Apple has also stolen Windows Phone 7 camera viewfinder

[capr]

OMG STOP FIGHTING OVER THIS STUFF. Users actually like to see the same comfortable features on different devices. My poor mother takes months to learn how to use a new phone and it's features and then breaks it and then that phone isnt' around anymore so I buy her a new oen and she has to spend months learning new **** cause someone had patented the end call button or some ****.

it's getting ridiculous.

[techbeck]

Dont really care. Everyone "borrows" ideas from others. Very little is an original idea these days. The thing to watch is who gets their panties in a twist and starts to sue people....and who sues first.

[nohone]

TouchWiz was on the home screen, thats the menu system. The similarities to iOS are fairly obvious.

No party is innocent of taking whats out there and adapting it to their OS.

It really is all getting rather petty now this Samsung bashing.

[DiamondFootprint]

It really is all getting rather petty now this Samsung bashing.

I was proving a point :p

[BajiRav]

This is really nothing, they both have licensing agreements so patens are not getting in the way( when Apple walked to nearest photocopier :p).

In news of similar interest: Microsoft stole the round waiting indicator from Mac OS X, as well as the triangle when unfolding folders in list view.

In another news of similar interest, Microsoft never claimed that Apple was "photocopying" anything like Apple did ;)

This ###### for tat, who stole what is starting to get trier-some.

It's being going on between technologies for years, cars, TV, DVD players everything.

If one company didn't implement this new innovation their customers would complain and end up moving on.

I really wish people would just except this great time of innovation without calling foul all the time.

True that but let's not forget that Apple has spent significant time at their conference(s) claiming how Microsoft is ripping them off.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

App Store and Pinch to Zoom to name two straight away!

Have you seen Samsung's skin on the Galaxy S? The menu system is basically iOS.

I am not sure if I would give Apple pinch to zoom, there are multiple prior arts to that. AFAIK both Microsoft and Apple either bought or licensed their touch technologies. I don't think App Store was anything special either. Cell phone companies already had stores for phones.

[Malisk]

Who cares?

Everybody copies everybody else for everything software. If nobody copied each other, innovation would get nowhere in a hurry.

+1

This is why I never bother writing about Microsoft "stealing" ideas in Windows.

[Lachlan]

And its been patented: http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=20110119619.PGNR.&OS=DN/20110119619RS=DN/20110119619.

would be awesome if they had to release 5.1 with less features because of lawsuits..awesome

[DiamondFootprint]

I am not sure if I would give Apple pinch to zoom, there are multiple prior arts to that. AFAIK both Microsoft and Apple either bought or licensed their touch technologies. I don't think App Store was anything special either. Cell phone companies already had stores for phones.

I would seeing as how they have a patent dated from December 2006 for Pinch to Zoom. You may not think the App Store was anything special, but the truth is that it was. I work in the mobile phone industry and until the iPhone 3G came out with the App Store on iOS 2.0, No one gave a damn about it.

Application store's are now critically tied to how well a phone/os will succeed in the marketplace. The general consumers see them as a required function now rather than a nameless feature of 2007.

True enough, Apple didn't invent Apps or 'Application Store' but they made it what it is today, A commercial success and a key selling point of every smartphone currently available. So I would give them that for that sole reason. They also had a hand in touch screens but not the first to do it, but they did refine it.

[Argote]

App Store and Pinch to Zoom to name two straight away!

Pinch to Zoom (and most modern multi touch gestures) were demonstrated by Jeff Han (an NYU researcher) at TED some time before iOS came out (Not sure if he invented them or had been seen before though).

Also, Nokia had an Appstore before (though not as nice as iOS's) and jailbroken iPhones actually had this before Apple implemented it in "regular" phones.

[nohone]

I was proving a point :p

So was I.

[techbeck]

In another news of similar interest, Microsoft never claimed that Apple was "photocopying" anything like Apple did ;)

And Apple fans cannot admit when they are in the obvious wrong... :)

[techbeck]

I agree, there's nothing original about iOS 5. However, when the iPhone was first released a lot of companies like Google, HTC, Microsoft, etc. took a lot of ideas from Apple as well all the way down to the square icon design.

Yea, and Apple stole/used a bunch of stuff as well. Whats your point? And square icons have been around on desktop OSs for a long time now...way before the first iPhone. Apple likes to lash out when someone copies them...but apparently it doesnt work both ways.

"you're holding it wrong"

[Quillz]

I really do hope Microsoft puts up a poster saying that, sure would be funny.

I'd really prefer they didn't, I liked how they generally took the higher road during Apple's horrible "Get a Mac" campaign.

[qdave]

software concepts should not be patentet and cant be stolen. If its good why not use it.

[remixedcat]

there should be no software patents... simple.

[Quillz]

software concepts should not be patentet and cant be stolen. If its good why not use it.

"Picasso had a saying: 'Good artists copy, great artists steal.' We've always been shameless about stealing great ideas."

[Rudie32]

TouchWiz was on the home screen, thats the menu system. The similarities to iOS are fairly obvious.

No party is innocent of taking whats out there and adapting it to their OS.

Funny that.. The picture above looks like the menu system my sony ericsson had before the iphone was released. Again, in a grid. I've had numerous phones have the same grid, many before the iphone was even released.

[CronicHazel]

Funny that.. The picture above looks like the menu system my sony ericsson had before the iphone was released. Again, in a grid. I've had numerous phones have the same grid, many before the iphone was even released.

Haha, i was about to say. All SE feature phones have a nice and shiny icon grid :)

[Growled Member]

there should be no software patents... simple.

I agree. It's really a dumb idea but we love dumb ideas here in America it seems.

[KingCrimson]

Possible, but what makes the iOS 5 announcement so interesting is that these "improvements" are direct rips from other mobile OS's... It isn't taking an idea and running with it, it's taking an idea and directly duplicating it. That is not innovation, and it certainly does nothing for innovation.

And for a company as quick to sue others for even the slightest transgression, I hope Apple does get sued for these rips. Nothing Apple's competition has done was as direct a rip as these improvements that Apple clearly labored over to design... :-\

Considering Google/HTC/Samsung completely ripped off the iPhone handset and iOS, Apple is well within their rights to rip off minor innovations like the Android notification system. If it weren't for the iPhone, Android wouldn't exist. Steve Jobs feels aggrieved.

[bob_c_b]

How come all the Apple haters ignore how much their chosen products borrow from Apple? You are just honked off that Apple did a level set on the playing field and your product of choice and it's tiny smattering of interesting features don't matter again. I'd lol if MS sued Apple, considering just how much they have "borrowed" from Apple over the years.

[DiamondFootprint]

Haha, i was about to say. All SE feature phones have a nice and shiny icon grid :)

This is true, but getting down to the detail of it, Sony Ericcson's had a 3 x 4 icon grid. iOS has a 4 x 4 grid with a static 4 icon grid at the bottom, look what the Galaxy has. They did that first on a touch screen mobile phone OS.

Every company is guilty of borrowing idea's to further their own operating system! Android, Win 7 and indeed any modern mobile OS have borrowed heavily from what Apple has done with the iPhone. This ISNT a bad thing though.

[Corris Veteran]

I think the craziest thing from this is not that anything was "stolen", which is always a funny term seeing as these companies "steal" from each other all the time, but that you can patent something as stupid as swiping to see something else like the last photo taken.

[~Johnny]

Considering Google/HTC/Samsung completely ripped off the iPhone handset and iOS, Apple is well within their rights to rip off minor innovations like the Android notification system. If it weren't for the iPhone, Android wouldn't exist. Steve Jobs feels aggrieved.

HTC? :p They were doing great things by themselves, creating Touch Flo 3D on the HTC Touch Diamond, which I felt looked so much greater than the iPhone at time. That of course eventually evolved into HTC Sense, but even then it was there own styling, and on Android styled to fit in more with the OS. There's more credit to say Samsung did so, and to a lesser extent Google.

I think there is credit to certain software patents - but ones that require credible complex work. For example, Microsoft Research's customer Kinect skeletal tracking system, I wouldn't mind if they patented that for a bit - a lot of researches spent a LOT of time creating that. Patenting a grid of icons, a swipping unlock button, or something stupid like that... (not that those are actually patented, but just anything in general that's similarly trivial)... then naw, that's not really worth patenting.

[bob_c_b]

I think MG Seigler said it best this week, if you have to announce to people you "had it first" you already lost.