General Asylum General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories.

---

[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] Thread: [ Display  All  Email ] [ General Asylum ]

---

[ Alert Moderator ]

---

RE: Portable Disk based Music Players, Menu Wheel and on-line shopping for music all predate Apple's iPod...(nt)

Posted by Thorsten (M) on August 15, 2012 at 10:30:33

In Reply to: RE: Portable Disk based Music Players, Menu Wheel and on-line shopping for music all predate Apple's iPod...(nt) posted by rick_m on August 15, 2012 at 07:28:55:

Rick,

When I say Disk based I am referring to the hard drive music player, give me some credit.

In fact, the first portable digital music player patented by a Brit in 1979 looks a LOT like a first generation iPod. It was designed for "Magnetic Bubble" Memory, the 1970's equivalent of solid state "Flash Memory" and so was conceptually years ahead of Apples first iPod.

In 1979.

Several Hardrive Juke boxes or whatever you want to call them notched up significant sales before the iPod was even started as product project. Equally, stores that would allow you to legally download MP3's and have software "sync" them to such a player existed before iTunes.

Similar prior art can be fielded for ANY supposed Apple "innovation". Sure, non of these devices and shops had the reach and financial clout of Apple, but THEY invented and innovated.

Apple in turn copied what it considered good ideas (they where good ideas) and took over, using their financial clout to out-advertise and outsell those who's ideas it was using. In fact in many cases it ended up suing those original Innovators for being in competition with their Product (so what happens now is nothing new, it "Standard Operating Procedure" for Apple). Their corporate behaviour matches B*se, take others ideas, make copies, patent them and then sue the hell out of the competition and pay top dollars to Lawyers, so you get the law ÿour way"...

My point is that Apple does not do: "Invention is really about seeing the possibilities, and the extant possibilities are a function of the fabric of society and technology at a given time." Others do that.

What Apple does and has always done well is to take OTHERS inventions and innovations and to hone and polish them a little and then sell the proverbial manure out of them. It arguably does this much better than any other technology company. It should continue to do so.

It is Apple's "Sucess Formula", quoth he Steve Jobs:

"Good artists copy. Great artists steal." (SJ quoting Dali)

"And we've always been shameless, about stealing great ideas." (this is a true Jobsism, not something stolen from others)

By doing this Apple has always forced others to raise their game or go out of business. So as long as open competition is assured people like Apple force global improvements for the whole market and thus benefit everyone.

Where this becomes an problem is when Apple cries "foul" if others play the same game it does and beat Apple at it. It becomes a problem when it tries to stifle competition.

It becomes a problem when Steve Jobs pulls a Khrushchev and banging his metaphorical shoe on the metaphorical rostrum insists that Apple will "bury" Android. Now Android is in effect open source, open standard, fundamentally free and based on Linux, so it can run on anything, if ported, even Apple Hardware. It becomes a problems when Apple then misappropriates Shareholders money to fund such a personal vendetta in the courts, to the tune of 100's of Millions, instead of investing this money into better products.

Even more ironic is that Apple's OSX and iOS has a lot of DNA that harks back to open source software like BSD, GNU, Mach and even Linux (shock, horror). Pot, Kettle, Black?

It becomes a problems when Apple sues others on the basis of Patents that are invalid due to PRIOR ART (look it up, it is a technical/legal term) by the very people it is suing, especially HTC and Motorola.

Samsung is a mega multi, they can afford to bleed a little (or as far as I care a lot) "for the cause" and quite frankly, the whole trial is bizarre. Samsungs own tech without which Apple would have no worthwhile processors in their iCopy sevices (yup, Samsung not only makes most of the Displays for Apple, but also Memory, CPU's and other stuff, one might say 70% of the electronics BOM cost of an iCopy piece is Samsungs).

If Apple went elsewhere they would be years behind the curve, just like the cheap sub 100 USD Chinese Android Smartphones using "vanilla" ARM Cortex Processors. Samsung can simply stop supplying Apple (though the commercial impact on Samsung may be greater than even the exorbitant 2.5 Billion US Dollar fines Apple is seeking) and watch Apple struggle and wriggle while it's own devices clober Apple six ways to Sunday.

So what we see in Court is a performance, it is an art form, a play, a farce, not any substance. Yet Apple filed the suits, not Samsung.

Fundamentally Apple now does much worse what Microsoft was accused for (rightly) in the 90's, it makes M$ look the "good guys" (heck, what kind of a change) and fundamentally Apple are the Kopy Kats (arguably they copy with style) and the ones who wish to stifle innovation by any and all means in the interest of preserving their near monopoly, no matter how much they present themselves in their advertising as the actual innovators.

Ciao T

Thor

At 20 bits, you are on the verge of dynamic range covering fly-farts-at-20-feet to intolerable pain. Really, what more could we need?

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

Sonic Craft

---

[ Top of Page ] [ Contact Us ] [ Support/Wish List ] [ Copyright © 2024, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]

---

[ General ] [ Speakers ] [ Tubes ] [ Vinyl ] [ Digital ] [ Hi-Rez ] [ Video Asylum ] [ Cables ] [ Tweaks/DIY ] [ Music ] [ Films ]

---