OSNews

Before we start, your post score was at 0 - I 've added a point onto it

Okay. I've added a point to your post.


Don't confuse the ranting of a few fanboys for the vast majority of Mac people who know their computer history.

Well, unless a few fanboys are posting under numerous usernames, a lot of them out are out there posting wildly and ignoring rationality.


To claim that 'Steve invented the GUI' is as stupid as claiming that 'without Microsoft, there would be no PC revolution".

I agree that both claims are stupid. However, there are two important distinctions between the claims:
- (1) one claim refers to invention, which can have hard meaning and a definite, unique value, while the other claim involves the acts of "popularization" and "introducing a product," which are not as unique as invention, and which are rather nebulous, conceptually, with suspect value;
- (2) one claim is definitely not true, while the other (according to the loose and dubious notions of "popularization" and "introducing") could be interpreted to have some merit.


Learn English, I put personally in the bracket as to infer that he personally didn't sit in a lab and create it. English isn't a difficult language, please spend time learning it before butchering it or worse, asking stupid questions.

Sorry. I should have added "/sarcasm."

One should probably not refer to Steve Jobs as "Steve" unless one knows him personally (or unless one is ridiculing him or his followers). It is sort of unbecoming. As you said, "Steve Jobs and Bill Gates... are merely companies," and they are out to get your money. Referring to Mr. Jobs as "Steve" suggests a delusion that he is one's altruistic, "good buddy." So, I placed the quotation marks around Mr. Jobs' first name to denote this deluded familiarity.


There are loads of things which have been invented and never attributed to the original person; take Kellogg's cereal for example - no one ever demands that John Harvey Kellogg should be venerated - its always his brother which has the kudos for creating the Kellogg's we know today.

If John Harvey Kellogg single-handedly invented breakfast cereal, then he should get the credit for it, not his brother.


There is no use pointing out who created it if you don't acknowledge who put the money, marketing and 'soft capital' behind it to turn it from an idea on the drawing board into a usable and marketable product.

As an inventor and a designer, this view is rather disturbing, especially the notion that investors and marketing people make an invention "a usable and marketable product."

There are exponentially more investors, salesmen, marketeers and hucksters than there are people with unique ideas. Business people are interchangeable, inventors are not.

In other words, an invention can exist (and be successful) without business people, but no one can have a product without the inventor.

The inventor is more important than the business, marketing and sales people.


I don't know where you history come from but the Europeans have a had a heck of alot greater success internationally when it comes to commercialising consumer products. Most things in the US which people rant on about never make it outside the boarders.

Yes. I hate it when everyone rants about US-only products, such as: Ipods, Iphones, Mac Books. etc... /sarcasm

Seriously, I am not sure why you are addressing this issue -- did someone make a statement about US products versus non-US products? Certainly, the consumer market is much bigger outside of the US.


Name one product out there that is completely and new an innovative - that is, created in a clean room without the input of any existing ideas or technology? Everything today is built off the ideas of years ago...

I guess a lot of non-inventors tend to think that invention is always an obvious progression, because, after the product has been released, it is easy to look back and understand the steps in the invention's development. They do not comprehend the depth of the challenges faced by an inventor, engineer or designer when they have to come up with something that performs a certain task, while staring at a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen). Nor do they realize that the significant "Eureka" moments often occur unprompted, and involve innovation that has nothing to do with one's current project.

Non-inventors often seem to think that innovation is classified into only two categories -- "completely new/unique" and "not completely new/unique." However, the uniqueness of innovation is less "black & white" than this notion and is more of matter of degree, on a scale between the two extremes of very obvious and very unique.

Also, non-inventors seem to have trouble discerning a invention's position on this scale. For instance, not much ever got mentioned about the Mac Trashcan, which sits near the top of the innovation scale, as it was completely unique and innovative, but the Iphone was declared "Invention Of The Year" by Time Magazine, and it actually sits near the bottom of the scale, being completely obvious and derivative.

By the way, the Mac Trashcan is probably the only Apple-originated item that is unique enough to be even close to the top of the innovation scale.

You asked me to name one product that is completely new and innovative, and I already have with the Mac Trashcan. Here are a few more off the top of my head: the Light Field digital lens http://www.refocusimaging.com/ ; the Weedeater; the Segway; the OPT water power buoy http://www.oceanpowertechnologies.com/index.htm ; the Hover Copter toy; the Air Car engine http://www.theaircar.com/ ; etc. There are a few more that I could name and undoubtedly zillions more of which I am ignorant.


You have major English issues; learn the difference between implementation and popularisation - the two are very different. Creation, implementation and popularisation can occur completely separate from each other.

I did use "implementation" and "popularization" as separate words. However, in Jobs/Apple debunking discussions, fanboys tend to lump the two acts into the single category of worship-worthy achievements.

Edited 2007-11-20 21:54