In light of the jury verdict in Apple vs. Samsung, the one-liners and jokes flew back and forth. One in particular, by Dan Frakes, has been copied and pasted all over the web, and it goes like this: "When the iPhone debuted, it was widely criticized for having no buttons/keys. Now people think the iPhone's design is 'obvious'." This is a very common trend in this entire debate that saddens me to no end: the iPhone is being compared to simple feature phones, while in fact, it should be compared to its true predecessor: the PDA. PDAs have always done with few buttons.
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Member since:2012-08-26
We agree very much in that it is quite nuanced and complex, and perhaps there are even many 'truths'. I can even agree with the truth that Apple's meteoric rise from near bankruptcy to where they are at today is intriguing and even laudable. I also never said that some power users 'like' or even 'love' Apple products. As a personal example of knowing that truth, I have a very close college friend who does doctoral level AI research and uses iPads with autistic children. He is not a 'fanatic' though, and the only reason why now it is possible for him to use such a device in his work is because of the BSD-likeness of OS X on the server side of the equation.
However, it is still a truth that they are over-valued in the market, and this will eventually be corrected. It is also a truth that Apple is crossing that line into litigation as a means to secure, maintain, and defend a hoped for monopoly position. And we both are old enough to objectively have observed and know the truth that Apple under Jobs has always done historical revisionism in its marketing. It didn't happen during the Apple II years with Woz as a tempering influence. And it didn't happen during the years when Jobs was off at NeXT and Pixar. But under Jobs (either alive or dead) it has.
In a way responding to you about this, I am making a larger point with this as well. Because the Newton was created during the years when Jobs was gone, Apple didn't act then like they had invented the holy grail alone. Apple even licensed Hawkins character recognition software as their initial one didn't work out so well. So credit was given to Sculley and Apple for coining the term "PDA" even though they and all others knew there had been PDA's (in other forms and maybe not as successful but PDA's nonetheless) prior to the Newton and would be others thereafter. And by those of us who used Newtons, credit was given for their genuine innovations that they brought to the market segment.
Apple after Jobs is now showing us with this court case that Cook intends to keep Apple as they have been under Jobs. They and their 'fans' will continue the revisionist history-making to maintain their success. It has already happened here on OSNews in the linked article and thread about Samsung adding a 'dock' and thereby 'copying' Apple yet again. Seriously?!
I could write a psychological analysis on why this won't work but I will consider that for another time.
Good chatting with you. 
Member since:2006-04-22
There is a certain catechism about Apple so-called 'fans' that exists on this and other forums. All I can say about that is anecdotal. What I experience in my daily work in an enterprise with 5000+ people is a healthy mix of Apple and non-Apple devices. I don't run into many users who are sipping Steve Jobs kool aid.....they are simply using their iPads, iPhones and Macs for a variety of reasons. Same is true for the non-Apple users. I observe only a small number of 'fans' who see this as a platform religion....not limited to Apple device users.
Apple has a checkered history, and are ripe for critique about their practices. Only time will tell whether their ability to compete is adequate in the market, but the past 15 years have been (arguably) unparalleled in business annals. If I was a shareholder I would expect Apple to do whatever it takes to protect their intellectual property within the bounds of what the law allows. When they step over those bounds, I expect them to be slapped by the courts.
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Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
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"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces."But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue."Android and iOS, the number one and number two ranked smartphone operating systems worldwide, combined for 92.3% of all smartphone shipments during the first quarter of 2013 as Windows Phone crept past BlackBerry for 3rd place. According to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, Android smartphone vendors and Apple shipped a total of 199.5 million units worldwide during 1Q13, up 59.1% from the 125.4 million units shipped during 1Q12." Windows Phone doubles from a few to twice few, iOS loser market share as its growth is slower than that of the overall market. BlackBerry continues slide into irrelevance."According to the latest research from our Wireless Smartphone Strategies service, global Android smartphone profits reached US$5 billion in total during the first quarter of 2013. Samsung dominated and captured an impressive 95 percent share of all Android smartphone profits." Wow.
Member since:
2006-04-22
Well, I'm a greybeard who has been around since the end of the 1940s, and I gotta tell you that Apple's recovery from where they were in 1997 to their current position goes way beyond whether they innovated anything. Arguably, there has not been another tech company that created an ecosystem and a strategy to leverage that ecosystem via a combination of hardware and software that found favor among tens of millions of 'great unwashed' as Apple has done.
They don't sell their 'shiny' toys just to tech illiteratis....there are plenty of power users sprinkled in their customer mix. The truth is almost always more nuanced than one might think.