[Sub]

I just watched this movie, I know some parts were not true, but my understanding of apple has, in my view, deteriorated. I thought apple was the innocent, innovative company back in the 80s. When people used to say, its stupid that Microsoft copied Apple, I would agree and back them up, but after seeing that apple used the imaged-based and mouse technology from Xerox, even though apple aquired it legally and Microsoft literally stole it, I still feel I have been giving apple more credit for innovation than it deserves, in my view. I know they came up with the iPod, but wasn't the technology developed by the original Disk MP3 player, wasn't that original 5 GB Hd that was just .25 inches thick created by fujitsu or whoever? Or am I going too far? Apple deserves all the credit in the world for design, maybe they aren't a computer company, maybe they are just a design company. Maybe all computer companies, for the same reason, are just degisn companies. After all, Sony gets it's parts from Asus and Samsung, maybe Asus is the real company, the real innovation?

Whether any of this is true or not, it got me thinking, I have spending way too much time obsessing and worshipping apple, and other computers. My fascination with apple has not died, but my understanding on them has. I thought they are the little guy, then and now, only then it was IBM, now it's Microsoft. I thought they were the guys who cared about the people, and weren't like microsoft, looking for profits, maybe they aren't at all, maybe I'm just some dumbass on drugs. What I am trying to say is that I don't really care much about computers any more, what I am trying to do is inform the other members in this forum of what history was, I am not trying to change anyone's opinion or anything, I just want everyone to know how it was, which may not even be true.

I am not saying I am never coming back to the forum, I just won't be here everyday or every week.
I still hate Microsoft, I just don't feel the complete love I once did for apple any more.

Thanks for reading, feel free to bite my head off.

[freudling]

Steve Jobs deserves the credit. Look at how innovative their computers have been the entire time. You also forget that Mac OS X was born years before it was released with Steve's Next Computers gig. From the PowerBook Wallstreet, to the original iMac, to the eMate, to itunes and iPod, to the iPhone and beyond, people should stop bashing them and just give them credit. This is a case where Steve Jobs will be much more famous after he is dead.

[dav]

Originally Posted by Sub 

but after seeing that apple used the imaged-based and mouse technology from Xerox,

not really, here's a good read on the history of the mac os link

Conclusions

Apple did not rip-off the Alto (Xerox-Parc) -- how could they? Apple was a product oriented company that produced a computer on their own. That computer had a few similarities in concept (user interface) with stuff Xerox was doing, but almost NOTHING in common design or implementation. Apple's metaphors went way way beyond what Xerox was doing (though there are other areas where Xerox was beyond Apple). They were trying to achieve different goals -- and from different points of view. Apple was creating the ultimate personal computer. Xerox was doing research tools, and later tried to make a big client-server type document distribution systems. These are about as similar as a motorcyle and a commuter Bus.

Microsoft on the other hand did rip-off Apple. The concept of making a computer easy to use is way to broad to protect, and Apple didn't complain about that. Windows, icons and menus are not ripping Apple off either -- these are broad concepts. Microsoft got sued because they stole design, implementation and finally metaphors (look and feel). They stole the way you manipulate things on the computer -- as well as almost everything underneath.