I think the point most people like to make about Apple or any other company with regards to patents is a little different. Especially in case of Apple fans, most of them act like Ayn Rand fans. Though I agree that a whole lot of hard work is done to take things to the finishing line. And Apple is in fact a innovative company and deserves much credit for its success.
The whole point is nothing today exists in isolation. The ecosystem around you and other people's innovation play a huge role and are in many ways are responsible for your own innovations. Its a little like social security and taxes. Objectivists may argue that they must get all the pie they earn without giving anything back, because they earned it. But for them to earn it, the society and ecosystem around you- Stuff like roads, national/internal security, education, schools, industries, infrastructure ..<the list is endless>.. was already built for you. The ecosystem was conducive for you to 'earn' your pie. Without all that you would spend much of your life solving those problems first, leaving your actual accomplishments very little. Therefore if each person goes through the same thing, we go no where as a society or as a ecosystem. That is why 'giving back' is so important. Because that creates a feed back loop to achieve more as a society/ecosystem yet offering room for individual growth.
For Apple to be so successful. They had to stand on the shoulder of many giants. Even their design philosophy rests on the shoulder of a giant called Dieter Rams.
That is why their claims 'to carry the innovation burden of world' are not false but are ridiculous.
I agree that they had the what it takes to take risks. But to claim that they are responsible for all the innovation that exists out there and that they are innovating for the whole world is just ridiculous.
Certainly Gizmodo thought they were influenced by Rams [1] but that connections seems a bit stretched at points. I don't think Apple is a slave to his style. Ive is a talented designer in his own right.
That said, its not the design per se that made Apple so successful, it was Steve Jobs giving irrevocable support to the concepts he wanted built. In any other company, like here on HN, you can make an unequivocal positive statement about something and someone else will come out to tell you how wrong you are. They can be quite persuasive and influential too, and cause you to doubt your statement and lose your commitment to it.
I've been bouncing around the periphery of Steve Jobs wake my entire career, from dealing with folks from NeXT, hiring the previous head of the Newton division, "rescuing" people from advanced development jobs, working with Apple on their NFS port, etc etc. And you hear a lot of 'Steve stories' from folks. But I have never ever heard a story where someone told him, "Steve, I don't think your idea will fly." And he responded with even an ounce of doubt. In contrast I've heard lots of stores where people people said that and Steve told them they were an idiot.
Its a rare level of fearlessness that I suspect you can really only achieve when there isn't anything anyone can do to hurt you.
You see folks like Mark Pincus pull $200M out of Zynga which nets out probably north of a $100M and even at a sub-inflation return of 1.2% is $100K/month (tax free if its from treasuries). When you've got that sort of back stop, even if everyone hates you that is ok, they can't really touch you. Then all you have to do is be like Elon and be willing to throw it all away on something you believe in and people will take you seriously.
The whole point is nothing today exists in isolation. The ecosystem around you and other people's innovation play a huge role and are in many ways are responsible for your own innovations. Its a little like social security and taxes. Objectivists may argue that they must get all the pie they earn without giving anything back, because they earned it. But for them to earn it, the society and ecosystem around you- Stuff like roads, national/internal security, education, schools, industries, infrastructure ..<the list is endless>.. was already built for you. The ecosystem was conducive for you to 'earn' your pie. Without all that you would spend much of your life solving those problems first, leaving your actual accomplishments very little. Therefore if each person goes through the same thing, we go no where as a society or as a ecosystem. That is why 'giving back' is so important. Because that creates a feed back loop to achieve more as a society/ecosystem yet offering room for individual growth.
For Apple to be so successful. They had to stand on the shoulder of many giants. Even their design philosophy rests on the shoulder of a giant called Dieter Rams.
That is why their claims 'to carry the innovation burden of world' are not false but are ridiculous.
I agree that they had the what it takes to take risks. But to claim that they are responsible for all the innovation that exists out there and that they are innovating for the whole world is just ridiculous.