Did Steve Jobs Steal The iPad? Genius Inventor Alan Kay Reveals All

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"I do not believe that Apple deserves all the credit it receives today and it is a shame that the iPad’s origins are widely unknown."

It seems to me that you are one of the few who didn't know about Dynabook, and are now using it as ammunitions to snipe at Apple.

What do you mean by Apple not deserving *all* their credits? Do you have any idea what these credits are? Can you name them and explain to us which is deserving and which is not? Whose responsibility is it for dishing out these credits? Did Apple give itself, or did Jobs gives himself, too much or *all* the credits? Can he or his company stop others from giving them credits?

You seemingly inconclusive ending gave away the fact that you intended to discredit Apple but could not succeed because Alan didn't go along with you, he is such a wonderful and enlightened character who is too smart to be used by you in your attempt.

I didn't know why you are doing this fake objective piece but from the reactions of Apple Haters who posted their comments with such joy I can guess.
 
To be fair, Apple did venture into many areas which were designed to allow end-users more control over their computing experience. There was OpenDoc as well as Hypercard. These were tools aimed at the creative end-user who wanted to shape their computing experience. The failure of this approach was not Apple's alone. Free or cheap Object Libraries from which people could pick and choose to make or assemble complex apps were an anathema to companies like MS and never hit a critical mass. I believe Steve/Apple attempted all this stuff in his earlier, less cynical, incarnation.

Even today, Applescript built into OS X will allow one to solve very complex tasks. But I wonder how many consumers want or need these tools.

Still, Steve Jobs, more than most, has managed to maintain a drive for treating the whole computing experience like a sensuous bacchanalian festival.
 
who would get upset over an article like this? Anyone who thinks Steve Jobs is a genius inventor doesn't know much about jobs... Jobs' genius is in his execution and business sense.

Great read.
 
Articles like this one prove that many basic ideas for computer usage aren't new, but instead have existed for several decades - a generation or two. Over time, technological breakthroughs came about that allowed some of these concepts to finally come to fruition and manifest as usable products and consumables. It's a true testament to the incredible ideas and concepts belonging to the original computer scientists.
 
Wow, I am very impressed by the investigative journalism done here. I was confused for a moment actually, as most Apple articles are done by Marcus Yam. This actually read like an article from a newspaper or other respectable media outlet, so when I checked who the author was, I was not surprised that it was not Marcus Yam writing it. There is a difference between writing articles at a grade 10 level of comprehension for your editors and writing articles at a grade 10 level. This is the former, while most of Marcus Yams articles are the latter. If Toms offers Mr. Gruener more prominent positions, they would do well...
 
what a stupid article... why don't we go back to "2001-A Space Odyssey" Or closer yet "Minority Report" ? So if in the future someone invented time travel they would be stealing the idea from HG Well? "Back to the future" etc...?
How do you comment on something when you don't even know what you're looking at? If you can't see the difference between the iPad and the Dynabook then you shouldn't even be writing this...
Unless this is a troll piece..
 
Well, as for sci-fi "technology", an invention is not an idea for a notepad computer, such as in Star Trek. Neither is it actually building a prototype. It is an EXPLANATION of exactly how to build one. Apple's inventions are things like:

A method to rearrange a row of icons when a new icon is added.
Minimizing windows with a scaling effect (ala OS X)
Unlocking a device by moving a icon with a touchscreen gesture

I don't pay much attention to Jobs rhetoric. He wouldn't have invented the notepad had Al Gore not invented the Internet.
 
Well, as for sci-fi "technology", an invention is not an idea for a notepad computer, such as in Star Trek. Neither is it actually building a prototype. It is an EXPLANATION of exactly how to build one. Apple's inventions are things like:

A method to rearrange a row of icons when a new icon is added.
Minimizing windows with a scaling effect (ala OS X)
Unlocking a device by moving a icon with a touchscreen gesture

I don't pay much attention to Jobs rhetoric. He wouldn't have invented the notepad had Al Gore not invented the Internet.
 
A person that claims to be a tech writer and does not know of the Dynabook or Alan Kay is like claiming to be a Christian and not have heard of Moses!
 
When Wolfgang Gruener writes, he freakin' writes! Thank you for bringing some of that Toms Hardware quality back that's been missing for quite some time now.

/Z
 
Its nice to know that almost all the seemingly patentable aspects of the iPad are probably un-patentable or out of patent. Which means that anyone that wants to make an iPad clone minus the OS can probably do so. Think about it, something more open, that supports standards like Flash, Silverlight and Java. That has programming tools that allow children to learn about and interact more closely with the computer.
 
Are we to accept that a thing is invented when it is first envisioned? Was the calculator invented when its possibility was first envisioned? Or paper. I DON'T THINK SO!
 
The world is full of great ideas but only a few can execute and bring a product to fruition. Apple is the exception and the idea / concept becomes reality. That is the difference.
 
This is all quite funny. Poor Alan Kay is not fully able to hide his resentment. He says Jobs didn't steal the idea for iPad but then implies the Dynabook was first and better. He feels compelled to list the honors and recognition he's received that Jobs hasn't. He then says he's been recognized enough then sniffs at those like Jobs who's achievements have brought them rock-star fame. What a phony. And he's arrogant and ignorant enough to think we can't see what he doing.

At best, the Dynabook is just an early laptop with poor design and ergonomics that lacked a hinge. And it was never made for sale. The Dynabook doesn't even hint at being the transparent window into creative software and media that the iPad is.

Ideas are a dime a dozen. Thinking up the wheel wasn't an innovation. Actually making a wheel that people could use was a pretty big deal. And putting it into the car using assembly line manufacturing and national distribution was a game-changer and world-changer.

Alan Kay was one of many who imagined the wheel as a concept. Steve Jobs has been and is making cars, improving lives, and changing the world while Alan Kay an his ilk have been sitting around dreaming a lot but creating and achieving little.

P.S. It's easy to create apps for the iPad. Just learn Objective C or HTML. Not much harder than Hypercard.
 
Anyone remember the TOSHIBA Dynabooks? Well they were TOSHIBA's line of laptop computers and I think only released under that name in Japan. Well the article is interesting and shows how Steve Jobs is not as original as he thinks but is good at putting a spin on what we already have.
 
Let see, the tablet PC came out long before the IPAD, so where was this article then??? Why is it that as soon as the IPAD is mentioned, HP, Dell and everyone else is suddenly marketing a similar device (IPAD killers). Same for the Iphone, same for everything else Apple sells. You can not live on this planet and not see ideas from everyone else, but there is no device quite like the IPAD so yes Apple/Jobs did invent it. I personally don't see a reason anyone would want the thing, but that's just me. I don't own and Iphone either, as a matter of fact I don't own a single Apple computer product. But Apple is an innovator, they are first to market with many computing ideas. Anyone can put something down on a piece of paper, putting something to sell in front of people is what makes u an innovator. That is what Apple does.
 
[citation][nom]dreamphantom_1977[/nom]The dynabook doesn't even look like the ipad. You want to know where he stole the idea from? Yep.....Star trek. From the original Star trek to Star Trek Next Generation (which came out in 1987), voyager and up they have been using devices just like the ipad. Here is a video and pics, see for yourself. Yeah, they weren't real, but the concept was there. Full touch mini computer with it's own O.S. If you ask me I think apple should pay royalties to Gene Roddenberry. Apple never has it's own ideas. Always steeling them. That why apple gets sued so much.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVq [...] re=relatedNotice the center button just like the ipod and ipad? (below)Probably the best example (below)Almost every one of these devices works like an ipod, small touch screen mobile computer, and on most of them they used there finger just like people do with the ipad, ipod touch. Want to see what else became real from Star Trek?http://www.space.com/technology/to [...] -tech.htmlInteresting isn't it?[/citation]



if you look at it that way the cell phopen was also stolen from star trek the man that invented weven said he got the idea form star trek directly. point is science fictionm does influence human technology.
 
Interesting article, but solely for Alan Kay's insightful comments and perspective on the iPad and the current state of computing. Mr Gruener's interest was apparently to find evidence supporting his perception that Apple receives too much credit for innovation. It was highly amusing to see that every time he attempts to claim Steve Jobs was "just" trying to build the Dynabook, or "simply" building what Kay had advised him to, or outright "stealing" Kay's ideas, Kay himself shoots Gruener down and provides the context for understanding that the iPad is a significant achievement. Gruener's premise is explicitly falsified throughout the entire article, particularly by Kay's insistence that he and other early developers at PARC and MIT have received proper credit for their contributions. How this biased and transparently BAD substitute for journalism passed muster to appear on Tom's Hardware is unfathomable to me. If you write an article intent on denigrating someone, interview and have your claims knocked down by the person supposedly victimized, and still present your claims as though they had somehow been confirmed, your article deserves to be rejected, or at least rewritten to reflect the reality of what actually HAD been confirmed.

How sad that so many commenters blithely look past the transparent logical fallacies of this article to praise it as "good" and "insightful" (I can only hope these are references to Mr Kay's comments, rather than the author's unwavering, unsupported and contraindicated statements).



Dan


 
"Watch the documentry called "Pirates of Silicon Valley" and you'll learn that Microsoft and Apple both stole ideas from Xerox."

Wrong. Apple licensed it from Xerox an then produced something significantly superior. Then Microsoft stole it from Apple, not Xerox. Xerox thought it was impossible to make a GUI based machine for less than $125,000. Apple did it for $25,000 - well within the reach of the consumer.
 
[citation][nom]digitalprospecter[/nom]Watch the documentry called "Pirates of Silicon Valley" and you'll learn that Microsoft and Apple both stole ideas from Xerox.[/citation]

Apple never stole anything. The Mac team was granted a license to concepts from the Alto computer system developed at Xerox in exchange for Apple stock. Microsoft, then licensed Apple's key user interface elements for Windows 1.0, in exchange for Mac versions of popular Microsoft products.

If Steve Jobs not been forced out of Apple at the time, today there would be no Microsoft. Without that initial contract with Apple Windows would have infringed on Apple's copyright. The Apple v. Microsoft "Look and Feel" lawsuit was ultimately resolved using contract law, not copyright law.

I have often wondered if Microsoft is genuinely preserving the Windows Brand: Windows 1.0, Windows 2.0 Windows 3.0, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, and now Windows 7. Or are they locked into the Windows name given the initial deal with Apple to use the UI for Windows 1.0 and successor versions.


 
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