Was the iPod Accessory Port Inspired By a 40-Year-Old Camera? 263
An anonymous reader writes "While Samsung has been accused of repeatedly borrowing everything from Apple's hardware, to packaging and accessories, it appears that all current iDevices share a port which is very similar to one found on a forty-year-old Polaroid camera. It gets more interesting when you realize that camera was the 'supreme achievement' of a man Steve Jobs idolized. Edwin Land was the creator of the Polaroid camera and, if Steve Jobs obsessed over Land's devices the way many do with iPhones, etc. today, there's a chance this similarity is not a coincidence."
Why not? (Score:2, Interesting)
It wouldn't surprise me in the least that a look/feel would be emulated, especially if the designer were idolized. It might even be a sort of design Easter egg, the sort of in-joke that only those in the know would get as funny. Like font jokes, which are only funny if you use the fonts every day.
Re:wow (Score:2, Interesting)
Jobs in same interview: (his own words) "We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas."
Jobs in 2010 interview: "We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours."
Hypocritical? You decide.
I believe we're past the customary mourning period, so it's back to business as usual. It's been 3 days and no sign of a resurrection yet, so maybe he wasn't the Massiah after all.
A worthy role model (Score:5, Interesting)
He was probably the greatest developer of optical and photographic technologies in American history. I'm particularly fond of him for designing the folding ultra-high resolution cameras that allowed the U2 spyplane to photograph objects at 2.5 foot resolutions from 60,000 feet up. Those cameras were refined into those used on the blackbird (80,000 feet and resolution high enough to see the stripes on a parking lot) and those used in satellites. These cameras were, of course, was just one of many achievements in his field.
Anyone with those kind of standards would have been a god to Steve Jobs, I'm sure.
Re:The idolism is suffocating (Score:3, Interesting)