Posts by Ian Joyner

Cheer up Samsung! You might get back $400m for copying the iPhone

Amazing

Samsung have to kill a whole product line since it is not only defective but dangerous.

That seems not enough to shake the faith of Samsung followers who have mostly posted 'Anonymous coward' or other avatar comments here. They still accuse any pro-Apple comments of being fanbois, etc.

They prove over and over they have no idea of what is involved in product and software development, and have no idea in truth. Just trolls who like to heap abuse on others.

If you are still supporting and defending Samsung after their spectacular failures, there is something really wrong with your thinking.

Re: Ersatz Scamsung

You are indeed a dying breed. People are learning to argue better than just spraying abuse and ad hominem attacks of calling others idiots. You'll have to do better.

Re: Ersatz Scamsung

Samsung doesn't even develop software.

>>Have I accidentally offended your faith?<<

No stop talking rubbish - this is a technical argument and you fail to argue at a technical level, just resorting to abuse.

And actually, OS X (now MacOS) predates Linux since it goes back to NeXT. So you can't even get things correct.

Re: Ersatz Scamsung

Oh, and you won't even put your name to it. The Register rightly labels people like you as 'cowards'.

Re: Ersatz Scamsung

>>"Apple spent years developing iPhone and iOS. They deserve to have that effort protected from the likes of Scamsung."

No they didn't. They threw it together in a few months during 2007, using standard off-the-shelf third-party mobile phone components<<

You are making the mistake of only thinking about hardware. It is the software and the way that people will use it that takes the time. For that reason it is your diatribe response that is ill-informed.

>>after Jesus Jobs << - diatribe

>>The rest of your diatribe is equally ill-informed fanboi raving too but I just can't be arsed<< - diatribe.

>>Look some stuff up.<< No you look some stuff up, but you won't bother, you will just continue spreading diatribe and lies.

Re: Prior art: The VT100

It's about far more than rounded corners. There are so many copied features in both hardware and software. The software features are more interesting, but because software is less understood harder to show.

If you think the court only got them on rounded corners, consider that the legal system in Al Capone's case did not put him away for all the crimes and murders he committed - Capone was sent to Alcatraz Island for tax evasion. That's the equivalent of rounded corners in Samsung's case.

Ersatz Scamsung

Scamsung is one of those companies that sees another company that has done a lot of research and development over years has success in the marketplace. So they quickly copy and make out as if the original was obvious and only developed on the back of a napkin.

Apple spent years developing iPhone and iOS. They deserve to have that effort protected from the likes of Scamsung.

Note how Scamsung is like Microsoft that made a cheap copy of MacOS. It was never as good and Windows 1 was completely pathetic. But the IBM anti-Apple people still supported Microsoft no matter how bad it was. This almost drove Apple out of business in the 1990s. Microsoft did succeed in putting Netscape out of business with its lousy Internet Explorer browser. But Netscape also made mistakes.

Apple is careful not to make those same mistakes.

Anti-Apple people can resent Apple all they like - but they are are a dying breed.

Scamsung has been exposed as a producer of ersatz products - first washing machines that caught fire, now phones. They rush cheap products to market to try to undercut the true developers of the product.

Go ahead - down vote this post, but that is denying the truth.

Oh, I have bought Scamsung products in the past. The TV failed within a month requiring replacement of the whole lot apart from the frame. The monitor I bought lasted about two years. Two out of two bad experiences.

‘Andromeda’ will be Google’s Windows NT

Those things that an OS needs to prevent are things that should never have been allowed to happen in the first place.

Security and software correctness are heavily intertwined and such monstrosities as out-of-bounds reads on arrays, buffer overflows, or pointers reading beyond the buffer at which they are pointing should be disallowed at as low a level as possible.

Apple: Crisis? What innovation crisis? BTW, you like our toothbrush?

Re: First to market?

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Mobile Windows Mobile was the most popular software on phones up to 2007.

Since Microsoft already had that market share, it must have been very tempting for Apple to rush a product to market, maybe based on the whole of OS X. But Apple took their time to do something different, to really make touch screen technology work for the user and to develop a device specific form of OS X in iOS.

Remember a previous product Apple had - maybe to test the waters - was the iPod form which almost looked like the iPhone that Apple introduced later.

I don't think it is a case of late to market doing any harm - it was a case that Apple spent the time to get the product right. The same happened with the iPad. That is why Apple is secretive about their product development because they know other companies compete by rushing inferior products to market. So as you say they saw what the competition was doing wrong.

With the watch, it seems Apple are actually defining this market and they will need the time to get it to the right point. Problem is do people really want such a small form factor on their wrist for the price that it costs to put so much technology into such a small form.

Clunky Square form factor?

It's easy to make a case by looking at binary decisions and saying they took one path, so I'll argue for the opposite one. Then throw in emotive adjectives like 'clunky'. This does not enhance your journalism and rather undermines its credibility.

A moments thought about a circular form factor will dismiss it. Circular form factors for watches is a natural for because the hands go around in a circle. But for just about everything else circular is a very bad fit.

Think back in history - there were circular TVs. The consoles on Control Data machines were circular, but pretty much ever since, the preference has been for rectangular. Even this dialog box I am typing in now is rectangular - why didn't the register make it round?

Many Register arguments against Apple seem to follow this same pattern. No wonder Apple doesn't invite you to things.

I'm not totally against the Register though - a lot of your stories are good and informative. You just need to stop pandering to the anti-Apple brigade of IT people who still resent that Apple toppled IBM (yes it was Apple - Gates was just in the position to clean up).

What's losing steam at Apple? Pretty much everything

Re: Doomed by Jobs

Apple is not doomed and form factor of casings would not be a cause of that doom anyway.

The most damage done to Apple is those who just copy their ideas.

If a unit fails then whole unit should be replaced, since that is cheaper. It is not the hardware but your information that is important to save.

Thus when someone talks about 'my iPhone', that is a concept that has probably existed on many different pieces of hardware over time.

Re: Wrong turns

That's what duplicate is for. Just get out of the old thinking of RAM vs disk. That is thinking in implementation terms. Users should think in terms of their documents.

I don't think that Apple have the change in paradigm perfect, but it is a step in the right direction - making computers do what people need rather than making people work because that is the way computers work.

Re: Wrong turns

So many posts about 'save as…'. Actually save should be abandoned altogether. It exposes the user to the memory hierarchy in the computer. That is makes the user think in computer-oriented terms, rather than work-related terms.

When a document is created it should just be there, until you delete it. If you close it, it should be automatically saved. But it should be auto-saved, so that in the event of a crash (which is quite rare on MacOS – I'll use the new name instead of OS X), you won't use much work. The old Save command is for those thinking in terms of 'computer might crash, so I must save', but then they forget anyway and find a whole hour's work gone.

I think most of the complaints are from people thinking in terms of old paradigms.

Why would you want an escape key? What does it do? Very ill-defined. Or is ESC ESChew? Might help break out of prison!

Apple correctly identifies many things to be anachronistic and should be retired in favour of better abstract thinking.

The History Boys: Object storage ... from the beginning

Re: Associative memory

It was U.S. patent 3200379 by Paul King and Robert Barton in 1962.

Associative memory

Content addressable memory was originally called 'associative memory' and a 1962 patent was granted to Robert S Barton, designer of the Burroughs B5000.

https://www.google.com.au/patents/US3292153

Blighty will have a whopping 24 F-35B jets by 2023 – MoD minister

Lemons

Great. The Americans make wars and global insecurity and then there is a market to buy their junk against that background. Meanwhile governments complain they cannot protect health and the needy - well that is the real security of a country. We are being taken for suckers.

The F35s are lemons.

http://www.stopthef35.com/golden-lemon-award-winner/

From Watson Jr to Watson AI: IBM's changed, and Papa Watson wouldn't approve

Re: IBM had respect for the individual?

Thanks for telling us about Lynn Conway. Very interesting information which will take a while to read. But it is good to set the history straight on who came up with out-of-order instruction scheduling.

IBM had a very solid mythology built around it - but it was exactly that, mythology. There was technical myth, but the software technology was second rate, even if they did build solid hardware. According to Edsger Dijkstra:

"In my Turing Lecture I described the week that I studied the specifications of the 360, it was [laughter] the darkest week in my professional life. In a NATO Conference on Software Engineering in 1969 in Rome, I characterized the Russian decision to build a bit-compatible copy of the IBM 360 as the greatest American victory in the Cold War."

http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2010/8/96632-an-interview-with-edsger-w-dijkstra/fulltext

(In this article it is clear there is a difference between European computing and American. European computing is about software and building machines to support software, American computing is about building electronic hardware and inflicting its foibles on software people.)

IBM would do business at any cost:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust

That is just one specific period of history. For a more general history of IBM from its start with Thomas Watson senior at NCR (where he picked up very unethical practices) through to all its market domineering, monopolistic anti-trust practices read Richard DeLamarter "Big Blue: IBM's Use and Abuse of Power"

https://www.amazon.com/Big-Blue-IBMs-Abuse-Power/dp/0396085156

but this book is very hard to find.

On the following page I review three books about IBM:

http://ianjoyner.name/IBM_Books.html

The three books are

“In Search of Excellence” by Peters and Waterman (1982 Harper & Row)

“Beyond IBM” by Mobley and McKeown (1989 Penguin)

“Big Blue, IBM’s Use and Abuse of Power” by Richard DeLamarter (1986 Pan books)

IBM was built on a myth, not a solid foundation. What it is undergoing now exposes what it always was.

Fact: Huawei now outspends Apple on R&D

Apple is different to Samsung and Huawei

The difference between Apple and Samsung and other companies - Samsung is just an electronics company assembling components together, whereas Apple is a systems company working out new uses and ways to use the products, bringing technology to the rest of us. The effort that goes into that does not come for free, but others would like to pretend that it does, so they can rip off Apple's ideas.

There are lots of ways to design user interfaces, so why don't the others go and design their own patterns of use and user interfaces? Because that is a huge R&D cost and takes time and they want to own the marketplace now.

Apple has done a lot to define the software and computing world as it is today. The old IT people are still hooked to IBM and then Microsoft who picked up the pieces and still resent what Apple achieved. You can always see this old anti-Apple attitude coming out in the many posts that are made in response to articles like this.

Re: Chromebooks

>>I dont think you understand Apples market. They sell things to people who pay well over the odds to buy the feeling they are special.<<

Rubbish. Apple thinks about what the next thing is very deeply - that takes a lot of R&D. Apple think about what people can do with technology and how to best use it. That's why people get excited, because technology no longer belongs to the boffins and nerds.

The boffins and nerds still resent Apple for breaking their power over obscure technology.

>>Sure, true R&D is more expensive than simply re-packaging other deasigners technology.<<

Companies like Huawei and Samsung are hardware electronics companies. Apple takes that hardware and works out what people are going to do with it and how they are going to use it. That is software design and is nowhere as trivial as hardware thinkers like to make out.

Some people like the commenter above think that is trivial, but Apple establishing what they did in a very hostile marketplace is anything but trivial repackaging of others' ideas.

Apple has significantly defined the software and computing world as it is today. The old IT people are still hooked to IBM and then Microsoft who picked up the pieces and still resent what Apple achieved.

Re: Apple R&D

>>Huawei R&D = Research and Development, into technical stuff

Apple R&D = Raid (others ideas) & Design pretty cases<<

You don't understand at all. Companies like Huawei and Samsung are hardware electronics companies. Apple takes that hardware and works out what people are going to do with it and how they are going to use it. That is software design and is nowhere as trivial as hardware thinkers like to make out.

Apple has significantly defined the software and computing world as it is today. The old IT people are still hooked to IBM and then Microsoft who picked up the pieces and still resent what Apple achieved.

Switkowski wades into NBN leak debate, ALP is furious

Abbott politicised the NBN

Switkowski is further diminished. He complains about politicisation of the NBN. But who was responsible for that? Abbott and Turnbull who used it as an opportunity to scare people over the $multi billion price tag, trying to say it was Labor's waste. It is they who have now wasted the opportunity for the country. That will cost jobs, growth and innovation. NBNCo is not a private company - it is a highly politicised company and we have the right to know.

How Remix's Android will eat the world

Re: For Shits and Giggles

>>holy crap!<<

So are you saying it's good or bad. Please correspond in English.

Alan Kay

“There’s a saying of Alan Kay's: ‘People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware’.”

What Alan Kay is saying is that software people, not electronic engineers should design instruction sets. This was the revolutionary approach of Bob Barton with the B5000 which had a true overall system design and the best instruction set. Kay was a student of Barton.

http://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings/afips/1961/5058/00/50580393.pdf

Samsung kind of cracks the 10nm barrier with new 8GB DDR4 slabs

What Samsung does well.

Samsung is an electronics company. It does this kind of thing well. But it is not a software and systems company - for that it relies on copying.

Samsung appeals to Supreme Court to bring patent law into 21st century

Re: The law is a Ass

AC: >>"No - Apple uses technologies of others to build new ways of using those systems, putting them together. That has been the Apple spark - working out new paradigms or putting them together."

Sometimes they do - same as everyone else in this field - sometimes they don't they just copy or iterate. What they do well is their marketing to get people to believe they are innovators, that they do things better than others, that their devices 'just work'. That is all it is, marketing.

It obviously works well on some people.<<

Your comment reflect the fact that you think people who buy Apple are weak minded and are fooled by some sort of marketing. That is the line that fools a lot of people into blind hating of Apple, like you have. You hide cowardly behind Anonymous Coward to make ridiculous statements.

Get it right. Apple builds excellent products first - that is the best form of marketing. They then ALSO market those products well - but one follows from the other. Other companies just market whatever rubbish they make. The marketing people are like lawyers - it's their job to defend the guilty.

Sure they use the ideas of others. That is usually because they get it. Like how Jobs and Apple people went to Xerox on Xerox's invitation. Jobs got what Xerox PARC were doing - Xerox, IBM, Tektronix management didn't see it, or weren't willing to risk anything on it. Jobs got it and took the risk. When the risk paid off, others wanted in.

Earlier, Jobs and Wozniak developed the Apple II. In contrast to other devices at the time which were just boxes with a microprocessor in them, Apple realised they needed to put together an entire system with a way to connect to a screen and peripherals like the floppy disk, which had been previously invented by Dr NakaMats in the 1950s.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/dr-nakamats-the-man-with-3300-patents-to-his-name-134571403/?no-ist

Then the IBM PC comes out, also with 5.25" floppies, but Apple moved on and used another innovation from Sony the 3.5" floppy. This was much better, did not expose the surface to fingers, stored more. But the IBM PC people derided it as not being a real floppy. They just didn't get it. But Apple persevered in its choice, risking that derision of the market place. Like those IBM PC people who didn't get it, you just don't get it and prefer to spread garbage instead.

Other PCs eventually got it and moved to 3.5". But then Apple was first to drop floppies altogether - more derision. Apple know when it's time to move on. Shame those who continually come here to the Register to bash forums don't.

Re: The law is a Ass

AC: "Are you new around here? You just click the reply arrow to see which comment the common-tato is replying to."

No, that doesn't work. What specifically are you replying to, not just the thread?

Re: The law is a Ass

Anonymous Coward: >>Really, well how is it much different<

You need to quote what you are responding too. How do we know what you are disagreeing with here? And if you post as Anonymous Coward how can we separate your comments from the other ACs?

>>Everyone gets inspiration from everyone else, Apple weren't there first and they copy more from others than they create <<

You make a case that Apple just copies. No - Apple uses technologies of others to build new ways of using those systems, putting them together. That has been the Apple spark - working out new paradigms or putting them together.

You could make a case that someone who writes a novel has no right to that intellectual property if someone else comes along and copies that novel word-for-word, since it was just printed on paper and bound together like every other book.

Like the paper in the book, Apple uses the electronic technologies to put their designs and systems on top of that. That is actually not trivial to do. But they have done it well, which is why others copy what Apple does, reaping the benefit, without doing their own research into usability. There are lots of other ways to create user interfaces - it just takes a lot to do it.

Re: The law is a Ass

Mage: "Nothing else at all in the original iPhone was innovative, all stock parts"

It was innovative - it is the way Apple puts those stock parts together. That is what the others are copying.

As I have written before Apple is a systems company - they work out how people are going to use these things. The others - like Samsung - are electronics companies.

Re: The law is a Ass

"Apple copied and was influenced by everyone ELSE. Period."

Wrong. Apple has spent a lot of effort working out how to use computers. They don't just draw silly icons, etc, they actually try lots of different ideas and come up with the best ideas. That is not as simple as it sounds. Yes, they have used technologies invented elsewhere, but they have showed "this is how to use this thing in the integrated whole". Apple puts things together. Examples - the mouse - previously a technical curiosity. Floppy disks - Wozniak put these on the Apple II where others used tape.

Companies like Samsung and before them Microsoft see that, think it is simple and copy it, stealing Apple's return on investment. It is hard to protect that by patent law and maybe patent law really isn't the right thing - but it's all they have.

I know people are going to vote down this post because it exposes the ignorance of the industry, and then they are going to say that "Apple copied from Xerox", but here is the real story that I have told before:

---------

Douglas Englebart invented the mouse around 1963, not Xerox PARC. Jef Raskin at Apple was doing similar stuff to PARC and knew those guys. Raskin did his Ph.D in the 1960s on the graphics package that became Apple's Quickdraw. He was working at Apple doing similar stuff to the Xerox guys. It was Raskin who suggested to Jobs that he take up PARC's invitation to go and see what they were doing.

PARC invited industry players in Apple, Tektronix, and IBM to view their stuff, because they had been ordered by Xerox HQ on the East Coast to drop what they were doing - it wasn't Xerox's core business. Tektronix and IBM didn't get it. But Jobs did. And the Xerox PARC guys were amazed how Jobs got it, since Xerox, Tektronix, and IBM didn't. Some at PARC realised it was the end of the road there, so those like Alan Kay and Larry Tesler left PARC to further this technology at Apple. They went on Apple's payroll, so were rewarded for their efforts.

Apple still took considerable risks to develop this technology. The other part of the story is how PARC machines cost nearly $100,000, but Apple managed to put it in a machine selling for $10,000 (the Lisa), and then $2,000 (the Mac).

Apple also did not exactly copy the PARC interface. Pull down menus at the top of the screen were Apple's innovation.

Now Bill Gates did illegally copy Apple's stuff - particularly Quickdraw that was Raskin's.

So when people say "Well, Apple just copied off Xerox" - they really don't know what they are talking about.

Be afraid, Apple and Samsung: Huawei's IoT home looks cheaper and better

Re: May be gadgets struggling to find a use.

DropBear: >>"this is engineers making technology for the sake of it without working out what you are really going to do with it"

Nope. This is sparkly-eyed management and marketing telling their engineers that everyone else is doing it<<

Well, you have taken my thought somewhat out of context. Note what I am saying is that both development from engineers alone and management marketing types is bad.

Like anything it needs a story. The story is how can people really make use of this. That is what makes killer applications, like VisiCalc (the original spreadsheet) was on the Apple II. Suddenly, a box for computer hobbyists becomes useful to a much wider market.

I support scientists and technologist inventing new technologies - but someone needs to work out how to put them to use. Quantum computing is still on the way.

"This IoT craze is premature. We can't even make today's personal computers secure. "

Yes I absolutely agree with your assessment of security vs IoT.

Re: May be gadgets struggling to find a use.

Your experience fits nicely in with what I just said in my post - this is engineers making technology for the sake of it without working out what you are really going to do with it. Then the marketing people have to dress it up in fancy boxes to sell it.

What is needed is a company that actually does not give in to engineers or marketeers - a company that actually invents what this stuff is practically used for.

What we use things for, not...

Register: "the IoT strategy is engineering-based, rather than marketing-based"

Both are wrong. Marketing people have too much power, that is undenied, trying to convince people to buy junk they don't need.

But neither should we let engineers rule either. It really is a question of what do we do with technology. That is basically what Apple has done - worked out what we do with computers, not be told either by marketeers or engineers.

But much earlier than that Bob Barton - designer of the B5000 - realised that CPUs should not be designed by electronic engineers, but by the software people - that is the people that had to use the computers. So software people designed the CPU architecture specifically to execute programs and then told the electronic engineers to build circuits to support that.

Barton went on to teach at university of Utah, where he taught Alan Kay, who invented the window. He taught his students to think different. We need to think what we will do with computers and the IoT.

Barton's New Approach:

http://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings/afips/1961/5058/00/50580393.pdf

Microsoft beats Apple's tablet sales, apologises for Surface 4 flaws

Re: If we can cut through the fanboy drivel from both sides briefly....

Ian Watkinson: "So MS can definitely do consumer devices."

Like Samsung, MS can put together the same form factor. But fundamentally their DNA has absorbed IBM - they make machines to make you do the work for a hierarchy, feeding information into the system. You are not in charge. MS and IBM are on the side of managers. That is not for consumers.

It is the same way MS copied Macintosh - Windows has always been an ersatz copy of Macintosh. Windows - and thus surface - still has horrors like physical drive mapping C:, D:, etc. User has to think about physical configuration of computer. Then three letter dot extension file types - ugh metadata in a filename to tell computer how to handle file other than logical naming which tells user what file is.

But even files are a low-level 'how the computer works' type consideration, exposing memory hierarchy. Apple are subtly moving away from that, particularly in iOS. That is Apple directly designs devices so you can do the work you want to do, not the work to make the device work, or work that others want you to do.

Microsoft is just pretending to do consumer.

Re: Mission impossible...

Anon writes that if you need to run Windows you get Surface, if you need to run iOS you get iPad.

That is not the right reason to buy a computer - you buy a computer to do the work YOU need to do, writing, composing, watching videos, listening to music, etc. NOT because you need to run particular OS software.

I agree it's not religion, but the difference is very much in philosophy. Apple get that computers are to help you do your work, not to run their or anyone else's software.

Read my post on computing philosophies posted earlier.

Re: If we can cut through the fanboy drivel from both sides briefly....

It's a difference in philosophy.

The philosophy of the enterprise space which was dominated by IBM for more than half a century was to have computers which people were essentially peripherals to, feeding information into the system so that a few at the top could dominate. Hitler even used IBM machines in his social engineering endeavour with the full knowledge of IBM.

Others in the early 1960s saw that computers should be personal tools. Douglas Englebart, inventor of the mouse, was one. This idea took hold in Silicon Valley. Steve Jobs and Apple came along and said we can make reasonably-priced machines to do this. With the engineering genius of Steve Wozniak, that was true.

Steve Jobs showed Bill Gates what they were doing and Gates was smart enough to get it. But then Microsoft fell in with IBM and the old world of computers directing work got into Microsoft’s DNA. Hence Windows now looks like a product that you use at work to do the bidding of your masters. Microsoft inherited that from IBM. IBM dominated at a time when computers could only be afforded by large companies. Microsoft inherited that market and philosophy from IBM.

That is why when you compare the way a person uses OS X to Windows, you will see the OS X user with lots of windows open on the screen, whereas the Windows user will have one window maximised to the size of the screen - you just work on one thing that your boss has told you to work on.

Apple still focuses on the user. That is why it is so popular. The old-school IBM and Microsoft people still resent that - their power has been broken by this “upstart”.

So that is the two computing philosophies that distinguish Microsoft/IBM from Apple.

Actually there is a third philosophy, which is even more scary. That which came out of John McCarthy, inventor of LISP. Like Doug Englebart, he worked at Stanford, but whereas Englebart saw computers as tools to augment human intelligence (much as a fork-lift truck augments physical strength), McCarthy saw computers as eventually replacing human intelligence. That became the basis of AI (and the theme of many science fiction films from 2001: A Space Odyssey onwards).

Channel stacking

This whole story smacks of the channel stacking scam, where the number of units shipped to stores is reported, not the number of units actually sold to customers.

Re: Mission impossible...

Average Joe: "iPads for the premium home users and Android for the low end home users"

Can't agree with that. Darwin and Mach is a much better base for security for home users than Android with Linux. Linux is good for data warehouses where security is much more controlled by professionals. Linux has no place on end-user machines.

Re: Mission impossible...

Rubber Johnny: "With a Microsoft tablet you can run development stuff"

That is just a con. To do proper development you need more than a pad with small screen and lightweight keyboard.

You can actually do programming on the iPad - there are environments for Python, Haskell, etc.

I could also observe that OS X and iOS developers (and users) have lots of windows open doing diverse activities. Most MS users you see, just maximise one window on the whole screen. OS X is much better for doing multiple activities at once. Thus Windows is already much more towards iOS than OS X. OS X is a much more capable OS.

Rounded corners on Android phones cost Samsung $548m: It will pay up to Apple after all

Re: The difference between Apple and Samsung

Modem: "and for 30 years apple did nothing"

How do you figure that ridiculous comment?

Re: The difference between Apple and Samsung

PaulFrederick: "Nothing Apple has ever done has influenced how I use a computer."

Either you have never used a computer - or you are delusional.

Re: The difference between Apple and Samsung

Anonymous coward (Toughluck) says "And Apple paid how much exactly to Xerox PARC for copying their GUI and mouse?"

You do not know the history do you? Douglas Englebart invented the mouse around 1963, not Xerox PARC. Jef Raskin at Apple was doing similar stuff to PARC and knew those guys. Raskin did his Ph.D in the 1960s on the graphics package that became Apple's Quickdraw. He was working at Apple doing similar stuff to the Xerox guys. It was Raskin who suggested to Jobs that he take up PARC's invitation to go and see what they were doing.

PARC invited industry players in Apple, Tektronix, and IBM to view their stuff, because they had been ordered by Xerox HQ on the East Coast to drop what they were doing - it wasn't Xerox's core business. Tektronix and IBM didn't get it. But Jobs did. And the Xerox PARC guys were amazed how Jobs got it, since Xerox, Tektronix, and IBM didn't. Some at PARC realised it was the end of the road there, so those like Alan Kay and Larry Tesler left PARC to further this technology at Apple. They went on Apple's payroll, so were rewarded for their efforts.

Apple still took considerable risks to develop this technology. The other part of the story is how PARC machines cost nearly $100,000, but Apple managed to put it in a machine selling for $10,000 (the Lisa), and then $2,000 (the Mac).

Apple also did not exactly copy the PARC interface. Pull down menus at the top of the screen were Apple's innovation.

Now Bill Gates did illegally copy Apple's stuff - particularly Quickdraw that was Raskin's.

So when people say "Well, Apple just copied off Xerox" - they really don't know what they are talking about.

Breen Whitman: "Although Job wasn't no1 in vileness. I'd rank the list at No3: Hitler, No2: Jobs, No1: Pol Pot."

You really have no clue about anything do you? You can't discern good from bad, have no understanding of history, or computing.

The difference between Apple and Samsung

Samsung is an electronics company. Apple is a systems company.

Apple works out what we are going to do with computing. Samsung assembles circuits. It has not been trivial for Apple to work out how to use computers better. But many see this as trivial and something that can just be copied.

Once developed it is easy just to copy what Apple has done, even though they spent a lot of time and money to develop it. That is why they guard what they have done.

Steve Jobs was concerned with what we could do with computers. Bill Gates at Microsoft built an empire on how to program computers. Steve Jobs' what had much further reaching consequences than Gates' how. Jobs and Apple saw that computers were a means to an end, not the end in themselves. That is why Jobs was a non-technical guy, who often had to be insistent with technical naysayers about his vision.

Perhaps getting Samsung on round corners is equivalent to getting Al Capone on tax evasion, when his crimes were so much worse.

Like other companies, Samsung has seen the success of Apple and decided to steal a bit of that for themselves. We need to protect those who have ideas from the profiteers - that is only fair and right.

The Steve Jobs of supercomputers: We remember Seymour Cray

Re: Steve Jobs

No, Jobs really got what computing for everyone was. He saw that computers would come out of their security glass rooms.

That's not to deny what a brilliant engineer Woz is, but I don't think he got it in the same way Jobs did.

Apple supremo Tim Cook rules out OS X fondleslab, iOS merger

Re: OSX is just too far behind Windows

So many errors in this post makes me wonder what alternative reality you are living in?

Re: Stunning

"success strategy when taking on a new job is to find something to which your predecessor was absolutely committed, and do the opposite."

Sounds like a hit and miss recipe for failure to me. Necessary first step - analyse what predecessor was doing right and what doing wrong.

Keep doing the right thing, and stop doing the wrong thing. No wonder I don't think much of management schools - get a skill first, then do management.

Apple's strategy is for two reasons - it's better for the user - tailor the devices to the mobile, hand-held sector, and desktop machines to be more fully featured for all those extra things you'd do at a desk. That keeps their tools sharp, rather than the blunt instrument Windows is.

Secondly, technically, a cut down OS to support just those mobile things will make use of resources better - especially the battery resource.