Re:Apple changed everything? Yeah, right.
by raganwald on Sunday August 28, 2011 @04:19PM
(#2934821)
You write as if Google invented web search. They made it dramatically better. But was it so much better that it changed the world? I am certain it was so much better that they killed off their competition, but somehow I don't think they were so much better that students in Peru wouldn't be using Web Search if Google hadn't come along.
Re:Apple changed everything? Yeah, right.
by patrickaljord on Sunday August 28, 2011 @04:32PM
(#2934866)
Yes, Web Search was pretty useless before Google, I was there so I can remember (and I guess you probably were there too).
I live in Peru where every student use google to get knowledge,
Sure, but if Google wasn't around they would probably be using Yahoo or AltaVista to get knowledge.
Every one of those people using Google are doing so on a system running a graphical user interface that Apple invented. In fact, it was Apple that invented the personal computer. Full stop.
You never heard about Xerox did you?
Well the question is "is the GUI that people are using today closer to the PARC GUI or closer to the Mac/Lisa GUI?"
The Apple and Lisa groups were unquestionably influenced by PARC, but a lot of the innovations that are used in today's GUIs come from Apple: http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&s...
Although, important to note that while Xerox invented GUIs, they were about to trash the project before Apple stepped in and nurtured it. Speculation about what would have happened if they didn't do this is mostly meaningless, but disregarding the promulgation and popularization of GUIs in lieu of crediting only their original inventor is totally unfair.
Actually, Xerox invented some important technologies, such as the mouse and the idea of a windowed interface, but this was not the GUI. That was invented by Apple. The xerox interface was more akin to emacs multi-document mode, there was no desktop metaphor, no file/folders organization, no trash can, the menubar was a very different conceptualization, etc.
Xerox categorically did not invent the mouse. Doug Engelbart invented the mouse in the mid-to-late 1960s. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfIgzSoTMOs for what is described as "The Mother of All Demos". As to the GUI, again PARC then Apple innovated on the original ideas of others. Ivan Sutherland is credited ad really being the first to develop the notion of the "GUI" - again in the late 60s - with Sketchpad http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOZqRJzE8xg. The Xerox interface was in fact essentially Smalltalk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smalltalk and http://homepage3.nifty.com/old_apple_world/photo/SmallTalk21...
I'll admit at the time I posted my comment, I wasn't particularly well versed in the history of computing. Thanks for the links, they are insightful.
I didn't say Apple invented the mouse or the idea of a winding UI, I said Apple invented the GUI and the personal computer.
Re:Apple changed everything? Yeah, right.
by mayanksinghal on Sunday August 28, 2011 @04:29PM
(#2934858)
But it was Microsoft that revolutionized it.
Yeah Microsoft definitely revolutionized graphical interfaces... Come on! Microsoft never revolutionized anything!
I think the service Google has done to humanity by making information accessible to all and that easily is hard to match by any company today on earth. Apple makes pretty devices, and accelerated the smartphone revolution (which was already en marche with blackberry as the article say), but on the whole, Google reached and helped (and keep doing so today) much more people than Apple ever has. Not to mention the billions of dollars Google give to publishers from India to Peru helping them make a living, not to mention Android, youtube, blogger etc.
So yes, Google has changed the world much more than Apple in my opinion and experience here and everywhere I've been.