TechFold - Bold tech & web commentary

Bold tech & web commentary

TechFold is technology discussion, commentary, reviews, and opinions from well outside the valley. There's no koolaid to drink here, and TechFold is not in SL, or on Twitter.

How did time confuse evolution with invention?

It bugs me that the iPhone has been voted “invention” of the year by Time magazine. To me, an invention is something that does something fundamentally new, or does something done elsewhere in a fundamentally new way.

The last time I checked, the iPhone bundles up a bunch of well-executed ideas into a nice phone that plays music and browses the Internet in a uniquely Apple way. Nothing it does is “new” though - and though it may push the industry as a whole to rethink their offerings, its still evolutionary. A light bulb 2.0 is still a light bulb, invented by Thomas Edison, even if its red, shatter proof, lasts 10x longer, and leased for a monthly fee instead of bought outright. Was the first laptop considered an “invention?” Or just a different type of something that existed already - the personal computer?

IMHO, Time is confusing media frenzy with true creativity. Apple, for all their greatness, IMHO is best at creatively refining existing products or categories - not “inventing” new ones.

apple, inventions, iphone, time time magazine

2 Responses to “How did time confuse evolution with invention?”

Liza | November 2nd, 2007 at 3:45 am

WTF you been smoking?

Oh, yeah, there’s been lots of touch based UIs shipping over the years… appl just polished one up and put it in a pretty box…. nothing new here.

Jesus, its amazing how desperate the anti-apple trolls will get. Going so far as to redefine words.

You know, when Edison invented the light bulb, gas lights had been around for decades… so he didn’t really invent anything, just polished it up nice and put it in a more compact package, right?

Sorry, but you gotta be really fucking stupid to bash the iphone as “not an invention”.

But then, those who can’t innovate generally can’t recognize it when others do it.
Rod | November 2nd, 2007 at 8:48 am

Hahaha! Awesome - thanks for starting off my morning. Everyone’s entitled to their opinions. For an Apple hater, though, I certainly have a lot of Apple products lying around.

One response though: Edison came up with a fundamentally different way of producing light - an invention. I still say Apple’s work on the iPhone is awesome, but derivative and evolutionary. Just like they didn’t “invent” the windowing desktop-metaphor UI - that was XEROX PARC. But - Apple took a concept and ran with it better than anyone else could - which is their strength.

Its amazing the length, Apple lovers will go to to keep their pride and joy up on its lofty perch.

That being said: have a great weekend, Liza!

-R