*** WARNING! HIGH DEGREE OF PROBABLE POINTLESSNESS! ***
Oh, where to begin?
If your overall point was that USB is an open standard and the iDevice connector isn't, I'm not going to argue. Nor have I argued against that point. I don't even see the point of the comparison, though.
Apple, all by itself, developed the iPod, and did enough unique engineering on its connection port that they were able to patent it. I'm not sure why one should think Apple, after designing it on their own, for their own use in their own products, is obligated in some way to make it open to all potential competitors.
As I said, if a company could re-engineer the port and make compatible devices without violating Apple's patent (or is it more than one?), Apple wouldn't have anything to say about it, legally. But as I also acknowledged, the effort would be pointless. So yeah, the iPod connection port is a closed system.
Now, as anyone who has gone any farther than to skim the Wikipedia page on the topic knows, the development of USB was sponsored by and agreed to by a consortium of companies, whose goal was to facilitate interoperability between their various products, as well as those of other industry players. (The actual job of developing the standard and manufacturing the first devices fell to Intel, and its invention is credited to be the work of one man, Ajay Bhatt.)
Since the whole point of its design was to facilitate industry-wide interoperability, obviously there are no fees associated with licensing it.
How are the two situations even remotely similar? |
