Writing for Tech Opinion John Kirk answered several critics lamenting that the company did not announce anything new at WWDC14 and most of the features in iOS 8 were inspired by Android:
“What is it with our fetish for first? Where did we ever get the notion being first was all that mattered and — perversely — that nothing that comes after “first” matters at all?
Tech is not a race. It’s not some Olympic event, where you run 100 meters, cross the finish line, everybody jogs to a stop, and then you get awarded a medal. No. In real life, the tech race goes on and on forever.
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If you’re a company that’s CREATING the technology — like Apple or Google or Microsoft or Amazon — you still have to wait for the technology train to pull into the station. But if you want to control that technology, you might have to actually anticipate where technology is headed and BUILD the platform first. And you’d darn well better hope you guessed right and built your platform at the right place and at the right time. Otherwise you’re going to be as lonely as a developer at a Microsoft Kin convention.
Maybe an even better metaphor is a wave. Tech is like many waves coming together to form one massive wave. To ride that wave, you have to time it perfectly. Too soon and it crashes on top of you. Too late and you are left behind. But catch the tech wave — catch it just right — and you can ride it all the way to wealth and fame.”
I believe that Android fans’ obsession to point out that Apple is copying or is being inspired by Android stems from the fact that Steve Jobs has labelled Android a stolen product. Steve’s opinion on Android has been argued many times before and I’m not going to do this here. But there is no denying that the iPhone was a revolution product with the most innovative software on a smartphone in 2007. It laid the foundation for many of the features you see on Android today.
John Kirk highlighted this too:
“There’s “First” And Then There’s “First”
There are many kind of firsts, my friend, and first in time is not always first in value to either the producer or the consumer of technology.
You say Android is the first to offer third party keyboards? iOS is the first to do it without allowing all of your keystrokes to be read by those self-same third-party developers.
You say Android is the first to offer inter-app communications? iOS is the first to do it without exposing your mobile device to a “toxic hell stew” of computer viruses.
You say Android is the first to allow Widgets? iOS is the first to make them a seamless experience.
You say Android is the first to allow photo backup and storage? iOS is the first to let you do it effortlessly.
You say Android is the first with a slew of other features? iOS is the first to do those same features without bringing your operating system to its knees.”
So much to being first. At the end of the day, Android wouldn’t be the operating system it is today if it wasn’t for the iPhone.
