Jobs and Gates
Craig Koller
http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/30/steve-jobs-and-bill-gates-historic-di
scussion-live-from-d-2007/
Look, if these guys can get along just fine, why the heck can't the
Win/Mac zealots?
Gates said an interesting thing. Microsoft had thrown all their weight
behind the Macintosh and the GUI back in the mid-'80s. The argument on
boards like this weren't about Windows/Mac but rather CLI vs. GUI and
the CLIers were insanely stubborn, including decrying the mouse...
Where are they now?
Microsoft, while selling DOS and some DOS apps (DOS Word primarily)
were selling Excel and Word for Mac. Vastly superior products but
overshadowed at the time by Lotus 123 and WordPerfect. Microsoft was an
absolute NOBODY when it came to applications on the PC. As Gates
mentioned, had Jobs remained at Apple, no doubt Apple would have
"differentiated" the Mac, but with Sculley/Spindler/Amelio, it was a
downward spiral into the commodity (with a foreign Moto chip) abyss.
He acknowledged that it was really Win95 that turned the tide. Two
years later, Jobs was back at Apple and the race was back on.
Competition is good. It's American. It doesn't have to be warfare -
most business strategists realize this is unprofitable for all
involved. Gates is getting ready to move on, and Jobs will be around
for a while but who knows? Eventually the computer platform religious
wars will have to end, hopefully with a whimper.
Nice to see Jobs and Gates are still friendly. Considering all they've
done and all they've been through, it would be a shame if they weren't.
Derek Currie
Craig Koller <cwkol...@netscape.net> wrote:
> Watched the excerpted video and report at:
>
> http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/30/steve-jobs-and-bill-gates-historic-di
> scussion-live-from-d-2007/
>
> Look, if these guys can get along just fine, why the heck can't the
> Win/Mac zealots?
Steve Jobs played it very cool during the interview. The fact is
that circa 1997 Microsoft were shoved into a corner by Apple
because they had been caught red-handed stealing QuickTime code
and they had even refused to return it. Apple could have sued
their asses off. Instead Jobs carefully crafted a deal he forced
Gates to sign which gave Apple access to Microsoft APIs and
patents (which improved the quality of QuickTime and iTunes on
the Windows platform), forced MS to promise to support the Mac
with Office for several years to come, and forced MS to fork over
a few million to buy non-voting privileges stock the had to hold
for a number of years. This entire situation was very carefully
tiptoed around in the interview, making them look like they were
two pals making up after a little tiff they have long since
forgotten.
The next item Jobs was cool about was the fact that Microsoft's
new 'surface computer' technology uses touch screen gestures that
Apple patented and OWN. As David Pogue pointed out Thursday over
at the New York Times, many of the gestures Microsoft say they
invented years ago are already on the iPhone. I have copies of
the patents Apple submitted and received last year regarding this
technology. So, either Jobs is calmly hiding the fact that Apple
is going to sue Microsoft's ass off, or Gates is keeping quiet
the fact that he ACTUALLY licensed the 'surface computer'
technology from Apple. In any case, Gates told a whopping lie
about MS having done it first. Nothing new for him.
> . . .
>
> Microsoft, while selling DOS and some DOS apps (DOS Word primarily)
> were selling Excel and Word for Mac. Vastly superior products but
> overshadowed at the time by Lotus 123 and WordPerfect.
I was using Lotus 123 and WordPerfect back in the bad old DOS
days. Let's get something straight: Excel and Word were nothing
more that straight across the board rip-offs of Lotus 123 and
WordPerfect. Microsoft showed no imagination in their work at
all. As per usual it was mere imitation. This theme resounds
throughout the entire career of Bill Gates.
> Microsoft was an
> absolute NOBODY when it came to applications on the PC. As Gates
> mentioned, had Jobs remained at Apple, no doubt Apple would have
> "differentiated" the Mac, but with Sculley/Spindler/Amelio, it was a
> downward spiral into the commodity (with a foreign Moto chip) abyss.
Excuse me? Commodity?
> commodity
> noun ( pl. -ties)
> a raw material or primary agricultural product that can be bought and sold,
> such as copper or coffee.
> € a useful or valuable thing, such as water or time.
'foreign Moto chip'? The Macintosh was FOUNDED on Motorola chips!
And at the time that Spindler had driven Apple into its billion
dollar loss in 1996 the Macintosh was literally running at 2x the
speed of the concurrent Intel chips. (There is mythology that
this was an exaggeration. Sorry. That myth is FUD. Speed tests
consistently proved the 2x claim to be correct).
Even when Jobs returned Apple had troubles. The fact is that once
the G4 chip hit 500 MHz Motorola hit a road block. Soon
thereafter they abandoned the PowerPC chip market they had helped
found, selling off that division of the company. That left Apple
to deal with IBM who grudgingly made the G5 chip, never
optimizing its power efficiency to make it compatible with
laptops, despite their repeated lies to the contrary. Who needs
that crap? Apple wisely told IBM to shove it and went Intel.
> He acknowledged that it was really Win95 that turned the tide. Two
> years later, Jobs was back at Apple and the race was back on.
I am sorry to be so contrarian tonight, but again: HUH? What
race? If you listen to the interview, what Steve Jobs said
diplomatically was that when he ARRIVED at Apple, there was an
anti-Microsoft attitude within the company as well as within the
customers. Word 6 had been released around that time and OMG was
it a piece of turd! Mac users were very resentful. Jobs said his
goal was to NOT 'race' with Microsoft, but to COOPERATE with them
to their mutual benefit. I noted above how Jobs crafted a deal
with Gates to avoid having to sue MS's ass off. Jobs was not all
take-take! Gates got out of the deal access to Apple's APIs and
patents as well, AND the stock MS bought payed off extremely
handsomely when it was sold.
> Competition is good.
It helps drive innovation. Without it business typically
stagnates, as has been the case with Microsoft in many respects
because, as I have pointed out previously, their corporate
culture has emulated Bill Gates' personality which is one of
exploitation, versus competition.
> It's American.
Well, to the extent that the USA certainly did have some founding
fathers of capitalism.
> It doesn't have to be warfare -
> most business strategists realize this is unprofitable for all
> involved.
What is unprofitable? 'Warfare'? I assume you mean irrational
hate driven competition where one company tries to kill another?
> Gates is getting ready to move on,
... To everyone's benefit, especially Microsoft's. Already I am
beginning to hear statements from company executives that
actually make sense. Imagine that. Now if we can kick out Balmer,
some significant change for the better can begin.
> and Jobs will be around
> for a while but who knows? Eventually the computer platform religious
> wars will have to end, hopefully with a whimper.
'Religious wars'? OMG am I sick of that idiotic metaphor.
Folks, this has ALWAYS been a QUALITY war and nothing less. Stuff
the 'religious' crap. Note that I partially blame Apple for
coming up with the stoopid concept in the first place.
> Nice to see Jobs and Gates are still friendly. Considering all they've
> done and all they've been through, it would be a shame if they weren't.
<<banging head into wall in frustration>> Oh puleeze!
OK, yes, in public they know how to act friendly. But IMHO what
we have going on is Steve Jobs being remarkably magnanimous with
someone who has literally been the vampire hanging off the neck
of the computer industry for over 25 years, i.e. Bill Gates. I
have no doubt that history will be remarkably magnanimous to the
parasite as well. But the fact is that once the bastard is out of
the picture the computer industry is likely to remarkably stride
forward, as it would have been doing without his influence.
Note that I'm not going to bend over and kiss Job's butt. I am
mighty ticked off at the laptop 'millions of color' scam Apple
are currently pulling on their professional customers.
Scandalous! But the guy is a brilliant catalyst for innovation.
As long as his company keeps coming out with the best products on
the market, I'll keep buying them. When they don't, I'll be
moving on.
:-Derek
--
Fortune Magazine 11-29-05: What's your computer setup today?
Frederick Brooks: I happily use a Macintosh. It's not been
equalled for ease of use, and I want my computer to be a tool,
not a challenge.
<http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/12/12/8363107/>
[Frederick Brooks is the author of 'The Mythical Man Month'.
He spearheaded the movement to modernize computer software
engineering in 1975.]
Kevin Darling
Derek Currie wrote:
> The next item Jobs was cool about was the fact that Microsoft's
> new 'surface computer' technology uses touch screen gestures that
> Apple patented and OWN. As David Pogue pointed out Thursday over
> at the New York Times, many of the gestures Microsoft say they
> invented years ago are already on the iPhone. I have copies of
> the patents Apple submitted and received last year regarding this
> technology.
Please cite the patents you mentioned about gestures.
I can't think of any special gesture the iPhone uses beyond the
"pinch" one, and that's even been shown before. Everything else on
the iPhone is normal GUI stuff, with special effects (sliding screens)
thrown in.
Btw, the finger-tip scrolling is old hat as well. Used it myself in a
touchscreen app about a decade and a half ago. There's rarely
anything new in computing.
Thanks,
Kev
Alan Baker
Kevin Darling <kdar...@basit.com> wrote:
> Derek Currie wrote:
> > The next item Jobs was cool about was the fact that Microsoft's
> > new 'surface computer' technology uses touch screen gestures that
> > Apple patented and OWN. As David Pogue pointed out Thursday over
> > at the New York Times, many of the gestures Microsoft say they
> > invented years ago are already on the iPhone. I have copies of
> > the patents Apple submitted and received last year regarding this
> > technology.
>
> Please cite the patents you mentioned about gestures.
>
> I can't think of any special gesture the iPhone uses beyond the
> "pinch" one, and that's even been shown before. Everything else on
> the iPhone is normal GUI stuff, with special effects (sliding screens)
> thrown in.
"Flicking" to cause a list to scroll?
>
> Btw, the finger-tip scrolling is old hat as well. Used it myself in a
> touchscreen app about a decade and a half ago. There's rarely
> anything new in computing.
>
> Thanks,
> Kev
--
Alan Baker
Vancouver, British Columbia
"If you raise the ceiling four feet, move the fireplace from that wall
to that wall, you'll still only get the full stereophonic effect if you
sit in the bottom of that cupboard."
Derek Currie
> Derek Currie wrote:
> > The next item Jobs was cool about was the fact that Microsoft's
> > new 'surface computer' technology uses touch screen gestures that
> > Apple patented and OWN. As David Pogue pointed out Thursday over
> > at the New York Times, many of the gestures Microsoft say they
> > invented years ago are already on the iPhone. I have copies of
> > the patents Apple submitted and received last year regarding this
> > technology.
>
> Please cite the patents you mentioned about gestures.
>
> I can't think of any special gesture the iPhone uses beyond the
> "pinch" one, and that's even been shown before. Everything else on
> the iPhone is normal GUI stuff, with special effects (sliding screens)
> thrown in.
Let me toss you some URLs for your reading pleasure:
1) TheMacObserver
TMO Reports - Apple Gesture Patent App Suggests Tablet
by Bryan Chaffin, 3:05 PM EST, February 3rd, 2006
<http://www.macobserver.com/article/2006/02/03.10.shtml>
This article has a couple diagrams.
2) This is the page that leads you into browsing through Apple's
280 currently filed patents:
US Patent & Trademark Office
Patent Application Full Text and Image Database
To go through the whole list you can hit the blue 'Next' button,
or go back a patent by hitting 'Prev'. You can go through the
list of names of the patents by hitting the 'Hit List' button. 50
names are shown per page. You then hit the 'Next List' button to
go to the next 50 patent names.
3) Apple's Gesture Patents (in reverse chronological order,
because I am lazy today):
A) Gestures for touch sensitive input devices
United States Patent Application - 20060026536
Filed: January 31, 2005
<http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOF
F&p=3&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=142&f=G&l=50&co1=AN
D&d=PG01&s1=%22apple+computer%22.AS.&OS=AN/%22apple+computer%22&RS
=AN/%22apple+computer%22>
If you hit the 'Images' button you can see the images Apple
submitted with the patent. Note the interface for the images
pages to be flaky, apparently poorly coded. But they are there.
You can use the arrow interface on the left of the page to move
through the images.
B) Gestures for touch sensitive input devices
United States Patent Application - 20060026521
Filed: July 30, 2004
<http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOF
F&p=3&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=144&f=G&l=50&co1=AN
D&d=PG01&s1=%22apple+computer%22.AS.&OS=AN/%22apple+computer%22&RS
=AN/%22apple+computer%22>
4) MacRumors
Gallery of Gesture User Interface Patent - Mac Guides
<http://guides.macrumors.com/Gallery_of_Gesture_User_Interface_Pat
ent>
This gives a quickie selection of images submitted by Apple with
the patents.
5) A brief article at eWeek:
Apple Applies for Touch-Screen Gesture Patent
By Mark Hachman
February 3, 2006
<http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1918692,00.asp>
6) A Ziff Davis article:
Apple Applies For Touchscreen Gesture Patent
PC Magazine, February, 2006 by Mark Hachman
<http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_zdpcm/is_200602/ai_n1604291
1>
7) hrmpf.com article with further images:
New Apple Patent Applications- User interface for Apple Tablet
<http://hrmpf.com/wordpress/48/new-apple-patents/>
8) An analysis article at Create Digital Music:
Appleąs Touchscreen Patent: Actual Patent Reveals Gestures, Not
Hardware
By Peter Kirn
<http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/02/03/apples-touchscreen-paten
t-actual-patent-reveals-gestures-not-hardware/>
There are a pile of other related articles if you Google for
them. You get the idea.
I haven't seen any rumors of elaborations upon these patents
created by the development companies Apple hired. I have no doubt
that further related patents have been spawned by those companies.
Share and Enjoy,
Kevin Darling
Alan Baker wrote:
> In article <1180721288.8...@q66g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,
> Kevin Darling <kdar...@basit.com> wrote:
> >
> > Btw, the finger-tip scrolling is old hat as well. Used it myself in a
> > touchscreen app about a decade and a half ago. There's rarely
> > anything new in computing.
>
> "Flicking" to cause a list to scroll?
Good grief, of course. Did that back around 1982, in fact, using a
touchpad. All that it's doing is following the finger until you let
go, then use a simple algorithm to slow down.
Here's a developer's secret though. The "inertial scrolling" is
usually first caused not on purpose, but because the device can't keep
up with the scroll movement. So in early coding what happens is that
you move the page, lift your finger, and then the page catches up. My
guess is that this is exactly what happened, then it got "fixed", then
some tester complained that it didn't do "the cool scrolling thing"
any more. <big grin>
Cheers, Kev
Kevin Darling
Derek Currie wrote:
> In article
> <1180721288.8...@q66g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,
> Kevin Darling <kdar...@basit.com> wrote:
>
> > Derek Currie wrote:
> > > The next item Jobs was cool about was the fact that Microsoft's
> > > new 'surface computer' technology uses touch screen gestures that
> > > Apple patented and OWN. As David Pogue pointed out Thursday over
> > > at the New York Times, many of the gestures Microsoft say they
> > > invented years ago are already on the iPhone. I have copies of
> > > the patents Apple submitted and received last year regarding this
> > > technology.
> >
> > Please cite the patents you mentioned about gestures.
> >
Thank you very much. However, they're just patent APPLICATIONS. Now
normally, companies patent the process they use for recognition, since
you can't patent gestures themselves. Judging from the breadth of
claims in the application, Apple won't get the full patent, especially
with all the recent publicity raising awareness of the topic.
They claim to have invented using a page-turning gesture, for
instance. Also rotating a knob, etc. Joke. These are all
touchscreen gestures that have been well known and used in the
industrial control and education markets for at least 25 years (the
extent of my touch experience). Lots of prior art. Heck, even I
demo'd a page turn back in the 1980s to a large group of people.
The only "novel" claim I saw was of the "pinch" zoom movement on a
multi-touch screen. Now I myself have shown an example of pinch-zoom
on a NON multi-touch screen. (Progammers with touchscreen experience
can think about it and realize how I did it, by requiring one finger
to stay put.) Yet even that movement has been widely shown in the
past.
Basically, anyone who supports the idea that someone can patent common
screen gestures, should be ashamed. That's like claiming a patent on
waving "good-bye" ;-)
Regards, Kev
ZnU
Kevin Darling <kdar...@basit.com> wrote:
[snip]
> Basically, anyone who supports the idea that someone can patent common
> screen gestures, should be ashamed. That's like claiming a patent on
> waving "good-bye" ;-)
>
> Regards, Kev
Mind you, Apple's patents will probably be granted anyway. They'll
probably never sue anyone for using them, because they don't want to get
into a patent battle and because they know there's prior art. But the US
patent office with grant almost anything these days. As such, companies
like Apple are basically forced to file for patents for anything they
use, because otherwise one of those IP holding companies that doesn't
make any real products will file for the patents and then sue them,
looking for a quick settlement.
Such is the sad state of the patent system today.
--
"That's George Washington, the first president, of course. The interesting thing
about him is that I read three--three or four books about him last year. Isn't
that interesting?"
- George W. Bush to reporter Kai Diekmann, May 5, 2006
Derek Currie
<1180733530.0...@g4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>,
Kevin Darling <kdar...@basit.com> wrote:
> Thank you very much. However, they're just patent APPLICATIONS.
What you see at the US Patent Office site are indeed the
applications for patents. The 280 applications in the list go
back to 2001.
I've done enough of your homework. You have the patent numbers.
You go find out for us if they were awarded or not.
> Judging from the breadth of
> claims in the application, Apple won't get the full patent, especially
> with all the recent publicity raising awareness of the topic.
Blah blah blah. You have no idea.
Quit the blethering and dig up your own facts for a change. I
just deluged you.
:-P
Kevin Darling
> In article
> <1180733530.0...@g4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>,
> Kevin Darling <kdar...@basit.com> wrote:
> > Thank you very much. However, they're just patent APPLICATIONS.
>
> What you see at the US Patent Office site are indeed the applications
> for patents. The 280 applications in the list go back to 2001.
> I've done enough of your homework. You have the patent numbers.
> You go find out for us if they were awarded or not.
I've done more patent research in the past few years (for other
reasons) than you'll do in a lifetime. Anyone here can go to :
http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html
And enter "Apple" as the Assignee, and "gesture" (optional) in the
title search... and see that no gesture patents have been granted.
You will see lots of design (start with a "D") patents for cases,
however.
> > Judging from the breadth of
> > claims in the application, Apple won't get the full patent, especially
> > with all the recent publicity raising awareness of the topic.
>
> Blah blah blah. You have no idea. Quit the blethering [sic] and dig up your
> own facts for a change. I just deluged you.
Hardly. You're just parroting things you apparently don't
understand. I've lived through, and programmed through, several
decades of computer change. I know very well who invented what.
Kev
Kevin Darling
ZnU wrote:
> Mind you, Apple's patents will probably be granted anyway. They'll
> probably never sue anyone for using them, because they don't want to get
> into a patent battle and because they know there's prior art. But the US
> patent office with grant almost anything these days. As such, companies
> like Apple are basically forced to file for patents for anything they
> use, because otherwise one of those IP holding companies that doesn't
> make any real products will file for the patents and then sue them,
> looking for a quick settlement.
>
> Such is the sad state of the patent system today.
Couldn't agree more. It's not just Apple, either. It's every
company. The patents that are granted these days often do not come
anywhere being unobvious, as required.
I wouldn't be surprised if someone got a patent on the wheel soon ;-)
Regards, Kev
Alan Baker
Kevin Darling <kdar...@basit.com> wrote:
> Alan Baker wrote:
> > In article <1180721288.8...@q66g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,
> > Kevin Darling <kdar...@basit.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Btw, the finger-tip scrolling is old hat as well. Used it myself in a
> > > touchscreen app about a decade and a half ago. There's rarely
> > > anything new in computing.
> >
> > "Flicking" to cause a list to scroll?
>
> Good grief, of course. Did that back around 1982, in fact, using a
> touchpad. All that it's doing is following the finger until you let
> go, then use a simple algorithm to slow down.
Fine.
Then you should have no trouble citing a few examples...
>
> Here's a developer's secret though. The "inertial scrolling" is
> usually first caused not on purpose, but because the device can't keep
> up with the scroll movement. So in early coding what happens is that
> you move the page, lift your finger, and then the page catches up. My
> guess is that this is exactly what happened, then it got "fixed", then
> some tester complained that it didn't do "the cool scrolling thing"
> any more. <big grin>
>
> Cheers, Kev
--
Kevin Darling
Alan Baker wrote:
> In article <1180731675.0...@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com>,
> Kevin Darling <kdar...@basit.com> wrote:
> > Alan Baker wrote:
> > > "Flicking" to cause a list to scroll?
> >
>
> Fine. Then you should have no trouble citing a few examples...
I was about to upload a demo program for you, but decided to check
around first. Turns out that Philips Labs, not far from me, got
patents in 2004 on fingertip scrolling.
Go to: http://gb.espacenet.com/search97cgi/s97_cgi.exe?Action=FormGen&Template=gb/en/number.hts
And enter either US6690387 or US7184064 in the number search field.
They're another example that others have thought of this way of
scrolling. I can probably search further back and find even more
examples, since this kind of patent is on the background algorithm,
not the gesture itself.
Guys, I've done 25 years of touchscreen work. ANYONE who does more
than a few months' worth, ends up inventing many of the same gestures,
schemes, etc. Some of it is just too obvious. Some of it is not
too useful either. If you have large documents, then fingertip
scrolling gets boring and painful VERY quickly, and users opt for the
scrollbar instead. That's why iPhone has a scrollbar as well. Once
the novelty wears off, that's what you'll use.
Cheers, Kev
Alan Baker
Kevin Darling <kdar...@basit.com> wrote:
Sorry...
2004 isn't 1982.
Alan Baker
Kevin Darling <kdar...@basit.com> wrote:
Sorry...
2004 isn't 1982.
And a patent isn't an actual application of the technique.
Kevin Darling
Derek Currie wrote:
> Blah blah blah. You have no idea.
Say, this is actually getting to be fun. Ran across another patent of
interest...
Abstract of US2002030699
"A mobile phone has a display with a touch screen. The device has a
browser and is capable of retrieving a Web page from the Internet. The
page is first displayed in its entirety. The user can recognize the
page's general lay-out and presence of hyperlinks. When the user
touches a particular location on the touch screen that corresponds to
a portion of the page's image, the portion gets displayed so as to
fill the display's area. Thus, the user can browse the Web with a
display of limited size. "
Sound familiar? Of course, you could get around the patent by making
the user double-click, or ahem, use a pinch-open gesture.
The upshot is, while Apple has actually obtained a few gesture patents
in the past (notably, one where a slashing motion across a screen
creates a new note entry), so have lots of other people and
companies. Users can only hope that patent wars stay far away,
otherwise we'll never have consistent interfaces across devices.
Cheers, Kev