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Two key points from the article: "In order to come out with a tablet, you had to have the ability at that time to influence and manage the power architecture,

by sounds 14y ago

Two key points from the article: "In order to come out with a tablet, you had to have the ability at that time to influence and manage the power architecture, as well as a software layer" - David Johnson, Dell's SVP of corporate strategy [1] Peter Hortensius, president of Lenovo's global product group, says, "I think the global view is that everyone got a little bit surprised by touch [technology]. We had touch devices, but the industry just didn't connect the dots like [Apple]." In short, the iPad sips power by tightly integrating hardware/software. And touch was slick and integrated all the way up the stack. I think the only question now is how many other companies can move fast enough? It took Apple the better part of the last decade to develop the hardware + software to where they are today. It makes Samsung's alleged copying make a lot of sense considering how far ahead Apple is. Personally I'd really like to see more competition. Hopefully hi-res LCDs, good UI design, good industrial design, and rapid innovation become common. Also, if everyone is doing "rounded corners" or whatever it is next year, Apple won't have all the patents and will be forced to cross-license. I admit it's not all going to be as rosy as this. But this is better than what happened in the 90's. [1] http://www.fastcompany.com/3002272/top-dell-exec-why-his-company-didnt-invent-ipad http://www.fastcompany.com/3002272/top-dell-exec-why-his-com...

Camillo 14y ago
But Samsung didn't copy. The UK courts have ruled so, and they've made it clear that they consider it libel to say otherwise. In fact, I question the article's premise. Samsung did invent the iPad, as well as the iPhone - except that theirs are called Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab. And they were able to do so while being a hardware manufacturer whose OS is provided by a third party, which calls the entire "blame Microsoft" theory into question. The fact that Samsung's offerings arrived after Apple's means nothing: it is clear that they were developed independently, and the fact that they shipped later must have been due to the additional development time required to make their products less expensive, and thus technically superior. The timing was entirely accidental, a mere side effect of the fact that Apple had access to a mass of brainwashed fanbois that will buy anything with an Apple logo, which provided them with both the funding and the opportunity to target the deep-pocketed early-adopter market. But in a world where Apple didn't exist, Samsung would have shipped the Galaxy family of products around the same time as they eventually did - and they would have looked just as they do, too. Any resemblance in design between Sammy's products and Apple's is due to convergent evolution: it is simply less efficient, if not thoroughly impossible, to make a smartphone or a tablet that doesn't feature that shape, that button, that grid of icons in those specific colors - or even one that doesn't ship in that type of box. Apple's claims to have "invented" any of that are tantamount to claiming ownership of a law of nature. In the end, articles such as this are a waste of time. There is no secret to Apple's perceived success, no lesson to learn. Their headstart is doomed to evaporate against Android's irresistible growth, and they will be recorded as a mere curiosity (to avoid calling it a "fad" as it really deserves) in the books of history. Hacker News has limited formatting capabilities, but, while reading the above, please imagine that there is a banner saying "This is what Android fanatics actually believe" at the bottom of your screen.
- ghshephard 14y ago
  Brilliant. You actually had me spitting mad until I got to the last paragraph. The real question I would like to see answered, either here, or in the Fast Company - is what will the _next_ major advance be, that everyone is (presumably) hard at work on right now? I'm very, very impressed with Google Voice on my iPhone. Much more so than Siri (in terms of speed. Integration with the phone is obviously better with Siri). I would like to suggest that high-resolution stylus input, equal to or better than what you can do with a pen-to-paper in terms of resolution and responsiveness, will launch the next round of advances.
  - Samuel_Michon 14y ago
    "I would like to suggest that high-resolution stylus input, equal to or better than what you can do with a pen-to-paper in terms of resolution and responsiveness, will launch the next round of advances." What would be the point? Using touch is faster and more direct for operating a UI. As for text input, I can type a lot faster on the iPad's onscreen keyboard than I can write with pen and paper. Granted, I rarely write anymore, mostly signatures. But I also don't print documents and I don't keep a paper archive. I think those are all going the way of the dodo.
    - ghshephard 14y ago
      I'm just reflecting on the fact that when I get together with a group of people, and we start sketching out an idea, none of us would ever consider using our iPads (and all of us have them) to do it - iPads are crappy for that sort of quick, on the fly diagraming. We always end up with napkins, notebooks, and pens. If we're in the office, we always go to a whiteboard. Nobody ever uses computers/tablets to sketch out a concept - too slow, too low resolution. A good high resolution, highly responsive tablet/drawing interface would be a revolution.
      - Samuel_Michon 14y ago
        I use a Wacom drawing slate for that. It works great, no need to waste dead trees. However, sketching is a very specific use case, I suspect that many people never do it.

by sounds 14y ago

Camillo 14y ago

But Samsung didn't copy. The UK courts have ruled so, and they've made it clear that they consider it libel to say otherwise. In fact, I question the article's premise. Samsung did invent the iPad, as well as the iPhone - except that theirs are called Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab. And they were able to do so while being a hardware manufacturer whose OS is provided by a third party, which calls the entire "blame Microsoft" theory into question. The fact that Samsung's offerings arrived after Apple's means nothing: it is clear that they were developed independently, and the fact that they shipped later must have been due to the additional development time required to make their products less expensive, and thus technically superior. The timing was entirely accidental, a mere side effect of the fact that Apple had access to a mass of brainwashed fanbois that will buy anything with an Apple logo, which provided them with both the funding and the opportunity to target the deep-pocketed early-adopter market. But in a world where Apple didn't exist, Samsung would have shipped the Galaxy family of products around the same time as they eventually did - and they would have looked just as they do, too. Any resemblance in design between Sammy's products and Apple's is due to convergent evolution: it is simply less efficient, if not thoroughly impossible, to make a smartphone or a tablet that doesn't feature that shape, that button, that grid of icons in those specific colors - or even one that doesn't ship in that type of box. Apple's claims to have "invented" any of that are tantamount to claiming ownership of a law of nature. In the end, articles such as this are a waste of time. There is no secret to Apple's perceived success, no lesson to learn. Their headstart is doomed to evaporate against Android's irresistible growth, and they will be recorded as a mere curiosity (to avoid calling it a "fad" as it really deserves) in the books of history. Hacker News has limited formatting capabilities, but, while reading the above, please imagine that there is a banner saying "This is what Android fanatics actually believe" at the bottom of your screen.

ghshephard 14y ago
Brilliant. You actually had me spitting mad until I got to the last paragraph. The real question I would like to see answered, either here, or in the Fast Company - is what will the _next_ major advance be, that everyone is (presumably) hard at work on right now? I'm very, very impressed with Google Voice on my iPhone. Much more so than Siri (in terms of speed. Integration with the phone is obviously better with Siri). I would like to suggest that high-resolution stylus input, equal to or better than what you can do with a pen-to-paper in terms of resolution and responsiveness, will launch the next round of advances.
- Samuel_Michon 14y ago
  "I would like to suggest that high-resolution stylus input, equal to or better than what you can do with a pen-to-paper in terms of resolution and responsiveness, will launch the next round of advances." What would be the point? Using touch is faster and more direct for operating a UI. As for text input, I can type a lot faster on the iPad's onscreen keyboard than I can write with pen and paper. Granted, I rarely write anymore, mostly signatures. But I also don't print documents and I don't keep a paper archive. I think those are all going the way of the dodo.
  - ghshephard 14y ago
    I'm just reflecting on the fact that when I get together with a group of people, and we start sketching out an idea, none of us would ever consider using our iPads (and all of us have them) to do it - iPads are crappy for that sort of quick, on the fly diagraming. We always end up with napkins, notebooks, and pens. If we're in the office, we always go to a whiteboard. Nobody ever uses computers/tablets to sketch out a concept - too slow, too low resolution. A good high resolution, highly responsive tablet/drawing interface would be a revolution.
    - Samuel_Michon 14y ago
      I use a Wacom drawing slate for that. It works great, no need to waste dead trees. However, sketching is a very specific use case, I suspect that many people never do it.