Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

The iPhone and Kindle are two ‘train’ devices that have transformed our modern commuting. Back in the day, we would sit on the train and not talk to each other, by reading books. These days it’s a similar situation, but rather than physical literature, we have digital.

Now, I’m not against reading on the train, but I do feel that, as a society, we have lost the skill to communicate. There are all sorts of discussions that suggest why (television, the breakdown of the family, the dismantling of the wider community, etc.), but whatever the reason, it’s not too hard to change the status quo.

Often, I have the great pleasure in catching a specific train for the ride home. I say me, but there are, of course, others on the train also. Some of these others have congregated to form, what I affectionately call, the Train Gang. The regulars are Bim, Sarah, Sue, Mark, Roger, Paul, occasionally Adrian and very occasionally other passengers who join in. It makes for a good journey, when we are all there and, without my friends, the journey would not be as enjoyable (unless I’m writing about Betty of course).

They say that it often takes a partner for success to happen and I think there’s some merit in that statement. Take Walt Disney, for instance, it wasn’t until his brother got on board (to handle the business side of things) that he was able to move away from the confines of ‘the client’. Steve jobs is another one. It was when Jony Ive joined them, and started to design the iMac (or eMac as it was then), and then the iPod, that their fortunes turned. It is because of this partnership that we now have the ubiquitous i-Product.

It was Newton who popularised the term ‘Standing on the shoulders of giants’, with reference to building on previous successes. If you will, then, I’d like to try and demonstrate how Sir Jony has been standing on the shoulders of giants, who themselves, built from previous iterations.

For instance, the B&O Beocenter 9000 has touch sensitive controls (much like the iPhone) and this came out in 1989. But we can go back further. Actually, this article suggests the inspirational contribution to the iPhone goes back thousands of years.

(An interesting side note: The spelling of Jony is only one letter difference to SONY, one of Apple’s largest rivals – I wonder if that is deliberate?)

The same, of course, could be said of the folding bicycle. Now I know that Harry Bickerton was not the first to invent the folding bike (we have to attribute this innovation to the military in WWI), but it is documented that Andrew Ritchie – the designer of a-certain-folding-bike – was inspired by a Bickerton. 

Like Newton said ‘If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants’.