What an ad hominem you start your post with, Fireman15. You denigrate me before you even start, making me "cute." to belittle anything I said. Nice try.
I post actual facts, often with links to the those factual data. You do not, posting your unsupported opinion ex cathedra. You claim your history from the sixties and seventies as proof of your expertise. I pre-date you in technology. . . and have owned a tech business for over 40 years supporting both Apple and Windows tech. I have followed it far closer than you.
You don't use Apple products and don't know them intimately at all. You repeat myths and false reports as if they were absolute truth despite them being debunked multiple times and frequently by authoritative sources.
You claim things for your predecessor devices that are simply not the same as what the Apple does. . . equating tech that is completely different merely because you want it to be the same, while all reviewers say it is NOT, pointing out the degrees of improvements Apple has made, so much so that Apple was awarded a patent for the improvements. YOU, and you alone, claim it does not deserve that patent, wanting desperately for it to be a mere slight improvement, not a technological change. You denigrate the work and the invention that had to occur for multiple inputs to be sensed simultaneously and for software to take action differently than a single sensed touch. "Oh," you say, "its easy to do." It was not, or everyone would have done it. They didn't. They'd been trying to perfect a system for two decades and had not been successful. Apple was.
I challenged you to come up with a predecessor phone that had a large multitouch screen. You point to a MP3 player/DVD player with a 4.1" single touch resistive screen. Right, sure. It was NOT responsive to the challenge. It was not a phone and it was not multitouch. You point out Multitouch NON-SCREEN PADS as if they were somehow responsive to the challenge. . . when they are not. . . even though that was a technology bought by Apple and used on their laptops. It was still NOT a transparent screen that linked the multitouch to the image beneath it which is at least an order or two magnitude of technological difficulty to accomplish that you, in your ignorance, called "simple."
You live in the delusional world of extreme Apple hate. It makes you believe anything negative about Apple without considering the actual facts. You will ignore those actual facts in support of your version of events, no matter how irrational your versions are, or the fact that evidence from the period, and contemporary commentary from authorities in the field do not support your version of history.
I've been maintaining the FreeRepublic Apple Ping List far longer than the iPhone has been in existence, fireman. I posted and pinged the list to articles on the history of the iPhone during the time before you started posting on these threads and am intimately familiar with ALL of the articles, reviews, and commentary on the tech that was available and the complaints and features of the other phones that were available before, during, and after the introduction of the iPhone. I HAD smartphones before the iPhone. . . I helped clients with their smartphones. So don't tell me about my degree of expertise on these devices.
I've programmed a complete accounting package including payroll from scratch and designed and programmed a client intake and management database package, as well as inventory control packages, also from scratch. And, in response to another attack question you posed in another thread, I've built computers from components up, and in fact, back in the mid-1960s as a high school student, I've actually made my own transistor from the silicon, doing the doping by hand, working on a project with Bell Labs. YOU are a dilettante in comparison.
Instead of constantly attacking Apples competition, you and the rest of those who admire Apple's products should be thanking Samsung, HTC, Microsoft, and all of the other corporations whose competition has caused Apple to reach for greater and greater technological achievements. Instead yours and Apple's mottoes have been, “All is fair in Love and war.” and “A good offense is the best defense.”
Excuse me, but I am not "constantly attacking Apples (sic) competition. . .", nor do I see Apple enthusiasts constantly doing it, but you and a few other Apple haters are constantly attacking Apple. I have been rebutting YOUR constant invasions of Apple threads.
You don't find me making attacks on the competition in dayglored's Windows threads or ThunderSleep's Android threads bad mouthing those platforms, yet here you are, day-in-and-day-out bad mouthing and attacking Apple with everything you can throw at the wall, true or not, in Apple threads. In fact, you find a lot of people attacking Apple users with epithets like "fanbois," "Apple sheep," "Stupid Apple-Sheeple," "true believers", and "Apple idiots," merely for our choice of what platform or phone we choose to use.
I've been a publisher, an editor, and a published author, writing reviews on computers, mobile devices, and software . . . so, fireman15, I do know the history and the capabilities and the limitations of these predecessor devices.
The Apple's competition are those who have taken the idea that a “A good offense is the best defense,” not Apple. That is the one Apple originate patent infringement suit. The rest have been the other direction, usually from non-practicing patent trolls who have usually bought non-useful, marginal patents and are trying to monetizing them by stretching one or more of their claims into something that Apple is actually using under one of their or another licensed patent.
Here is a link to the BGR article with a SCRBD of the entire 132 page Samsung Memo of instructions from management to their designers on how to copy the iPhone, proof positive that resulted in the original patent infringement judgements that are STILL wending their way through our glacial courts, and Judge Lucy Koh's blockades to Apple ever getting the case finished:
132-page internal document shows how Samsung set out to copy the iPhone pixel by pixel
The original jury judgement was $1.3 billion. Judge Lucy Koh, a South Korean American, on her own keeps trimming that judgement, after originally arbitrarily forcing Apple to cut the number of infringed patents from over 60 down to just 6. . . just because she did not want to try that many, not because Samsung had not infringed them. Now Koh, again on her own, has determined the case has to be retried despite the US Supreme Court ruling in Apple's favor apparently because she did not like the Supreme Court's decision.
You don't use Apple products and don't know them intimately at all.
I own and use current Apple products on a daily basis. And I have said on many occasions including in the thread you just responded to that many current Apple products are amazing.
I post actual facts, often with links to the those factual data.
Much of the time you include no links in your posts. I often include links in my posts sometimes from multiple reputable sources. Any that do not agree with your point of view, you either completely ignore or make a blanket statement calling them “garbage” or worse generally with no specifics.
You claim things for your predecessor devices that are simply not the same as what the Apple does.
You have made frequent claims that Apple has been the first to do many things and when your claims are refuted you move the goal posts and claim you meant something else. Historically Apple has not been the first to market with devices that do new things... they try to make it easier for the non-technically minded to take advantage of features that others have pioneered.
You live in the delusional world of extreme Apple hate.
That is completely untrue. Would an "Apple hater" say, "The modern iPhone and many other Apple devices have become technological marvels." Those were my words in the post you are responding to. As I said just above I own and use Apple products on a daily basis. I have made attempts to correct the record when you have made false or exaggerated claims about the history of Apple products. Your adherence to the truth is very tenuous whenever you are challenged and your frequent use of Alinsky like tactics is very disturbing.
I have been rebutting YOUR constant invasions of Apple threads.
This would seem to be a good example of your constant exaggerations. Anyone here can go through my posting history and verify whether or not I am constantly invading Apple threads. We had an animated argument on a recent thread and I am the one who started this thread. I am not sure how long it has been since last time that I commented on another Apple thread before these two. I think that it has been awhile.
Swordmaker, I admire your knowledge of Apple products; you are the undisputed champion when it comes to knowledge of Apple products on this forum. But when it comes to devices from other companies you have made many posts that seem to demonstrate that your knowledge of those devices is very limited. Is this because of lack of knowledge or are you just willing to exaggerate and lie to make a point? Actually I already know the answer to that question because you have lied and exaggerated about me and in previous posts you have lied about what I have said. Not that you would care, but you have lost my respect.
have owned a tech business for over 40 years supporting both Apple and Windows tech.
I've been maintaining the FreeRepublic Apple Ping List far longer than the iPhone has been in existence, fireman.
I've been a publisher, an editor, and a published author, writing reviews on computers, mobile devices, and software.
I've built computers from components up, and in fact, back in the mid-1960s as a high school student, I've actually made my own transistor from the silicon, doing the doping by hand, working on a project with Bell Labs.
I've programmed a complete accounting package including payroll from scratch and designed and programmed a client intake and management database package, as well as inventory control packages, also from scratch.
I HAD smartphones before the iPhone. . .
It might take awhile, but I am pretty sure that you told me previously that there were no “smartphones” before the iPhone, or something very similar. LOL...
You seem to have a very impressive background. I will not rehash my qualifications for you at this time. Suffice it to say that... our experiences are eerily similar in many ways. One of the things that you do not seem to realize about my level of experience is that one of the reasons people go into firefighting is that the schedule allows one to pursue other interests and opportunities.
My question to you as one of the preeminent Apple experts in the world, or at least FreeRepublic... is... with your vast qualifications why do you find it necessary to be so nasty to anyone who disagrees with your view of the world? If one goes through your posting history they will find that nearly every time you have a disagreement with anyone... you generally resort to insults and exaggerations immediately. If references are cited you almost always and ignore the message and attack the messenger You definitely have a take no prisoners mentality.
With your vast qualifications one would think that you would post facts and links supporting them more frequently than resorting to insults and other derogatory remarks. But this most certainly is not the case. I think that you would benefit greatly by spending a day rereading the vast history that you have created. A little introspection might be one of the best things that you could do for yourself. Is this really the legacy that you want to leave here? Whether or not you believe this... I present this as honest criticism and not an attack or continuation of our differences.
This is just another good examples of your mischaracterizations and lies about what was said in another thread with no link so that people could verify.
I was not responding to any “challenge” from you. The device had no DVD player. DVD players of that time period had screens that were 7”, 8” or larger, and I do not remember any from that time period having touch screens. You are obviously not even familiar with them.
I did remember the original reason that I purchased the device. It had a slot for full sized SD Cards and I could take them directly from my digital camera which had optical zoom and advanced features. I could pull the card out of the camera and view the pictures that I had just taken or play slide shows on the device. The screen was significantly larger than that on my phone or my digital camera.
Here is what I actually said about it:
"I also have a “MP4 Player” which I purchased slightly before the iPhone came out which had removable storage and was capable of playing a wide variety of music and video files. It also could play video games and had other features as well. The screen was quite a bit larger than phones of the day. It was some type of Chinese device that had a lot of eccentricities but it was a capable device that was more inexpensive than a name brand “MP3 player”"
"I was trying to find it so I could post a few pictures of it. I wouldn't claim that it looked like the iPhone or had the iPhone’s build quality, but it was shiny, black, had a 4.3” screen I believe with large icons, was thin and was rectangular with round corners. I bought it simply to have an inexpensive media player and entertainment device with a decent sized screen that would play videos that I downloaded when away from home."
How does that square with what you claim that I said?
From article 63 of 66 at
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3597907/posts?q=1&;page=51