Oddly enough, you could accuse them of, once again, stealing ideas from Xerox PARC
Some people criticize Apple for this, but I think I'm actually quite okay with it to an extent if you think of this as just a natural example of science & engineering working hand in hand to make cool stuff.
Xerox PARC did the science, Apple is doing the Engineering. It's not really much different than basic R&D in materials science and physics modeling getting turned into a bridge or a skyscraper. Or basic academic research in medicine becoming the next billion dollar drug.
A side question is, with these kinds of R&D shops now quite rare (Microsoft Research and....) and seeing how Xerox and AT&T not able to capitalize on their research, what does this mean for the modern version of these places? Is some other company going to just come along and build what Microsoft is researching today? Or is there a chance for one of these companies to actually benefit from these paradigm shifting revolutions in research?
Some people criticize Apple for this, but I think I'm actually quite okay with it to an extent if you think of this as just a natural example of science & engineering working hand in hand to make cool stuff.
Xerox PARC did the science, Apple is doing the Engineering. It's not really much different than basic R&D in materials science and physics modeling getting turned into a bridge or a skyscraper. Or basic academic research in medicine becoming the next billion dollar drug.
A side question is, with these kinds of R&D shops now quite rare (Microsoft Research and....) and seeing how Xerox and AT&T not able to capitalize on their research, what does this mean for the modern version of these places? Is some other company going to just come along and build what Microsoft is researching today? Or is there a chance for one of these companies to actually benefit from these paradigm shifting revolutions in research?