, technical
inventions are given any respect, and when we talk about UX we call it
"polishing up", almost spitting those words out of our mouths in
condescension.

Are you seriously going to hold up a clickwheel and say it wasn't innovative?
Or the iPhone? Or the iPad? The fact that these products look and behave
_almost nothing_ like their progenitor technologies doesn't indicate
innovation to you?

It really disturbs me how little respect us geeks have for the people who
consume our products. When the general public votes with their wallet in a
landslide victory for Apple, we blame them for being easily manipulable by
slick ad campaigns and shiny baubles. The notion that Apple has actually
satisfied a long-standing demand is somehow not allowed to enter this
discourse.

~~~
recoiledsnake
I wholeheartedly agree that Apple's innovative in getting technology to
actually work in a user friendly way and combining them with excellent design
but is that process patent worthy is the real question at hand.

For example, how different is the homescreen of the iPhone from this?
[http://images.yourdictionary.com/images/computer/_PROGMAN.GI...](http://images.yourdictionary.com/images/computer/_PROGMAN.GIF)
Compared to that, Windows Phone with Metro is much more innovative.

Another problem is that many people attribute things to being invented by
Apple because they first hear of it from Apple(and because they don't use non
Apple products). For example, I remember when Apple introduced hybrid graphics
with a way to switch between the integrated Intel gpu and a discrete
Nvidia/ATI GPU. Sony had that working before Apple, but a LOT of folks thought
it was Apple that innovated it. Perhaps Apple added more polish to it, but
they certainly were wrong.

Polishing and going the last mile is very tough(see OEMs with half baked
software and hardware) but does it deserve patent protection? Apple innovated
and got awarded with becoming the most valuable company in the world with more
than 100 billion dollars in the bank with which they can invest further in
innovation instead of indulging in petty patent extortion over petty things
like the bounceback effect or linking phone numbers in emails to the dialer.

~~~
czr80
Design is not how it _looks_ , design is how it _works_. When you truly
internalise that you'll see why that screenshot is irrelevant.

~~~
recoiledsnake
Design is both how it looks and how it works. If you take the Desktop WIMP UI,
and try to come up with a way to redesign it work with only touch instead of
mouse and keyboard, you'd roughly be already halfway to the iOS homescreen in
terms of design. Instead of clicking on a icon, you touch it and the app
opens, swipe to see multiple homescreens since desktop space is limited on a
phone, add in a dock at the bottom. Contrast that with Metro. So that
screenshot is NOT irrelevant.

------
VengefulCynic
Whenever I'm using "enterprise" software or some equally-awful tool that's
sold using a feature checklist, I can't help but think about Steve Jobs's line
about how innovation is saying no to 1000 things.

 _edit: Well, a feature checklist and $50,000 worth of sales dinners, games of
golf and "gifts that do not violate the professional ethics rules of the
company buying said tool."_

~~~
eckyptang
"Enterprise software" is about selling a $10,000,000 piece of software to one
entity which requires specific features (and usually complex logic).

Apple's mantra is selling a $1 piece of software to 10,000,000 people who
require a simple piece of software.

The two are perfectly valid. In fact the latter would not exist if it wasn't
for enterprise software (such as CAD systems, inventory, supply chain
management etc).

~~~
greedo
Have you purchased any "enterprise" software lately? The idea that it's
customized, bespoke software addressing specific requirements of the customer
couldn't be farther from the truth. Here's how it works at my company. Some
"architect" decides we need to have an Identity Management System and consults
his latest Gartner report. He looks for the packages in the Magic Quadrant,
and contacts the vendors. Then we buy what's the safest, least threatening
application we can, for an exorbitant price. Hire consultants to help deploy
it, discovering that it's a pile of dung that doesn't do what it advertises,
much less what we actually need to do.

This happens all the time in the "enterprise" world. Whether it's sold by IBM,
BMC, etc etc.

Don't conflate "enterprise" software with anything complex or intelligent.
It's typically some of the worst software you can find.

~~~
eckyptang
Actually I build enterprise software and am a enterprise architect at a large
company :) Please don't tar us all with the same brush.

It's not all like that. You've been stung by a shitty purchasing and
architecture team, probably put together from people who've ascended the ranks
to the point they no longer understand the technology and want to suck up to
management and wheel around the country in a company rollerskate with a
ThinkPad and a caffiene problem. These are called ivory tower architects or as
we call them: asshat-itects.

Enterprise should mean certain guarantees about scalability and reliability
and ability to adapt to the organisation.

If it doesn't, you've bought a lemon, not a piece of enterprise software.

Note: there are more lemons than not so you have to be careful.

------
belorn
Its an old idea to remove everything until just the essence is left. Apple
succeed in identifying markets that was making over complex products.

The silly part is that complexity goes in cycles. New products need to
differential themselves with old ones, so they add new features. After a
while, you end up with a car stereo with 20 buttons, and suddenly a "new"
competitor comes out with a clean design with just 3 buttons and the 20 button
design looks ill-designed in comparison.

Stereos is one of the earlier examples, but you can see the same phenomena in
web-design with today’s White and clean design vs the old dark and complex
design.

~~~
gnaffle
I think simplicity isn't the only story, it's usable simplicity. If simple was
the only game in town, Apple would only need the iPod shuffle and something
like John's Phone (<http://johnsphones.org/>) to rule the world.

The iPod and iPhone has added lots and lots of functionality over the years,
yet the interface has stayed simple. It's possible to add lots of new features
in ways that doesn't make the interface more complex, however it's a big
challenge.

~~~
belorn
You can add new features without adding interface complexity, but its harder
to differential products if the user do not have any visible difference
between ones old product now going for 15$, the competitors new 30-99$
products, and ones own new product going for 100$. Abstract arguments like
"its faster!, more feature than before!" is much harder sell when the two
devices look and feel the same.

One way is to sue all competitors and have the only store available presenting
exclusive the new product, but that only goes so far.

As for the johnsphones, it has buttons. As interface goes, it still look
complex compared to a smartphone. The most simplistic phone design is one with
only one or zero buttons, like the Third generation iPod Shuffle if it had
been a phone.

------
smartkids
The iPaq was/is a fantastic device. You could attach peripherals. Try doing
that with an iPad. I could put an entire OS on a CF Card and assuming I could
boot from the card, the expanded functionality is limited only by the hardware
specs. They are durable. I've seen consumer electronics businesses still using
them to track inventory.

I wish HP would revive the iPaq.

My only imagined use for an iPad is as a portable display. I want the Retina
quality, but I have a more powerful hardware to attach and I need a real
keyboard. There's nothing the iPad can do that my open, unlocked hardware
cannot do.

I believe it was even possible to attach a real keyboard to an iPaq. That's
the kind of flexibility I want. I can get data into and out of the device in
any number of ways, without hassle.

~~~
mdonahoe
People like you are not a large market, unfortunately.

> There's nothing the iPad can do that my open, unlocked hardware cannot do.
> Your open, unlocked hardware, cannot survive two days with my mother.

~~~
smartkids
I understand the comment. Of course the thought has crossed my mind. But I'm
not so sure there's any evidence to support it.

I actually test some of my ideas with people like your mother, and
surprisingly (why should I be surprised?) they have little trouble catching
on.

What's really amusing is that these things that I have them doing are things
that many nerds cannot themsleves do. I've got them using systems and
techniques that many nerds won't touch because they think it's too "hard
core". It's hilarious.

There are lots and lots of unfounded assumptions about what users can and
cannot do.

There are facts, supported by evidence. And then there are assumptions. One
requires a bit of work. The other is effortless: you just hit "Submit".

~~~
mdonahoe
Did they fully understand the reasoning behind the techniques you taught, or
was it just memorization?

I have taught my mom how to do certain things, but she has no intuition. As
soon as something is slightly wrong or different, she gets stuck and can't
move on. The solution is always something simple, like relaunching the app,
installing an update, power cycling the computer, jiggling the usb cord,
modifying the permissions on a file... but there are only so many contingency
plans I can teach her.

Maybe I just suck at teaching, but I think that technical people have an
incredibly curiosity and comfort with troubleshooting that people like my mom
don't. We are basically playing on our computers.

With the iPad, my mom is finally playing too. She is really adept at it.
Sending photos, checking facebook, downloading new apps, she was never
comfortable doing any of this on the computer. Too many choices and settings
and things to potentially screw up that she would be paralyzed, unable to
explore and try things.

Ultimately I think the home button is the most important thing in the iOS
ecosystem. If all else fails, go home and everything will be fine*.

(Unless your battery dies, or there is lint in the charging port, or your
screen shatters, or you muted it, or you turned on airplane mode... it's not
perfect...)

~~~
smartkids
Making your Mom deal with permissions? Yikes.

I think reasoning, in addition to basic instructions, is important even though
some people might not care about it. By leaving it out you deny those who do
care an opportunity to learn.

And to me it just seems more respectable when someone asks you to do something
and tells you why you are doing it then if they just give you bare
instructions. (That said, the bare instructions should be able tostand on
their own. They had better work, every time.)

Moreover, providing reasoning forces you to demonstrate you know the subject
matter well enough to be able to explain it.

------
drblast
This article is unintentionally an excellent argument against patent
protection for Apple's products.

If Apple is a company that uniquely has the talent and taste of a good chef,
the patent protection is unnecessary. They will be able to continually outdo
other companies that don't have the same talent.

Arguing that a company has so much talent and is so successful that it needs
legal protection seems absurd to me.

~~~
csmeder
I think the point he was making was: once you see a master chef make
mayonnaise you realize the reason you failed. You tried too hard. And now you
can make mayonnaise.

Tablet makers (iPaq, MS, etc) tried too hard. Apple showed them don't try too
hard. And now they can make tablets too.

So yes, the excellent chef can be the first to make mayonnaise, however, with
out patents on mayonnaise so can everyone else now. The idea of a patent is
that the master chef spent years learning to not mix the ingredients too hard,
now that he has showed the world the way to make mayonnaise, the only thing
stopping the world from stealing the fruits of his work are patents.

The point being if Apple never created the iPhone and iPad we would still have
phones like the iPaq and the clunky MS tablets in the year 2012. I whole
heartily agree with this.

If it wasn't for Apple, every other phone and tablet company today would not
be making anything of the flavor of the iPhone or iPad. Android and Win Mobile
Phone are of the flavor of Apple.

So why is it right for them to taste like "L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon" (Apple)
in the year 2012 if they would still taste like "Taco Bell" (MS, iPaq, etc) in
the year 2012 if it wasn't for Jobs' iphone and ipad. Obviously with out a
parallel universe for us to visit together I can't prove this to you. However,
I do feel the overwhelming facts of 20 years of failure by iPaq, MS, etc show
the trajectory they were heading for and we can guess where they would be in
the year 2012:

\- Stylus pen, or clunky touch screen that you have to press very hard.

\- Lots of ram, lots of CPU power.

\- Very heavy

\- Very large and thick

\- Poor quality materials

\- Mediocre software that does not come any where close to the current android
software.

\- Buggy software

\- no App store, lots of viruses and other security issues.

\- Expensive and running full Windows 8, no RT version.

So if the products Samsung and MS were selling today fit the above recipe, I
agree Apple shouldn't be suing them. But this isn't what is happening. Apple
is being robbed blind. Every technique and recipe Apple created is being
meticulously stolen and engineered into Android and windows phones. These are
recipes that Jobs, Ive and the whole Apple company put years of effort into,
they poured their heart and soul into these recipes.

The reason so much of the tech media don't see it this way is they have no
taste buds. Most people have terrible taste buds. Well, they have great
unconscious taste buds but their conscious taste buds are almost worth less.
So they see things like the iPaq and those old MS Tablets and think "Well Gee
golly, that food sure was tasty, sure android is tastier but not much tastier,
apple doesn't really deserve much credit for androids improved taste."

As some one with excellent taste buds (I am a UX/Product designer, I have
predicted the success and failure of almost all major tech product that have
come out in the past 10 years, you can read the comments in my HN history as I
defended the iPad to almost 99% of HN thinking it was stupid when it came out,
I predicted the failure of the Zune, I predicted the success of Apple as whole
back in 2004, and predicted MS' current decline) I can tell you with a fair
amount of certainty how different iPaq and android taste.

What android and Win Phone are doing is sneaky. It is so sneaky you don't
realize how many subtle but important details they have stolen. They can do
this because you don't have the conscious taste buds necessary to notice it.

These details may be subtle but they are far from small. If you ever watch a
grand master play chess. Every time he makes a great move you think to
yourself "Gee golly that was an obvious move". No. No, it was not. Once you
see a chess move you can no longer look at it objectively. The way to
objectively judge a chess move is to try to figure it out on your own before
some one shows it to you. After spending hours and hours and more hours
looking for this move before finding it, you then fully appreciate the move.

The tech media is watching a chess game from the sidelines Apple is the
grandmaster, Android and windows phone are the people building a database of
the grandmaster's moves to beat people at chess.

Most people won't be able to comprehend or believe the next sentence: A non
Expert Chef or food critic (Expert Product Designer) will never be able to
appreciate the Gigantic chasm between the taste of Apples products and any of
their competitors, however, on an unconscious level everyone will be drawn to
Apples taste so strongly that if the competitors don't copy it, soon Apple
will have no competitors still in business. This is the natural Monopoly the
iPod almost had for a few years. In 2010 "The latest research by NPD Group
claims that iPod had a 76 percent share of the MP3 player market in US in May
this year."[0] This monopoly would have been true if Samsung, Google and
Microsoft were not spending the past 5 years perfecting their ability to hire
Expert Product designers to steal Apple's recipes. From 2001, when the first
iPod came out, until about 2010 MS, Google and Samsung went through a phase of
denial, trial (trying to steal ideas) and then finally some succes (actually
stealing ideas). It took them about a decade just to get good at stealing
ideas from Apple. The Zune was an example of how hard it is to steal ideas
from apple. A non Expert Product Designer would think the Zune was good
thievery, however, it was a sloppy job, it wasn't until windows phone and
android, that these companies started to be good at stealing ideas.

[0] [http://www.ithinkdiff.com/the-ipod-has-76-percent-of-
mp3-pla...](http://www.ithinkdiff.com/the-ipod-has-76-percent-of-mp3-player-
market-in-us_7654/)

You are going to hate me for saying this, and you won't agree with me but the
truth is that: you don't on a conscious level know what is going on. You are
Unconsciously Incompetent. And Android and Win Phone are using this to their
advantage. Its the same way Europeans stole land from Native americans. The
native americans were Unconsciously Incompetent when it came to the idea of
"Owning Land". They saw the land as owning them. Thus they signed documents
that seemed to have little importance. This is what Android and Win Phone are
doing. They are using you to steal from Apple.

That said Jiro [1] doesn't patent his Sushi, he simpley makes the best sushi.
And he does quite well for him. If I was Apple I would spend a lot more of my
time in the kitchen making the best Sushi in the world and a lot less time in
the courtroom.

[1] <http://www.magpictures.com/jirodreamsofsushi/>

Note: I am sorry if I come off as arrogant by calling myself an "Expert
Product Designer" and claim most people won't understand what I understand,
but I don't say this out of arrogance, rather out of fact.

I have spent more than a decade to be as competent as I am in Product Design.
This is not small feat. In college I was a talented student when it came to
Physics, in particular my introduction to Quantum Physics and special
relativity class. If I had chosen to pursue the path of Quantum Physis I am
quite confident I would be an Expert Quantum Physis today.

And if this was so, it would not be arrogant for me to say such things as:
"light is both a particle and wave, most people will never appreciate how
amazing this is, only expert Quantum Physis', such as my self, will come close
to appreciating this statements full glory." This would not be arrogant,
rather it would be a fact.

The sad fact is that "Product/UX Design" doesn't get the same respect as the
hard sciences. From my point of view it should. I use just as much if not more
of my brain power to wrap my head around design solutions when I am designing
a product as I did when I studied the particle and wave form duality of light
and the intricate details of space and time learned through special
relativity.

~~~
notatoad
So what's the takeaway here? Are you saying that apple deserves to own the
concept of, essentially, not being shitty, just because they were the first to
make a good tablet? yes, Steve jobs' vision inspired his competitors to make
better products. That is the single most fundamental tenet of capitalism:
Competition drives all the players in a market to do better. Apple does not
have a legal right to remain the market leader: they've show the competition
what competitors want, if they want to remain the leader it is their
responsibility to continue to produce better products. If every market leader
could sue their competition for making decent products, thugs would get pretty
stagnant pretty fast.

~~~
csmeder
I actually agree with you, this is why I said:

    
    
       That said Jiro [1] doesn't patent his Sushi, 
       he simpley makes the best sushi. And he does 
       quite well for him. If I was Apple I would 
       spend a lot more of my time in the kitchen 
       making the best Sushi in the world and a lot 
       less time in the courtroom.
    

[1] <http://www.magpictures.com/jirodreamsofsushi/>

What I don't agree with is people saying there was prior art. No. Sorry there
was no prior art, for most of apples inventions. If you take the subtle
details into account.

So how can I agree with you and the above statement? I think we need patent
reform. I believe in capitalism. Our current patent laws are anti capitalism,
they are pro corporateerism.

~~~
fpgeek
If you take the subtle details into account, no one is copying Apple's
inventions either (just listen to any iOS enthusiast on Android scrolling, for
example).

------
pippy
>Software is all zeroes and ones, after all. The quantity and order may vary,
but that’s about it. Hardware is just protons, neutrons, electrons and photons
buzzing around, nothing original. Apple didn’t “invent” anything, the iPad is
simply their variation, their interpretation of the well-known tablet recipe.

You can make cookies and cakes from the same raw ingredients, doesn't mean
that the person who invented cookies also invented cake.

Also the 'Software is all zeroes and ones' argument irks me. It's the bridge
between an expensive paperweight and a practical device.

~~~
stephencanon
I don't suppose you made it to the next paragraph where the author says:

> "By this myopic logic, Einstein didn’t invent the theory of relativity..."

i.e. he agrees with you.

------
aresant
There was a clear before and after when they launched the iPhone

By NAILING it apple managed to popularize existing tech like the modern touch-
screen interface, the app develeper economy & handheld computing.

So enough with this apple hasnt done anything bs, the reason they print money
is they keep making future tech accessible, I hope the iPhone 5 (6?) lives up
to their record.

------
pge
I think this article makes some good points but overlooks the crucial question
- what inventions are patentable? Like a great chef that combines known
ingredients, apple has made excellent products, but apple has not produced new
innovation that is worthy of patent protection. Apple's path to success should
be winning customers, just like the chefs he describes, not through patent
litigation.

The examples given by the OP actually support this point. It's true that
Einstein didnt discover relativity first - both lorentz and poincare had
worked out the mathematics, but Einstein articulated the concepts best. I
often use this case study as an example of how innovations often arise
independently from different inventors simultaneously because the conditions
are right. The other famous and illustrative example is newton and leibniz
inventing calculus independently.

As a VC, I see this all the time - the market conditions are right for a new
idea, and suddenly 4 or 5 companies appear doing variations on the same thing,
none aware of the others. Let good execution and the market decide which one
is best, not the date on a patent filing for something each came up with on
their own.

~~~
babesh
Einstein understood the meaning. Poincare and Lorentz just understood the
machinery. That is a fundamental difference that let Einstein go beyond
special relativity to general relativity. Big, big difference. The difference
between friendster and facebook.

------
yogrish
I was under the same opinion as the author. While the Apple Vs Sammy was going
many ppl said every feature iphone existed before. But, iphone has the right
mix of them in right proportions and that has made it Tick. W.r.t Patenting
rects with round corners etc, I too disagree with Apple. Violating Trade dress
by Sammy is not acceptable either.

------
Uchikoma
Got to love HN, if someone copies a startup pixel by pixel and business
modell, hulla, the lynch mob readies it's pitchforks. If someone copies a
freelancers design, website or logo, woha, people run amok. If someone copies
Apples UI, hardware, apps and app market it's "Apple Never Invented Anything."

~~~
pooriaazimi
Did you even _read_ the article?!

~~~
Uchikoma
My comment was about the HN comments not the article. Did you even read my
comment?!

------
ThomPete
Apple invented the ability to take geeky stuff and turn it into cool stuff for
normal people.

That's a pretty big feat in itself.

~~~
cheald
That's called "marketing". It's not really new.

~~~
mdonahoe
You are right, but Apple's definition of marketing doesnt end with the
billboards or the tv commercials.

Every time you see someone wearing those white earbuds, that's marketing. When
your mom is always on her ipad, despite 20 years of lessons from you on how to
use a computer, that's marketing. When you are sitting in an airport and you
notice the glow of the Apple logo on the back of someone's Macbook Air, that's
marketing. When the same dude is still using his macbook, 6 hours into a
flight without a powercord, that's marketing. When you walk into an Apple
store, and you feel the aluminum unibody... when you unwrap the sturdy yet
smooth packaging and the bottom slides out to reveal the device... when
computer boots directly to a gray apple logo on a white screen, instead of a
DOS prompt for a few seconds, that's marketing.

It takes a lot of work to do Apple style marketing.

~~~
cheald
I completely agree. Apple's marketing is genius. But, the comment I was
replying to seems to think that Apple invented effective marketing, and that's
just not true. They do it really, really well, but you gotta be chugging the
kool-aid to think that they invented the concept of using their products to
advertise their brand.

------
ekianjo
Most people here seem to argue whether or not Apple have the rights to hold
patents on what they did (and whether that should grand them protection). But
where this argument is flawed, is that protection from being copied is not
only centered around the patent system. There are multiple ways you can
protect your inventions, through trade secrets, supply chain efficiency that
nobody else can reproduce, through a software environment which is worth more
in its whole than the sum of its parts.

We know Apple is already using all the above techniques to protect their
business. They have an excellent supply chain, they obviously have
preferential trade partners which enable them access the new technologies
first before anyone else, and they have a iOS system which is well rounded for
its purpose.

Net, they really do not need to leverage their patents protection. That could
be an indication that they do not think they are going to be very innovative
down the road, and therefore they just want to keep competitors as far as
possible until they pull their act together again... or that they have too
many lawyers with too much time on their hands to investigate how much harm
they could do with claims based on air and smoke.

When a company resorts to such practices, it is usually not a good sign.

------
epo
God, this is depressing, lots of whiny fandroids who can't even f---ing read.

These morons have taken the article title as a literal synposis, it is being
ironic (and yes, we know that Americans famously don't get irony).

The authors (one of whom is a former Apple exec) are arguing that what Apple
did _was_ invention and does indeed deserve protection from the legion of lazy
wannabes who would just otherwise simply copy from the smartest kid in class.

------
endlessvoid94
A breath of fresh air.

------
cageface
Right, because once that chef figured out just the right twist on those common
ingredients no other chefs in the world were allowed to make mayonnaise any
more and we would have no fine cuisine without extensive IP protection
enforced by law.

Oh, wait...

~~~
pooriaazimi
It's a metaphor. You don't take them seriously. They're just there to tell a
cute little story and you move on to the real thing. Certainly iPad involved a
little more than a twist.

------
wallflower
A better article on the Counternotions site, "Why Apple doesn’t do 'Concept
Products'"

"Concept products are like essays, musings in 3D. They are incomplete
promises. Shipping products, by contrast, are brutally honest deliveries. You
get what’s delivered. They live and die by their own design constraints. To
the extent they are successful, they do advance the art and science of design
and manufacturing by exposing the balance between fantasy and capability."

<http://counternotions.com/2008/08/12/concept-products/>

------
noirman
Of course Apple did not invent anything. Steve Jobs did.

------
MaysonL
Note this: Apple spends substantially less (as a fraction of revenue) on R&D,
and gets substantially more, in terms of outstanding products, compared to
every other tech company. What is it that they're doing so well?

~~~
hazov
Nothing besides of polished systems and good hardware. But I do not like the
type of signal this can show to the tech companies around the world: that
their patents of new tech that are life changing for everyone are worth less
than a pinch zoom on a touch screen, now I don't think it was a obvious
gesture but I do not think it should be covered by a patent. There should be a
better way to protect new UI elements.

------
al_biglan
This is the same argument aimed at Microsoft in the 90's. next big tech
company will get the same thing in 20 years. Meh.

------
jawr
Slightly off topic, but I was under the impression that Ford didn't invent the
automobile, Benz did.

------
jpincheira
Come on. Shut up. I use Windows on a Dell laptop and I can tell you that's not
true. (Pun intented)

------
Tichy
Patents apply to the recipe, though, not the actual mixture.

~~~
ceejayoz
There are multiple types of patent. One of them is a design patent.

------
zerostar07
Do we to start another debate with an inflaming article?

~~~
thejayoj
Where's the inflaming part?

~~~
greedo
He probably didn't read the article and missed the irony of the title.

~~~
zerostar07
I did read the article. I 'm just tired of going through fanbois vs the world
flamewar once again

------
hastur
yaaaaawn

so what's new

they did other stuff: made things better, connected in new ways, etc.

i still don't like their stuff - for aesthetical reasons

so what

get a life

