FACTS... get them straight!
Didn't Apple and Microsoft both use Xerox's GUI idea way back in the day? Lisa anybody?
Point being, there isn't an earth shattering amount of innovative ideas that make their way to production but that doesn't stop hundreds of companies from starting each and every month. It's almost impossible to create anything anymore without borrowing an idea here and there form existing ideas. It's simply impossible to operate completely independent of the competition with the insane amounts of media outlets that we have today. They don't build these things in a friggin' vacuum so it's inevitable that they are going to come into contact, in one way or another, with a similar product along the R&D road.
No one accuses Rob of copying off of other hardware sites who have been around longer than Techgage just as no one is accusing Apple of stealing Bell Labs idea if a portable phone.
It's the holier than thou attitude that most Mac users have that personally turns me off the most. The mind state that if it's new, and it's not an Apple product, it more than likely was at one time an Apple idea. It's that attitude that pretty well guarantees that I will never own or use an Apple product. That might be narrow minded on my end but to me, it's like arguing which is better, Ford or Chevy, with my redneck neighbors... only with smaller, cuter electronic pieces.
First of all, all I did was mentioned that the ideas presented in Surface was not new and that I seen most of it before and whamo.... I'm accused of being a self-righteous Mac fan-boy! Is it wrong for me to point out that the only thing new with Surface, that I could see, was the connectivity aspect?
Maybe I am just being a little too sensitive, but it seems to me, at least in here, that if your primarily a Mac user these days, you are some how a second class computer citizen. Wouldn't that be a form of discrimination by fan-boys other that that of a Mac user!
In fact, the link below points out some interesting facts. Rob keeps calling it a touch-screen interface.... its not, its an optical interface that uses cameras! Let's get our facts straight.
Use your credit card, camera, etc., not so fast. You need to use specially modified cameras, phones, etc. that are first equiped with a special barcode. Still, its very neat, something I never denied. All I simply did was point out that its based on old concepts, but, apparently, when your the lone Mac user (I'm also, by the way, a Linux and Window user) that is more than enough justification to put down any thing I post.
So what, if I was a Mac fan-boy, is that some crime; nope? There are certainly Window's and Linux fan boys who love nothing more than running down Mac fan-boys. Trust me, I confront them a lot. People who think that either Windows or Linux is so superior that they look down on Mac users as if they were a tiny, insignificant presence.
As for Mac copying Xerox. Well, let me quote what one of Xerox's top engineers and original developers of Xerox's GUI, Bruce Horn, said about that one. "The only similarities between the Mac OS and Xerox's Star technology is that they both use icons and the mouse. Most everything else, with few exceptions, were first developed on the Mac side, such as plug & play, trash cans, drop-down-menu's, etc."
Not only that, Apple paid Xerox 100-million dollars for the right to borrow and use anything they found interesting from the Palo Alto labs, so claiming that Apple stole the idea is also erroneous!
Surface may be the first demo that some people have seen of apps using Multi-touch, but that doesn't make it original. Surface's manipulation of photos, music etc. is almost 100 % identical to Apple's. Even Apple's 'Pinch' command, the one that you use to enlarge, reduce, flip around objects, etc. is not a Microsoft innovation. Can they use it, I don't know; I don't care. I was just pointing the fact out, nothing more.
At yesterdays D5 conference, Walt Mosberg twice asked Steve Jobs 'if Apple was working on anything like Surface, besides the iPhone?' Steve smiled twice and said,' Oh, yes, we are working on something very beautiful to be revealed soon, we just don't pre announce them first like Bill does!' which the link below hints at. For pointing that out, my belief that Apple had something cooler I'm put down... . think about that one!
If its not wrong for people to think Surface is so cool, because it is, then why am I being flamed as some self-righteous, Mac fan boy just because I said that I didn't find it as cool as some, for the obvious reason, I already seen most of it before? Apparently, a Mac user is not allowed to know such things? But then again, maybe I'm a bit too sensitive?
Is it wrong for me to believe Apple and others will soon introduce something better than a 150-lb coffee table that needs specially modified cameras, phones, etc. to work, than than that of an iPhone, Leopard, and as Steve suggests, some very cool and new future post-computer devices?
Rob and everybody else has their right to express their opinions, please allow me same courtesy. Just because Rob, my nephew, who I love dearly, has an opinion other than that of my own, is no reason to accuse me of being a self-righteous fan-boy. Isn't that a self-righteous assumption position to begin with, in the first place?
If you wish to refuse to open your mind and prejudge Apple products based on people you simply 'perceive as fan-boys' you are then simply being closed minded.
Who is right, Rob or me, I don't know; I don't care, nor do I think it is important! Rob is a very intelligent, kind, thoughtful, and a damn cool guy, but that doesn't mean either he or I have to agree on everything?
I couldn't care less what one thinks of Surface, every one is free to have their own opinion; I stated mine, that's all. I respect your opinion of me being a self-righteous Mac fan-boy, I just don't agree with it and I'm expressing my rights in pointing that out. If you can prove to me that I am, indeed, wrong, than by all means, I apologize. Just show me the proof first? I certainly have been wrong many times in the past, but still, how can simply expressing what you think on something as silly as Micorsoft vs Apple; iPhone interface vs that of a electronic coffee table be wrong?
Any way, to find out some of the things Microsoft didn't highlight about Surface, here's a cool link that explains a few things that I didn't know until last night, and what Apple's answer to Surface might be. From what I have learn it might just blow the socks off of Surface? Please just don't judge me for stating what I think, be I wrong, or be I correct in the matter.
http://hardware.seekingalpha.com/article/36969
