The backlash begins…..

Well it was only a matter of time…..

Following Apples Keynote speech at the WWDC2001 on Monday it was inevitable that someone important from a rival would put fingers to keyboard and have a pop at Apple.

This is a result of lots of new features that Apple announced to be included in iOS 5, an awful lot of which look very similar to existing features being used by other phone operating systems- I think the word being banded about is ‘copied’ !

In this instance is is Joe Belfiore, Windows phone program director at Microsoft, tweeted about being ‘flattered’ at the features being added to iOS, and goes on to list how they are existing features in Windows phone 7 or already revealed for Windows 8.

Screen grab of twitter below:

Here are some of the features he mentions:

  • Notifications. The new iOS system is very similar to both Android and WP7 with a notification at the top that can be dismissed easily.
  • Ergonomic keyboard. The split keyboard is very similar to the one Microsoft revealed in Windows 8 and their original ‘origami’ tablet from 2001.
  • Built in Twitter. Microsoft is supposed to be building twitter into ‘Mango’ for WP7.
  • Wifi Sync. iOS 5 can sync wirelessly to mac or pc, WP7 can do this via it’s Zune client.
  • Camera button. iOS5 can use the volume button to take a picture and has a lockscreen shortcut to the camera, both are part of WP7.

 

Now, some of those mentioned are stretching it a little, Mango isn’t out yet, neither is Windows 8 – I haven’t listed all the features mentioned for that reason – but he does have a point.

Will anyone else pipe up? Andy Rubin from Android or Mike  Lazaridis from Rim/Blackberry ? Both have good reason to mention features on their OS’s that have been copied.

Personally I’m not a fan of Apple, but you cannot deny when Apple do something they do it well and force others to raise their game, so copied features or not it has to be good for us the customer in the long run.

My only issue with Apples new announcements is that some App makers will see a sudden drop in sales as Apple have effectively build a version of their app into the operating system of iOS5, inevitable I suppose but unfortunate for the makers of the affected Apps.

Source: Winrumors

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