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Windows CE 'Pocket PC' handhelds had retracting soft keyboards 10+ years ago. Handspring Treos were dedicated touchscreen-based phone-PDA hybrids not much late

Windows CE 'Pocket PC' handhelds had retracting soft keyboards 10+ years ago. Handspring Treos were dedicated touchscreen-based phone-PDA hybrids not much later. PalmOS had grids of icons for its screens from day one. Apple's primary innovation wasn't technical, it was marketing. They tied a few pre-existing ideas together slightly better, made them more shiny and used the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field to convince the world it was a never-before-seen quantum leap.

tayl0r 14y ago
Those prior things you speak of were absolutely terrible. I had all those devices and they sucked compared to the iPhone. I think that those "innovations" seem simple now in hindsight, but why didn't any of the companies previously making smart phones or PDAs (Palm, Windows CE, HP, Compaq, Dell, etc) come up with something that not only the hardcore nerds would actually want to use? I really don't think it was just marketing. Apple made a smartphone that almost everyone could pick up and enjoy using. I definitely see both sides to this story. It sucks that Apple is killing fair (and unfair) competition but it also sucks that Samsung can just sit there and blatantly copy Apple's innovations. There needs to be a balance. This is the best quote I've seen about the verdict: "Samsung only found itself in trouble with the products that copied liberally from Apple. It did not help their case that they had a hundred page document describing what to copy nor the fact that Google went to them and said "do not copy Apple that blatantly"."
- powertower 14y ago
  > Those prior things you speak of were absolutely terrible. I had all those devices and they sucked compared to the iPhone. One of the reasons they sucked, was because they had to... They were done 2, 5, 10, 20 years before the iPhone, iPad, etc came out... When we had CPUs, screens, drives, etc, that were inferior and could not handle the same load or work that modern hardware does.
  - gnaffle 14y ago
    No, they didn't have to. The CPU speeds, storage and screens existed years before the iPhone launched. The iPhone did have a capacitive touch screen, but that wasn't exactly new, bleeding edge technology. Three years earlier in 2005, the N770 had a bigger higher DPI screen than the iPhone, HTC had phones with the same CPU speed. But none of those devices had software specially made for finger touch with a capacitive screen. They didn't suck because the technology didn't exist, they sucked because other companies didn't see further ahead than the existing, navigation button / stylus driven interfaces that had existed for 10 years prior. If you need further proof, just look at the time it has taken Nokia, RIM and others to respond to the iPhone. It took _years_. If technology was the limiting factor, you'd think they would be just as aware of technological developments as Apple was, and have similar devices to the iPhone lined up and ready to go by 2007?
ZeroGravitas 14y ago
They can't hear you. Look at the recurring pattern in this thread and elsewhere. Apple fanatic: Apple deserves a 20 year government enforced monopoly because they did it first. Everyone else stole it, and are thieves, who deserve to pay. Member of the reality-based consensus: small portable computers existed before the iPad/iPhone and every individual part that you could name (or patent) had been done before by others. Concrete factual example A, B, C... <sound of crunching mental gears and cognitive dissonance defences engaging> Apple fanatic: But Apple did it better and make more money! Therefore it doesn't matter who did it first. People who build on the innovations of others and provide them to consumers are what is important here. You could spend all day trying to get them to face up to their conflicting logic, but they'll resist with all their might.
- nirvana 14y ago
  Yeah! There's nothing new in the iPhone, that Bell didn't demonstrate over a century ago! The reality is, you guys are ideologically driven- you want to get google off the hook for stealing Apples inventions, so you pretend like the patents cover features rather than implementations. Your dishonesty is shameful.
  - ZeroGravitas 14y ago
    Please quote, from the relevant patent, what implementation (rather than feature) you think Google and/or Samsung stole from Apple.
  - tatsuke95 14y ago
    Since this is essentially Apple vs. the rest of the industry, how can you claim those supporting the industry are the ones that are ideologically driven?
    - Tycho 14y ago
      Cause Android is the rest of the industry?
sharjeel 14y ago
If Windows CE had everything well before iPhone came, why didn't Microsoft patent the stuff then?
- zerohp 14y ago
  Sensible people considered these minor features too obvious. Apples invention was the combination of many simple things into one good product, but they are protecting it by patenting all of the simple things.
  - ciniglio 14y ago
    To be clear, if this were actually the case, the $$ that Samsung spent on this suit would have clearly uncovered this as prior art.
gnaffle 14y ago
Then I wonder why other companies hasn't realized this and hired the same marketing company as Apple uses? If marketing is all (or mostly all) there is, why can't other companies easily replicate Apples profit margins? Why didn't Apple just rebrand a Symbian or Maemo device and put an Apple logo on it, if marketing is the main deal? (Or better yet, why not just relaunch the Newton GUI?)

tayl0r 14y ago

Those prior things you speak of were absolutely terrible. I had all those devices and they sucked compared to the iPhone. I think that those "innovations" seem simple now in hindsight, but why didn't any of the companies previously making smart phones or PDAs (Palm, Windows CE, HP, Compaq, Dell, etc) come up with something that not only the hardcore nerds would actually want to use? I really don't think it was just marketing. Apple made a smartphone that almost everyone could pick up and enjoy using. I definitely see both sides to this story. It sucks that Apple is killing fair (and unfair) competition but it also sucks that Samsung can just sit there and blatantly copy Apple's innovations. There needs to be a balance. This is the best quote I've seen about the verdict: "Samsung only found itself in trouble with the products that copied liberally from Apple. It did not help their case that they had a hundred page document describing what to copy nor the fact that Google went to them and said "do not copy Apple that blatantly"."

powertower 14y ago
> Those prior things you speak of were absolutely terrible. I had all those devices and they sucked compared to the iPhone. One of the reasons they sucked, was because they had to... They were done 2, 5, 10, 20 years before the iPhone, iPad, etc came out... When we had CPUs, screens, drives, etc, that were inferior and could not handle the same load or work that modern hardware does.
- gnaffle 14y ago
  No, they didn't have to. The CPU speeds, storage and screens existed years before the iPhone launched. The iPhone did have a capacitive touch screen, but that wasn't exactly new, bleeding edge technology. Three years earlier in 2005, the N770 had a bigger higher DPI screen than the iPhone, HTC had phones with the same CPU speed. But none of those devices had software specially made for finger touch with a capacitive screen. They didn't suck because the technology didn't exist, they sucked because other companies didn't see further ahead than the existing, navigation button / stylus driven interfaces that had existed for 10 years prior. If you need further proof, just look at the time it has taken Nokia, RIM and others to respond to the iPhone. It took _years_. If technology was the limiting factor, you'd think they would be just as aware of technological developments as Apple was, and have similar devices to the iPhone lined up and ready to go by 2007?

ZeroGravitas 14y ago

They can't hear you. Look at the recurring pattern in this thread and elsewhere. Apple fanatic: Apple deserves a 20 year government enforced monopoly because they did it first. Everyone else stole it, and are thieves, who deserve to pay. Member of the reality-based consensus: small portable computers existed before the iPad/iPhone and every individual part that you could name (or patent) had been done before by others. Concrete factual example A, B, C... <sound of crunching mental gears and cognitive dissonance defences engaging> Apple fanatic: But Apple did it better and make more money! Therefore it doesn't matter who did it first. People who build on the innovations of others and provide them to consumers are what is important here. You could spend all day trying to get them to face up to their conflicting logic, but they'll resist with all their might.

nirvana 14y ago
Yeah! There's nothing new in the iPhone, that Bell didn't demonstrate over a century ago! The reality is, you guys are ideologically driven- you want to get google off the hook for stealing Apples inventions, so you pretend like the patents cover features rather than implementations. Your dishonesty is shameful.
- ZeroGravitas 14y ago
  Please quote, from the relevant patent, what implementation (rather than feature) you think Google and/or Samsung stole from Apple.
- tatsuke95 14y ago
  Since this is essentially Apple vs. the rest of the industry, how can you claim those supporting the industry are the ones that are ideologically driven?
  - Tycho 14y ago
    Cause Android is the rest of the industry?

sharjeel 14y ago

If Windows CE had everything well before iPhone came, why didn't Microsoft patent the stuff then?

zerohp 14y ago
Sensible people considered these minor features too obvious. Apples invention was the combination of many simple things into one good product, but they are protecting it by patenting all of the simple things.
- ciniglio 14y ago
  To be clear, if this were actually the case, the $$ that Samsung spent on this suit would have clearly uncovered this as prior art.

gnaffle 14y ago

Then I wonder why other companies hasn't realized this and hired the same marketing company as Apple uses? If marketing is all (or mostly all) there is, why can't other companies easily replicate Apples profit margins? Why didn't Apple just rebrand a Symbian or Maemo device and put an Apple logo on it, if marketing is the main deal? (Or better yet, why not just relaunch the Newton GUI?)