And Apple was in a position to make those investments in the first place because they profited handsomely from copying wholesale the fundamental ideas of the Mac UI. Now that the tables are turned they want to change the rules of the game.
Android brings more than enough innovation to the table to justify its existence. If anything Apple is borrowing more from Google now than vice-versa.
This argument is based on repeating an easily debunked falsehood.
Apple did not 'copy wholesale the fundamental ideas of the Mac UI'. They paid Xerox for a license to commercialize the technology via a stock deal, and then they spent significant effort refining it to make a consumer product.
So Apple really just wants other people to play by the same rules they do.
> They paid Xerox for a license to commercialize the technology via a stock deal, and then they spent significant effort refining it to make a consumer product.
You are the first person I've ever heard make that claim. The only support I've found for that statement is a throw-away sentence in Wikipedia's article about a lawsuit between Apple and Microsoft, which does not appear to be supported by the document cited. So, do you have a citation for that?
The New Yorker[1] has one of many references on the internet, but the price was 100,000 shares of pre-IPO Apple stock at $10 per share. The visit happened (over the protests of some at PARC). There are some side comments about the visit in "Triumph of the Nerds“.
Well then, you were entirely correct. I suppose that my search was both fairly cursory and didn't include all of the right search terms. I find it very surprising that this is the first I've heard of it, though; the "apple stole from xerox" meme is really entrenched, to the point that I never really doubted its truth.
I think it's fair to say that Xerox seriously undervalued their IP, but that was a well documented failing of their management who didn't see the potential that Jobs did in personal computing.
Arguably we're fortunate that he struck this deal and brought these ideas into production much more effectively than Xerox was doing.
On the same note, look at the differences in the actual manipulation of the UI elements between the Macintosh and the Xerox workstations. The differences are very interesting.
Comments
And Apple was in a position to make those investments in the first place because they profited handsomely from copying wholesale the fundamental ideas of the Mac UI. Now that the tables are turned they want to change the rules of the game.
Android brings more than enough innovation to the table to justify its existence. If anything Apple is borrowing more from Google now than vice-versa.
This argument is based on repeating an easily debunked falsehood.
Apple did not 'copy wholesale the fundamental ideas of the Mac UI'. They paid Xerox for a license to commercialize the technology via a stock deal, and then they spent significant effort refining it to make a consumer product.
So Apple really just wants other people to play by the same rules they do.
> They paid Xerox for a license to commercialize the technology via a stock deal, and then they spent significant effort refining it to make a consumer product.
You are the first person I've ever heard make that claim. The only support I've found for that statement is a throw-away sentence in Wikipedia's article about a lawsuit between Apple and Microsoft, which does not appear to be supported by the document cited. So, do you have a citation for that?
The New Yorker[1] has one of many references on the internet, but the price was 100,000 shares of pre-IPO Apple stock at $10 per share. The visit happened (over the protests of some at PARC). There are some side comments about the visit in "Triumph of the Nerds“.
1) http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/05/16/110516fa_fact_...
Well then, you were entirely correct. I suppose that my search was both fairly cursory and didn't include all of the right search terms. I find it very surprising that this is the first I've heard of it, though; the "apple stole from xerox" meme is really entrenched, to the point that I never really doubted its truth.
I think it's fair to say that Xerox seriously undervalued their IP, but that was a well documented failing of their management who didn't see the potential that Jobs did in personal computing.
Arguably we're fortunate that he struck this deal and brought these ideas into production much more effectively than Xerox was doing.
On the same note, look at the differences in the actual manipulation of the UI elements between the Macintosh and the Xerox workstations. The differences are very interesting.