clearsailing - product origins
I'm not sure it makes a lot of sense to head down the "yeah, but they didn't invent it". Apple didn't invent the mouse or UI that catapulted it to domination of the early PC market. Microsoft didn't invent DOS, which it used to invade and eat up big chunks of that market. Nor did it invent the windowing UI it called Windows.
Apple didn't invent iMovie (by "iMovie" I mean, of course, the REAL iMovie, not the POS they released as "iMovie '08"), it didn't invent iDVD (Spruce), it didn't invent Final Cut Pro (Macromedia), etc., etc. For that matter, Apple didn't really invent iTunes or the iPod. Somehow, I don't think it really matters where those things were invented. Apple bought them, gussied them up, then deployed them with tremendous effectiveness. Heck, you may view it as a pointless distinction, but Apple didn't invent OS X -- it bought it from NeXT.
I could care less where Google gets its ideas, its technology, or its products. It really doesn't matter if Google uses its cash reserves to leapfrog its way to being a more formidable competitor to Apple. I care only about how the battlefield stacks up in the eyes of the average consumer and where their dollars ultimately go.
It is of ZERO consolation to say "yeah, but Microsoft didn't invent Windows, and if they hadn't bought someone else's work, then ripped off and copied someone else's work, they never would have gotten 90+% share of the PC market". They did it. And that's that. And it will be of ZERO consolation or comfort to any of us if Google were to leapfrog Apple and wind up the dominant platform in the phone market, using someone else's "inventions." I can imagine it now. Everyone here saying "yeah, I would be on my own tropical island if it weren't for the fact Google grabbed up the market Apple could have had if Google didn't rip off or buy up other people's inventions."
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