Comments on: Earliest known photos of Apple iPad prototype from early 2000s appear in court filing

By: Coal Cracker

Coal Cracker — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 00:19:54 +0000

2000: Apple R&D begins work on a touch computer.

2002: Microsoft releases so called tablet computer.

2007: iPhone.

2010: iPad.

Today: iPod and iPad market. Unless, your IT department is stuck in the Microsoft mold, I meant mode, sorry.

The story of the decades long innovator vs. the imitator continues on multiple fronts …

By: dab2

dab2 — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 20:30:22 +0000

As a programmer I have always felt the software copyrights make more sense. Anybody should be able to try to solve the problems but they should be required to create their own library of code to do it. Designs should be trade marked to keep people from making their solution identical or overly similar.
BTW, I agree that Judge Posner is an idiot, I just don’t agree that patents are the best solution for software. I hope this doesn’t make me a “mouth breathing human debris”, but then again I really don’t care what you think if you can’t express your thoughts in a clear way. So, tell us, why do you think patents are the best solution for software protection?

By: twilightmoon

twilightmoon — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 19:45:40 +0000

Lets not forget what Tim did do: he made sure that Apples products could actually be manufactured and sold in volume at a profit.

That’s a non trivial task. Look how vastly far ahead of every other company that Apple is in terms of profit margins.

By: twilightmoon

twilightmoon — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 19:43:06 +0000

Because he’s a blithering retard. And so are all the other mouth breathing human debris that keep advocating ending software patents.

By: Guy Jones

Guy Jones — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 18:54:12 +0000

Fascinating to look at these images. And this is another reminder of Jobs’s laudable ability to restrain himself and not rush a product idea to market before it reached maturity. Other companies would have salivated over this tech and rushed it out the door in the form of a half-assed, predictably poor product. Jobs had the patience to be able to sit on amazing tech (as excited as he must have been to ponder the possibilities) and let things simmer and marinate until the time became right to get cooking.

By: auren

auren — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 17:32:03 +0000

maybe Tim won’t come up with these ideas, his considerable strengths lie elsewhere.

But I fully trust him to RECOGNIZE these great ideas when any of his many geniuses, cultivated by SJ and Apple, come forward with the next great thing.

Reconlgnize AND act appropriately.

By: R2

R2 — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 16:59:40 +0000

“It began with the tablet. I had this idea about having a glass display, a multitouch display you could type on with your fingers. I asked our people about it. And six months later, they came back with this amazing display. And I gave it to one of our really brilliant UI guys.”

Just underscores how irreplaceable Steve might be. Could anyone see Tim Cook randomly coming up with such an idea? A vision pops into the guy’s head and a decade later I’m typing these words with the revolutionary device he dreamed up.

By: Spark

Spark — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 16:58:03 +0000

MS has sold tablet versions of software since 2002, but they have never sold a tablet (including the unreleased Surface) to the best of my knowledge.

By: disposableidentity

disposableidentity — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 16:53:03 +0000

So f-you Judge Posner.

This stuff takes years, even decades, of R & D to make happen.

Why isn’t that kind of significant investment protectable through intellectual property rights???

By: Alen

Alen — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 16:39:41 +0000

I used an HP touchscreen tablet in 2005. Microsoft has sold tablets since 2002

Apple put it all in a killer package with good software after everyone else gave up

By: nowhereboy

nowhereboy — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 16:31:07 +0000

What is amazing is that Apple worked on the iPad for so long. Obviously not the hardware as that hasn’t changed that much. But Steve, the perfectionist, waited until iOS was mature, well-baked or at least well on its way through the iPhone development process. And yet other companies think they can just whip something up overnight (in a few months to a year) and have a product that will compete. Instead of doing the difficult work of developing a touch-OS they focus on hardware specs…even the software company known as Microsoft is making that same mistake.

By: Zmarc

Zmarc — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 16:05:05 +0000

Wow! Remarkably unchanged. Thicker, with thinner bezel (and see how the thin bezel makes it harder for the guy to hold it), but the same rounded corners. No Home button, either. No idea what the software looked like.