[MetroMan]

Macs are advertised with single button mice.

No they're not:

All Mac ads that show a mouse, show this mouse. It looks like it has one button (actually, it looks like there aren't any) but the mouse is more advanced than meets the eye. View my post that replied to yours. The mouse has sensors on each side of the top of the mouse to know which side you're clicking.

EDIT: Here's the Apple mouse:

 

[syn]

Macs are advertised with single button mice. Every display I've seen has a single-button mouse and Mac keyboards even have special button to simulate right-click. It suggests to me that Mac is not serious product, and that it does not cater to serious computer users.

It is also ridiculous to say that Microsoft "got it right" with the Xbox. The Xbox is garbage. Microsoft actually lost money on each Xbox sold. It was huge, and its original controller was huge. Just poor design overall.

It's generally accepted practice to lose money on each console sole for any console manufacturer. You eventually recoup those costs through software sales (and the hardware gets cheaper to produce too).

Microsoft has done pretty well with the 360. The original Xbox had a terrible controller at first, but they corrected that pretty quickly.

Regarding the mouse, I still don't really care for Apple's version. It still doesn't work as well as your basic two button PC mouse with a scroll wheel. From a usability perspective the PC has always made better use of the mouse and still does.

 

[MetroMan]

None of this is innovation.

That's bull. You're telling me it doesn't take vision and innovation to be living in an era with command prompt OS's as the solid standard in computing and then picking out a concept that changes all that and implementing it?

Taking technology developed by others and making money off of it is one of the main things people slag Microsoft for.

Licensing somebody's invention is a positive thing. By your definition, computers are all copycats and nothing ever done on a computer was innovative. Neither Microsoft nor Apple invented the microchip. They took a technology, developed it and made it accessible to the mass market.

Google is an incredibly innovative company. Are they less innovative for acquiring YouTUBE, a technology developed by others?

 

[syn]

That's bull. You're telling me it doesn't take vision and innovation to be living in an era with command prompt OS's as the solid standard in computing and then picking out a concept that changes all that and implementing it?

It doesn't take innovation to take an idea created by someone else and sell it as your own, with minor changes. The Xerox Alto (which included a mouse) pretty much established the form factor that Apple copied.

If Apple is innovative for doing this then so are IBM and Microsoft. Not only did the PC sport a better mouse, the did a much better job of bringing the concept to market and making it accessible to the general consumer.

somebody's invention is a positive thing. By your definition, computers are all copycats and nothing ever done on a computer was innovative. Neither Microsoft nor Apple invented the microchip. They took a technology, developed it and made it accessible to the mass market.

Then I guess that puts an end to all the 'Apple innovation' talk. If it's innovative when Apple does it it's innovative when any company does it.

Google is an incredibly innovative company. Are they less innovative for acquiring YouTUBE, a technology developed by others?

That doesn't make them innovative, it makes them smart. What would've been innovative is developing the concept in the first place.

My point is that many supposed Apple "innovations" really aren't that innovative at all.

 

[MetroMan]

Well, I don't agree with you. In my opinion, innovation is having the vision to see the world differently, to be able to diverge from the status quo.

The mouse and the GUI may appear to be obvious ideas today, but back then people were calling Apple nuts for doing something different. Their "1984" Superbowl commercial plays off that quite nicely. "Computers are for engineers and for scientists" they all cried. Command Prompt was the norm. Why use this pointing device? Lemmings follow proven concepts. Innovators see a good idea and have the courage and talent to develop it.

Apple didn't "copy" Xerox. Steve Jobs visited Xerox, liked the concept and licensed the idea. Bill Gates had also seen Xerox's idea and chose to continue developing MS-DOS.

After Apple proved the concept, Microsoft got on board to develop an office suite for the Mac platform (MS Office) so they got an insider look at the Macintosh OS and eventually took all those proven concepts and released Windows. This famously resulted in the decades drawn Jobs-Gates feud.

 

[Steve_D]

Neither Microsoft nor Apple invented the microchip. They took a technology, developed it and made it accessible to the mass market.

Neither Microsoft nor apple developed the microchip, nor did they make it accessable for the mass market.
Read up on Gary Kildall if you want to know who started the ball rolling.

 

[syn]

Well, I don't agree with you. In my opinion, innovation is having the vision to see the world differently, to be able to diverge from the status quo.

Xerox are the ones who saw the world differently. Apple, at best, took care of the 2nd half of the equation.

The mouse and the GUI may appear to be obvious ideas today, but back then people were calling Apple nuts for doing something different. Their "1984" Superbowl commercial plays off that quite nicely. "Computers are for engineers and for scientists" they all cried. Command Prompt was the norm. Why use this pointing device? Lemmings follow proven concepts. Innovators see a good idea and have the courage and talent to develop it.

By this definition of innovation then Microsoft, IBM, etc. were/are innovative too.

Apple didn't "copy" Xerox. Steve Jobs visited Xerox, liked the concept and licensed the idea. Bill Gates had also seen Xerox's idea and chose to continue developing MS-DOS.

The point is that they took a developed concept and used it for their own products. The GUI, form factor...all were Xerox innovations. The designers at Xerox were the true visionaries. Apple and MS benefited from their ideas.

After Apple proved the concept, Microsoft got on board to develop an office suite for the Mac platform (MS Office) so they got an insider look at the Macintosh OS and eventually took all those proven concepts and released Windows. This famously resulted in the decades drawn Jobs-Gates feud.

The Mac OS with a GUI was released in 1984. Windows came out 1985. Xerox had proven the concept (at least in Apple's eyes) which is why they wanted to use it. MS saw where the GUI it was going and released their own version a year later. You could argue that MS was the true innovator, creating an OS that could run on many different system configurations and helping to make the computer a truly accessible mass market device.

 

[smuncky]

EDIT: Here's the Apple mouse:

i would hate to use that mouse for a couple of hours. it's not even shaped for your hand.

 

[afransen]

I've used it. I can understand the appeal of the trackball, but I can see unfamiliar users being bewildered by random things happening when you put too much pressure on things that aren't obviously buttons.

 

[MetroMan]

nothing happens if you touch the mouse's right/left sensors. You have to press down. You'll hear/feel a click.

 

[syn]

The trackball on the Apple mouse is great, otherwise it isn't a very good mouse.

 

[DENTROBATE54]

No they're not:

That looks like the new crapola computers they retrofited into one of my school's tech labs. I found using them very impractical as they were typecase-sensitive, took forever to load pages (and the spinning pinwheel of doom didn't help), and would often preform involuntary tasks I didn't command. I also found the mouse difficult to maneuver with it's lack of a scroller which resulted in several wasted minutes of lost time with the mouse only moving in a vertical or horizontal path.

Adding attachments was also confusing (USB cables, earphone ports, disk drive). Lastly the software was totally out there for my MS office-wired brain. Having to make sense of it's non-Internet Explorer format, where every successive webpage loads into the exact same dialogue box was annoying as hell.

To that I prefer the simple semantics of Windows. My friend bought a new computer with Vista loaded on it a few months ago as was confused by its lack of reverse compatibility. What happened was that he had to re-download several of his old XP files from the internet (Download.com) in order to have them on his hard drive. Me, I'm glad I stuck with Windows XP !!

 

[unimaginative2]

Dentrobate, the poor performance issues would be caused by the options that your school chose. They probably went with a pretty low-end model for their lab. You'd get used to the different operating system pretty quickly if you used it regularly.

That being said, I'm thinking of getting a new laptop sometime soon. I'm willing to spend a fair bit, and performance and durability are two big priorities. I've been a lifelong PC user, but I'm seriously considering switching to Mac because of some good recent experiences and horror stories about Vista. I figure that I'll have to get used to a new OS with Vista anyway, so I may as well just go with Mac OS rather than a poor imitation. On the other hand, I'm wary of some of the compatibility issues with Macs and I like knowing exactly how everything works on a DOS/Windows based machine. Any of the computer experts around here have any thoughts? I've had Dells until recently, but I don't think I want to go with them because of a long string of problems (4 power cables in one year!)

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

maybe an off topic question..

do applications have to be coded for touch screen interfaces to work with them?

 

[syn]

Dentrobate, the poor performance issues would be caused by the options that your school chose. They probably went with a pretty low-end model for their lab. You'd get used to the different operating system pretty quickly if you used it regularly.

That being said, I'm thinking of getting a new laptop sometime soon. I'm willing to spend a fair bit, and performance and durability are two big priorities. I've been a lifelong PC user, but I'm seriously considering switching to Mac because of some good recent experiences and horror stories about Vista. I figure that I'll have to get used to a new OS with Vista anyway, so I may as well just go with Mac OS rather than a poor imitation. On the other hand, I'm wary of some of the compatibility issues with Macs and I like knowing exactly how everything works on a DOS/Windows based machine. Any of the computer experts around here have any thoughts? I've had Dells until recently, but I don't think I want to go with them because of a long string of problems (4 power cables in one year!)

What will you be using the laptop for?

I would recommend looking into the Lenovo Ideapad line. The 17" model has a full keyboard, Blu Ray drive, Penryn chip and one of the hard drives is swappable. The only downside is the screen resolution (1440 x 900).