EDITORIAL: Apple's Patent Didn't Look Much Like the iPad
Posted: Sat Sep 10, 2011 1:21 am
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http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=22685
This is just Apple's way of trying to slow down their competition. Tablets themselves have been around for quite some time.Tech fans were rocked this morning by news that a German court had granted Apple, Inc. (AAPL) an effective monopoly on tablets, by banning competitors from making rival tablet designs. As usual DailyTech has some outstandingly sharp readers, who raised a couple points that were so juicy, a followup was in order.
One reader, Solandri, points to this digital picture frame created by Samsung Electronics Comp, Ltd. (SEO 005930) in 2006. Complete with an 800x480 pixel LCD screen, the device also packed 32MB of internal memory, support for SD, CF and USB devices for memory expansion, and built-in Ethernet for networking.
The device is essentially a tablet -- only, at the time Samsung referred to it as a "digital picture frame". The device was to be used as a fancy piece of digital art.
Now this device was made four years before Apple released its first iPad. And it looks virtually identical to the iPad -- and the Galaxy Tab 10.1 -- in its minimalist design.
Apple chairman, former CEO, and co-founder, Steven P. Jobs has bragged about his mastery of stealing ideas from others, stating [video], "Picasso had a saying - 'Good artists copy, great artists steal.' And we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas."