> Viewing it as "covergent evolution" is a stretch. Blockbuster new product comes out, everyone rushes to copy them. That's exactly what happened.
I guess it's a subtle distinction, but there's a difference between just copying from Apple because you don't have any ideas of your own and responding to the consumer demand that came about due to Apple's influence. People wanted multitouch devices. Google didn't need to look to Apple to know that, you could derive it independently by doing a simple consumer survey of what smartphone consumers wanted.
Google added what people wanted and brought an OS to the market that had that and a whole lot of innovative features that the iPhone didn't. That people look backwards and only see the features inherited from the iPhone, but Android was years ahead of iOS in many other respects, some of which persist to this day.
So you're saying it's wrong to copy your competitors, but it's okay to copy your competitors when a consumer survey says "people want your competitor's product"?
No, I don't think it is ever wrong to copy your competitors ideas ... it might be illegal if you do it at the level where it infringes on trademarks, patents, etc. but there's nothing wrong with copying otherwise.
But most certainly it is never wrong to make products consumers want. That's the basic tenet that makes capitalism and the free marketplace work - that the consumer wins is the overriding principle. Anything that gets in the way of that is the problem, not the solution.
I guess it's a subtle distinction, but there's a difference between just copying from Apple because you don't have any ideas of your own and responding to the consumer demand that came about due to Apple's influence. People wanted multitouch devices. Google didn't need to look to Apple to know that, you could derive it independently by doing a simple consumer survey of what smartphone consumers wanted.
Google added what people wanted and brought an OS to the market that had that and a whole lot of innovative features that the iPhone didn't. That people look backwards and only see the features inherited from the iPhone, but Android was years ahead of iOS in many other respects, some of which persist to this day.