I keep hearing over and over that patents stifle innovation. That it is the iteration of innovation that creates new innovation. I’m sorry, but I really don’t think that’s true. The mark of true innovation is something that is truly innovative, not some mere iteration of someone else’s idea. Take, for example, the iPad. I would wager that no one would call the device innovative—after all, it’s just a giant iPod touch. But wait, it’s more than that. It’s an iteration of the technology used to make the iPod touch and iPhone. But it is far from innovative.
Innovation happens when someone breaks the mold. It happens when something new is created where there wasn’t something before. The original iPhone was an innovation in this regard. And, to those who hold up Apple’s past “transgressions” as proof that stealing ideas is ok, I also put forward the claim that the original Macintosh was an innovation. Sure, it used bits and pieces of different technologies that were already there. But, it put them together in a wholly new and innovative way.
Compare the story of the Mac’s creation with, say, the HTC phones that supposedly violate Apple’s patents. These devices aren’t taking what the iPhone started and making something new with them—they’re still just phones. I think Apple has every right to demand that HTC actually come up with something innovative rather than the derivative drivel that they’re pushing today.
written by Ben
\\ tags: Apple, iPhone, Tech
It’s been ten days and already a lot has happened in 2009. I’m now a graduate graduate student at Lewis University. I finally got all the photos from my October 2008 trip to Colorado onto Flickr (ok, actually that was late last year but still…). My employer has changed and now I work for “National City now a part of PNC”. And I finally upgraded this blog to Wordpress 2.7.
I plan on writing a longer post on my trip – maybe a bit of a narrative – and of course embed slideshows of the photos I took. I have a lot of raw video to go through as well but I’m waiting for iMovie ‘09 to get it all put together. I really want to use some of those cool new map transitions – Indiana Jones style!
written by Ben
\\ tags: Apple, Colorado, iMovie, Indiana Jones, Lewis University, National City, Photos, PNC, Video, Wordpress
 I listened to Episode 5 of Don Reisinger’s great The Digital Home podcast on the way home from work today. I enjoyed everything that Andy Ihnatko had to say (as I almost always do) and most of what James McQuivey of Forrester Research had to say. That is until he got to talking about the Apple TV.
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written by Ben
\\ tags: Apple, Apple TV, Handbrake, Tech
As a new Leopard user (as of today), I was very happy to see this tip. I already have a black dock.
Open source System Prefs pane by Quicksilver author “Alcor” that gives you a GUI for tweaking secret preferences, both for software that ships with Mac OS X and for third-party apps, with the information about the secret prefs coming from a publicly accessible database. (Via Chris Messina.)
? [From Secrets 1.0b13]
written by Ben
\\ tags: Apple, Leopard, Tech
Wow. Gruber quoting someone from Opera? Makes me feel less guilty that I’m an Opera for Mac user. Speaking of which, did you know that Opera has a new developer blog devoted entirely to the Mac version of the currently-in-beta Opera 9.5?
As for the quote below, while I don’t disagree with what Mr. Altman is saying, I haven’t noticed any serious problems with using Gmail’s IMAP implementation with Apple Mail for Tiger. I’m assuming Apple Mail for Leopard will work similarly well. I haven’t ever tried using IMAP with Opera’s M2 mail client although I did use it in the past as my primary POP e-mail program.
Tim Altman, QA lead for Opera Mail, on Gmail’s IMAP support:
Gmail’s labeling system could integrate marvelously with IMAP clients if only it used IMAP keywords. Instead, IMAP mailboxes are used to represent labels. All messages (sent and received) are always available in the “Gmail/[All Mail]” mailbox, so any time a message is labeled, a duplicate message is added to the label’s IMAP mailbox. IMAP clients then receive several copies of the same message, none of which integrate with the client-side labeling system. If Gmail had instead used IMAP keywords, only one message would be needed and integration would be seamless.
? [From Gmail’s Buggy IMAP Implementation]
written by Ben
\\ tags: Apple, Opera, Reblog, Tech, Web
Liveblog contained after the jump. Enjoy!
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written by Ben
\\ tags: Apple, iPhone, Jailbreak
My Apple TV finally arrived today. I ordered the 40 GB model which was shipped from China on Friday. From China. On Friday. They tried to deliver it yesterday but I had it going to my work address and we were closed for MLK day. They tried delivering it on Monday. It came from China. On Friday. Now that’s freaking amazing. Anyway, I took the obligatory unboxing photos. There’s a Picasa Web flash embed after the jump. There’s also a video that’s currently encoding on Vimeo – I’ll post the embed for that after the jump as soon as it becomes available. More on my first Apple TV impressions later. Also, I have thoughts on the Macworld 2008 keynote as well…maybe at some point I will have time to type them out.
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written by Ben
\\ tags: Apple, Apple TV, Photos, Unboxing, Video
Yes, I’m starting to get Macworld fever. I’m sure I’ll be very unproductive at work on Tuesday as I’ll be constantly refreshing the Engadget live blog for the 90 minutes following 11 AM CST. Engadget has also provided a handy Macworld-only newsfeed for those of us who feel the need to satisfy our voracious Apple appetite (or is it Appletite?). As I’ve been surveying my own feed subscriptions, I’ve come across various links relating to Apple, Steve Jobs, and Macworld and I’ve shared most of them via Google Reader’s Share feature, posting them to del.icio.us, or sending out tweets. Even so, I thought it might be nice to compile a few of them here. Enjoy.
written by Ben
\\ tags: Apple, Links, Macworld, Steve Jobs
One last post before I leave for Iowa—I promise. Here’s a new video of me “playing rough” with Angel. My Vimeo upload quota for the month is all used up, so I’ve decided to try Viddler which I’d signed up for back in July but never used after I decided the inline comments were more annoying than anything. Although they do have revenue share…. Find the video embed after the jump.
In other news, the most excellent Brett Terpstra is now a blogger on TUAW. Way to go, Brett!
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written by Ben
\\ tags: Apple, TUAW, Video
Know someone with a new iPod or iPhone? Apple’s newly released iTunes Tutorials may come in handy. Heck, I might even learn something.
written by Ben
\\ tags: Apple, iPhone, iPod, iTunes
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