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Thom, chill man. You're way to anti-Apple. Everything has some degree of prior art, but the move from a PDA (stylus based UI) to a modern smart-phone (finger based UI) was started with the iPhone.

Sure, you can argue that there were tablets before the iPad, but even considering the insane amounts of PR and money Microsoft pushed into the concept, it still took an iPad to make them common. Apple really worked to make their devices usable by average humans, regardless if it's the iPod, iPhone or iPad and everyone, even if there were similar products before, they were mostly market failures.

Everyone argues that for each individual element there was prior art, and they are right, but the balance of elements is the unique part. Think of it this way: before the Prius, there were no hybrids, right? Well, as it turns out, most diesel train engines from the 60's onwards are hybrids. In the 30's Porsche designed a hybrid car, etc.

I still consider the iPhone to be the reinvention of the modern telephone, just like Prius is the reinvention of the car (although it's a sucky car by itself).

Given the argument that the right balance is the one making the difference, you can imagine that Apple spent hundreds of thousands of man hours for the first iPhone. The web is full of stories of Jobs sending everyone back to the drawing board countless times. Jobs was correctly infuriated by Google when, after years of trial-and-error at the "Apple Labs", Google comes with something so similar to the iPhone. This is especially infuriating since Schmidt was on the Apple board and had pre-release access to the iPhone information.

Stop buying into the obvious argument as it's BS. Everything was obvious AFTER someone came up with it. BEFORE being obvious, it was next to impossible. The real art in coming up with a good product is to come up with exactly what everyone already needs and the market doesn't cover. What everyone needs is always obvious, but still requires development and research. And if you believe in patents (I personally don't, especially not in their current format), getting payed for your R&D that produces obviousness is a must. Since the rules of the game are FOR patents instead of AGAINST, why shouldn't Apple get money out of it?

'Nuff said!!!

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