Has Apple Really Ever Invented Anything?

[sunny27]

Apple has invented the art of producing substandard overpriced ripoff electronic garbage and the art of preventing anyone with a better product (which includes everyone apart from apple themselves) from selling it.
Food for thought:-

Btw iFans have a look at this - What Did Apple Really Invent? (9 pics)

 

[ALPHA17]

And this is an unrelated, but why is Apple not looked into for anti competitive behavior?

SAMSUNG, BlackBerry were not looked into when they caused situations like these -- RIM Orchestrated 'Wake Up' Protest at Australian Apple Store | News & Opinion | PCMag.com / Wake Up, Sheeple: Samsung Hypes Next Galaxy S Smartphone | TechCrunch.

Apart from the fact that the US is Apple's home. If Apple will ever get a rap for something there it is like saying that Finland will tell NOKIA to file-for bankruptcy amid current uncertainties about its revival in the Smartphone market.

These are how the BIG corporate functions these days, what Apple had aimed to take down in its rise (IBM the monolith) is unfortunately what it has become itself.

 

[sabby]

I fail to understand why people are taking the thread as Apple bashing ! OP is simply asking a valid question, he's not denying Apple's effect on Consumer Electronics market.

 

[raksrules]

People here who are more inclined towards Apple products have to admit that as OP asked, apple actually did not do much when it came to "Inventing" per se but one thing they surely did was making that same thing available and popular amongst the general public out there. The mass market (don't say Apple is costly and androids are in everyone's reach) know many of the things and uses them daily because it got incorporated in more simplistic way for the general public out there to accept. Else many of these things might have been confined to internet space and tech forums.
Not sure and i am not much informed about the tech in phones before iPhone and androids but i admit that apple blatantly copied the android notifications which is very awesome (android ones) and the implementation in iOS is still not that android like.
So if anyone here is apple fanboi, then do not wrongly justify what apple does it all coming out of their brains. They have (like many others) copied but they secured it by patenting. I myself like apple products a lot and appreciate what they have done to make customer experience great on them. This is where they win hands down (IMO).
Also as far as US market is concerned, if a feature is implemented in an iOS device, it gains great amount of publicity and acceptability. As of NFC is not really that mature and not widely used and if Apple decides not to put NFC in next iPhone (rumors suggest No NFC) then i am pretty positive that NFC might not pickup in US at least for an year or so. That's how it is when US is concerned. Believe me here in US 9 out of 10 people have iPhone and be it any city or state. I have been to various destinations here and everywhere i see iPhones. It is just so overwhelming.
Before SIRI came out in iPhone which i guess was previously available as an app or another such app was there namely Vlingo or something but nothing was popular until SIRI came and google was forced to introduce google now and such things.

 

[ayanavish]

Inventor or not, Apple has revolutionized the art of creating mass hype and selling. They have played the role of a pioneer in its truest form... and Samsung the follower!!

 

[v.Na5h]

One liner

Apple invented swag

 

[Techie#1]

Nice sharing ...opens ppls eyes those who don't know the real inventors were,or should have hold the patents or won the cases! definitely Not apple...they r opportunist at Best defended by a lopsided US law system against Non US competition!!!

 

[Sei]

@ Sei.. You had me until "for the masses".

None of the appls products are for masses. They are costly compared to similar products, qualtity umm they do replace stuff and give you a refurbished replacement, peace of mind yes, it has limited features and the finicky ones are conveniently described as unproductive and hacked off.

Sorry for not being clear. What I meant was that the products that they made are for the masses w.r.t usability. From a (spoiled) 12 year old brat to a 70 year old grandpa, the ease of use is probably the highest taking all other smartphones into account. Please don't say Nokia 1100. Talking about smartphones.

 

[blkrb0t]

Damn, apple is going to go down in hell next generation if they keep up with such tactics. They're starting to lose their "Cool" factor, their only selling point, they better watch out.

 

[honest1]

Sorry for not being clear. What I meant was that the products that they made are for the masses w.r.t usability. From a (spoiled) 12 year old brat to a 70 year old grandpa, the ease of use is probably the highest taking all other smartphones into account. Please don't say Nokia 1100. Talking about smartphones.

There is difference between feature rich phone and smartphone. iOS seems simple since it can do only simple things. Launch apps, kill it, thats it.
Smartphones are capable of doing much more things.

Look at this to clear the myth about usability/simplicity of iOS and Android:
Android Vs iOS The Truth about Apple and Google's OS Part 1 of 5 - YouTube

 

[Sei]

I was hoping you wouldn't make this argument here again. Windows and iOS are smartphones dude, get over it.
Sent from my HD7 using Board Express

 

[Chaos]

Instead of fighting, you guys should watch the video. Just so depressing to see folks turn this into an Apple vs the World thread. I didn't see a single post referencing anything in the video. What the video says is that they "invented" 3 things since Woz left apple.

They are

Mini Display port - This was a complete apple invention which they recently made royalty free

The A5 chip in iDevices - This is basically a chip based on the same instruction set as every other arm cortex a9 based chip. The GPU core is from imagination technologies based on the PowerVR architecture which again is a low power version of their really old Power VR kyro chip that existed on PC.

The third and final thing is aluminium unibody construction for laptop as seen in the macbook pro. The video claims this is really wasteful and expensive and as a result no one else does it. However I'd want to hear the other side of the story on this.

Any more examples akin to these? Please talk of serious examples - not the usual idevices, none of which are an invention.

 

[raksrules]

Please do not bring, "Apple is a dumb phone", "Android is smarter and can make you coffee as well" comments. This is not the iOS vs Android thread. This is whether apple invented anything ??

Btw that video is repost here as it was there in the iP4 vs S3 thread too. This is not the place for that video.

 

[saumilsingh]

Apple invented the Consumer.
Look at this thread, people fighting over which company makes better devices because they actually feel some real loyalty to their camp. Cute and a job well done.

 

[mathrisk]

Apple invented the Consumer.
Look at this thread, people fighting over which company makes better devices because they actually feel some real loyalty to their camp. Cute and a job well done.

Cute is the word I was searching to describe iFanboys.

 

[babhishek]

Another pointless thread

 

[sharktale1212]

They are

Mini Display port - This was a complete apple invention which they recently made royalty free

The A5 chip in iDevices - This is basically a chip based on the same instruction set as every other arm cortex a9 based chip. The GPU core is from imagination technologies based on the PowerVR architecture which again is a low power version of their really old Power VR kyro chip that existed on PC.

The third and final thing is aluminium unibody construction for laptop as seen in the macbook pro. The video claims this is really wasteful and expensive and as a result no one else does it. However I'd want to hear the other side of the story on this.

I watched the video and I think he makes some points:
Mini Display port: Shrunk the standard display port for their product line. Its royalty free as they wanted more people to adapt it. So basically something already there and shrunk it. Still might be an invention but the host seemed hesistant to give it.

A5 chip: He says the story is a bit murky but it was just that Apple asked ARM and PowerVR to produce it. They needed a lower power consuming chip. IMO, considering ARM and PowerVR are chip designers, only way Apple could've "invented" it is by teaching chip design companies how to design the chip. So not sure it is an "invention" per se. Just that Apple asked something of companies and they delivered.

Aluminum body: My amateur experience in chasis designs (from college metallurgy class) tells me that casting is the correct process. Consider this you want make a nail. What is better? Casting it or using a chunk of iron (height, width, length of the nail) and then cutting it using advance laser machinery? IMO, there is no other side to the story other than it is cool to have a unibody laptop (BTW, I remember reading an article where Apple caused a slight slowdown in industries using laser drills. They wanted to purchase every one of them for the holiday season).

 

[asingh]

I guess this is what Apple invented:

1. Viral fanboys, or took the concept of fangirls to another level. [Fanbase]
2. Creating a similar product with a bit of design change and calling it the next generation release. [Product iteration].
3. Overpricing their products and over hyping pre-release. [Niche market].
4. Non compatible accessories/ports/and integration software. [Ecosystem].
5. Litigation methods for anything which hurt their market sentiments. [Protectionism].

 

[Gannu]

Aluminum body: My amateur experience in chasis designs (from college metallurgy class) tells me that casting is the correct process. Consider this you want make a nail. What is better? Casting it or using a chunk of iron (height, width, length of the nail) and then cutting it using advance laser machinery?

Nails are not cast. They are manufactured using a forming machine wherein wire from the required metal is fed from a reel through a cavity and a hammer strikes the open end into a die which forms the head of the nail. Nail making machines are very common. Nails cannot be cast. Casting is done for objects of complex shapes such as the engine block of an IC engine.

The third and final thing is aluminium unibody construction for laptop as seen in the macbook pro. The video claims this is really wasteful and expensive and as a result no one else does it. However I'd want to hear the other side of the story on this.

Apple's unibody macbooks with the Alu. construction is manufactured in a vertical CNC milling machine. A solid Alu. block is fed into the machine and undergoes several rounds of precise cutting using a milling tool, based on the design fed by the user into the computer. That white fluid in the video is the cutting fluid typically a mix of a lubricant and coolant in a water based solution, cools the block while undergoing the machining process. Some of the cutouts are achieved by the milling process itself - for instance the holes for the chiclet keyboard. The finer ones such as the speaker grill, battery indicator and sleep indicator are laser drilled from what I can infer from the video. So yes this process is quite complex in itself.

 

[singenaadam]

Apple like Bose has been great with creating snob value pricing and marketing it and - Oh boy! they've patented it!