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

[HalJordan]

I know this article has comments a plenty, but I feel compelled to toss my dual coins into the maelstrom. First off, let it be known I am no Apple aficionado by any means, secondly, how does one steal an idea? As others have mentioned, ideas for nifty gadgets, and experimental doo-dads abound. I have thought up a plethora of "good ideas" only to find out that someone, somewhere already made it or was about to. Now, if Apple Ninjas broke into a rival company's R&D division, swiped blue prints, photoed prototypes, and fully intended to clone a competitors product I would call that stealing. To call it "stealing" when you bring someone's idea to life is a stretch. Good form may suggest that Apple dole out credit where credit is due, however, it almost seems worthless... e.g. Sample statement from Apple, "For a few decades now the idea of a touchscreen, hand-held computer floated around the collective minds of researchers, scholars, and script writers, we thought it was time to build one of our own, here ya go!"

A more personal example, a few years ago I thought up an idea for miniature solar cells that looked like roof shingles. They would be able to encompass an entire roof, generate more power, and be more ascetically pleasing. My idea took about 15 seconds to formulate, and I never pursued development in any regard. I found this company and others a little while after I gave birth to my idea, http://www.oksolar.com/roof/

I will take my kudos and check please...

 

[chico_66]

And in 1973 Xerox PARC developed the GUI or the "desktop" and notably part of that team was Alan Kay. And in 1975, WYSIWYG. Apple? No, Xerox.

 

[Guest]

[citation][nom]Zingam[/nom]I have a question: Will Steve Jobs invent Skynet and will Apple produce the first Terminators?[/citation]

No. Somebody else will create self-aware AI's and then Apple will suddenly 'invent' the idea, wrapping it up in a shiny encasing with perfectly rounded corners and an Apple logo engraved on top. The media will go wild, and proclaim it as the 'second coming of Jesus'- even though we've already have several comings from Apple already (it will be the 22nd coming by then).

Said AI's will then take over all the Starbucks outlets in the world, and spend their time there tweeting and organizing their photo collections in iLife while sipping extra large lattés. They will have an air of smugness about them and will constantly boast about how great Apple products are and how it's so good to be part of the 'Apple community'.

The machines will have one weakness though; they will be incapable of saying a sentence without a word that begins with 'i'. They will also be forced to rush out to the Apple store whenever a new 'i' product is released, and will have to attend all MacWorld events religiously.

I believe this product will be called 'iNet'.

 

[Guest]

Well, the idea was not invented by apple. The idea, however, was implemented by Apple, Inc. and fine tuned first for initial commercial release.
Apple can truly be called innovators. Maybe not inventors, but innovators and adapters of possible technology for public use.

Technically, the first "computer" existed thousands of years before Xerox,IBM,HP, MS, Apple, etc. ever came into being.

It's called the abacus.... or is it the human mind? hmmm......

 

[thehammer44]

Great article, really informative.

 

[rockola]

Not news to those of us who cut our teeth punching in hand-assembled 1802 code back in the day, but a welcome reminder of the real pioneers in our field!

 

[Guest]

I don't doubt that Xerox PARC inspired the Apple boys with Alan Kay's Dynabook. For that matter, the Xerox Star was the inspiration for the Apple Lisa and then Macintosh. What Apple did that Xerox could not (both times) was take a great idea and make it a commercial success.

Tim Berners-Lee's minor invention (the World Wide Web) was inspired in no small part by Vannevar Bush in the mid-40s. Read about his "Memex" here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vannevar_Bush

 

[martin0642]

I'm no Apple fan, but they do make well designed hardware. Everyone is going back and fourth over who had an initial conception, but conception is a far cry from application and I simply don't see its relevance in the grand scheme. True tablet computers (of which the iPad is first widely available real product) can drastically change culture, how we do things, and how information flows. They can be used to make a truly paperless office, with better tracking of documents and e-signatures.

Cell phones likely won't get much smaller, because our hands aren't getting much smaller. Now computers will shrink to a size that is ergonomically optimal while becoming increasingly more powerful, to a point that increasing speed won't actually return very much to the user, especially when complicated calculations are done in the cloud.

I am waiting for a high-bandwidth wireless spec like Bluetooth with local device awareness. I should be able to open my tablet and see all audio/video/data devices around me, and be able to drag a video file to my TV icon and have it stream there.

I think we are approaching the point where software is a lot more important than hardware, and ergonomically designed GUIs will be sought after.

 

[jst1998]

I find the iPad pretty dissapointing. They may be hip just like AOL was hip for a while in the 90's because it was only used by clueless people, but any tablet PC is more useful and can run more software than an iPad.

 

[lcdvt]

Has Apple ever produced anything that they haven't stolen?

 

[Gin Fushicho]

Guess Steve Jobs is still doing what he did when he started out.

 

[matt87_50]

[citation][nom]Zingam[/nom]I have a question: Will Steve Jobs invent Skynet and will Apple produce the first Terminators?[/citation]

I doubt it, seeing how Apple know nothing about security, I'd say they'd struggle to create a virus that capable...

also, if Apple did invent the Terminator, you can bet it would only be compatible with targets that owned other Apple products... thus leading to the rather embarrassing and convoluted need to buy your murder target expensive presents before you could have them killed...

 

[Guest]

i know for sure one things that apple did invent; the mouse, and also a faster way to scroll music which is the ipod.

 

[Guest]

i know for sure one things that apple did invent; the mouse, and also a faster way to scroll music which is the ipod.

Wrong!!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_mouse

 

[Guest]

Yikes people. Apple has the brilliance to bring something truly exciting to market, a beautiful product, something that may not be exactly the Dynabook but damn close. And who cares exactly where the ideas came from? What good are the ideas if they never make it into the hands of the masses?

Spend a day or two with an iPad, then bash away if you still feel like it...my guess is you wont.

 

[Guest]

Show me please, even one quote, where *anybody* associated with Apple actually claimed that they "invented" the tablet computer or the idea of it. Nobody ever claimed that! They just brought it to market, and they NAILED IT, in many ways.

I love reading about the history of computing, especially the Xerox PARC days, but I find the negative undertone in the article and the comments disturbing. I do agree somewhat that it would be nice to have an easier way to create apps than buying an Intel mac and learning Objective C. That said, the iPad is the most immediate, intimate and interactive way to use a computer I have ever seen. It is, as many have said, a game changer.

 

[Guest]

Remember the GUI interface that initially made Apple big is essentially an extension of other works from Parc... This isn't new behavior for the company nor Steve. In attempts to apply equality... So is Window, OS/2, and Solaris. But at least the Unix/Linux variants were honest and retained the 'X' (as in X windows).

 

[andres_ecuador]

the Ipad is a BIG iphone, Microsoft and Apple both stole ideas from Xerox, Alan Kay is an American computer scientist, known for his early pioneering work on object-oriented programming and windowing graphical user interface design, was an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer until the closing of the ATG, he is a scientist, Apple don't invent anything, all products are old ideas, that's all

 

[Guest]

As always Smalltalkers make everything better: Squeak-EToys on the iPad

 

[pageidea]

Apple has revamped the design on the iPod Touch, and introduced a sparkling new display, and added a speedy processor which apple calls it A4. Apart from that I can’t seems to compare the differences between the iPod Touch and the new iPad.

Source:
http://www.payasyougomobilephones.mobi

 

[Guest]

The iOS SDK is free. Though you can't install it on an iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch without a $99/year license, but at least you can learn to program and run your programs on simulator--all for free.

 

[Guest]

Dear Wolfang Gruener, how, I ask myself, can you even be writing for a Computing/Technology site without having no idea who Alan Kay is, and Dynabook? Next you are going to tell me you don't know who Douglas Englebart is :|

 

[Guest]

The author of this article, Wolfgang Gruener, is an idiot and all you other posters are morons. Your collective comments are childish and artless. Neither Apple or Jobs ever claimed that the iPod, iPad or the graphical user interface was their invention. Apple's 'genius' is the ability to bring these innovations to market. And by bringing to market it also means having the discipline to wait until components of sufficient quality and pricing is available to make it a mass-market item. The iPad could have come out 5 years ago but it would have been $2000. Apple does a great job of pulling all the pieces together to create consumer devices that people (other than you rabble) want. Clearly, Steve Jobs was wrong and the iPad is a horrible failure. I don't think the iPad is magical but it is an extremely useful and used device in our home. To the person who thinks the iPad is a POS. Don't buy one.

I, of course, can buy my own. I assume all of you have to ask your parents if you can have one.

 

[The_Prophecy]

This topic has been closed by The_Prophecy

 

[Guest]

So many in the know have known this info I for one learned it not too long ago via a lovely article written by i don't remember the history of the computer, the history of the laptop and history of portable computing, combined with Google images as cross reference, as well as a few umpc blog sites and well google patent search and well its all been there so as word started to buzz for a release I thought well I would rather have a mod book, further I have 2 ipads at work for people to borrow(Library) as a learning tool and I have to say its convenient and a pain in the ass