The future is almost here... New Deformable Surface to Give Smart Phone Touch Screens Raised Tactile Keyboards link
Ya, but isn't Apple the company suing everyone else for taking designs and whatever else they claim they invented? I haven't looked into it myself, just from general reading, but even Jobs admitted that they have been shameless in stealing great ideas. I dunno, if you had a great idea at work and say something about it, but someone else comes up with the same thing and maybe presented it a little better than you did, I'd think you'd be pretty upset. Homie is getting all the kudos! hahaha
I believe Apple got the GUI idea from Xerox, who used something similar as in in-house thing on their work stations. Apple then offered to buy/license that idea for use into their first Apple computers to use that interface (the Apple "Lisa," I think), and Xerox basically said 'nah it's cool, y'all can just take it.' At that point, Apple took that idea and created the PC GUI that we all know today. I think they patented it as their own computer GUI Apple OS. Microsoft wanted to license this OS to run non-Apple-made computers, Apple said "no," and MS copied that OS into Windows 3.0, which of course led to Apple suing MS, MS becoming the #1 PC maker in the world and Bill Gates the richest man in the world, all the while Apple felt MS had stolen their idea (if not their "invention" of a folder-based GUI for use in home computers) and thus the fan-boy war had begun in earnest. (The above is a nutshell from what I've read over the years, and I'm sure I'm leaving out plenty. If I got anything wrong, which is entirely possible, I'll look forward to reading any corrections.) There are, obviously, many similarities in what Apple did with iOS in the smart phone arena vs. others using/copying/stealing the concept they consider their own, just like vs. MS way back in the day. I'm not saying any of it is right or wrong....but that's the history as I understand it.
Lynus, A lot of what apple did with the Iphone and the way it works (touchscreen GUI) etc was being done before the Iphone came out. The one thing that Jobs was good at was improving upon other peoples ideas and making them easier to access and seem cooler because they were apple products. They don't innovate as much as massage, IMO. DD
Yeah, apparently adding an air of pretentiousness comes packaged with Apple products. I keeeed, my wife has one of the iPhones. And I do recall the whole windaz stole from Apple story as well.
