

The Surprising Role of Government Agencies Behind Apple’s Innovation - Semetric
http://torgronsund.com/2014/11/29/government-apple-innovation/

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dalke
What does it mean that the click-wheel has an arrow from RRE, CERN?

I first heard about that sort of control mechanism from Cooper Interaction
Design's work with the Sony Passport entertainment system. See
[http://archive.visualstudiomagazine.com/channels/web/builder...](http://archive.visualstudiomagazine.com/channels/web/builder/archives/1998_08/feature/acside1.asp)
for a picture from 1998.

According to
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod_click_wheel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod_click_wheel)
, "It is not widely known that Apple did not develop the click wheel;
Synaptics came up with the design for the device."

I don't agree with the logic behind "Hence a significant portion of Apple’s
profits should be going back to the U.S government to provide returns to
taxpayers for the investments that they have made in the past".

It's easy to recenter the things to IBM, Intel, or AT&T - all of who also
developed techniques that are required for a modern iPhone, like
microprocessors and Unix. Doesn't that mean that a significant portion of
Apple’s profits should go to those companies as well?

And ... huh? They attribute "microprocessor" to DARPA? DARPA was ARPA until
March 1972. Quoting Wikipedia: "Three projects delivered a microprocessor at
about the same time: Garrett AiResearch's Central Air Data Computer (CADC),
Texas Instruments (TI) TMS 1000 (1971 September), and Intel's 4004 (1971
November)." \-- all are pre-DARPA.

Also, CERN is on there twice. CERN is not a US organization. Therefore, that
logic also demands that CERN receive part of Apple profits.

The underlying philosophy seems to be that we owe much to our predecessors, so
we should be obligated to pay the current version of the same organization. I
disagree with it, as it seems like an obligation that can never be discharged.

