Much of the mainstream tech press was critical of the iPhone 4S when it was announced, and John Kheit argues that they got it wrong. From the physical properties to Siri, John believes that this device will be a huge success.

With the news that Steve Jobs is stepping down as CEO, it seemed a good time to look back at the many innovations that the man has been a part of since he first rose to prominence with the founding of Apple Inc. John Kheit counts 16 revolutionary products and services, which works out to not quite one every other year. [Update: Added Desktop Publishing/LaserWriter to the list.]

Steve Jobs should step down as CEO and quit.  It would be the best thing he could do for himself and Apple. The mentally challenged tech press, pundits and analysts covering Apple are going to give him and Apple no peace, and most every single article regarding the company and its CEO, from here on out, will harp on, allude to, and/or call into question his health...

Apple Computer has applied for patents covering metadata management, according to Bill Slawski, who uncovered a series of Apple related patent applications in commenting on this reporter's most recent column.?Two of the patents in particular seem to provide broad coverage.

Apple Computer was granted a patent application on Tuesday, May 10th, for a device whose Illustrations clearly indicate it to be a tablet-style Macintosh

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recently issued Apple two patents relating to speech. Apple has been granted a patent for a "Combined dual spectral and temporal alignment method for user authentication by voice." Apple has also been issued a patent application for "Assigning meanings to utterances in a speech recognition system"

Two Apple patents issued on April 29, 2003. Apple filed for a patent application for a "Methods and apparatus for handwriting recognition" on May 23, 1996. The other is for a patent for an "Adaptive throughput optimization," which was filed on October 6, 1999

In addition to Apple's patent application on dial-enabled mouse described in today's Devil's Advocate column, two other Apple patent applications have been published by the USPTO on April 24, 2003. Apple filed for a patent application for an "Intelligent interaction between media player and host computer" on October 21, 2002. On September 26, 2002 Apple filed a patent application for a "Method and apparatus for accelerated scrolling"

John Kheit debunks John Dvorak's latest pitch for Mac OS X for Intel by applying some simple "napkin math" to the scenario. Though many will wish otherwise, basic economics just don't support the idea of Apple licensing Mac OS X to Wintel vendors

There are few good reasons for programs to strew files all over your hard drive; since OS X's release, however, more Mac users have to deal with programs that install in ways they cannot control. In contrast, one of the few great things about older versions of the Macintosh operating system was the practice of encapsulation. What the hell am I whining about? It's the Mac OS X equivalent to Windows .dll hell, something about which many Windows users have spent long hours complaining

Following up last month's article editorial regarding the iPod, it seems that Intel is introducing a new cell phone chip (see video). This single, low-power chip includes the functionality of a 300 MHz processor, 64 MB of RAM, and a digital signal processor. Such a chip would allow for the multitasking of general PDA functionality, cell phone operations, and digital audio/video recording and playback.

Lest you think I was discriminating against Apple in my examination of that company's patents, let's take a look at the brilliant designs, network technology, and Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems cooked up at Microsoft. These include both design patents and utility patents, which have two entirely different meanings. Please refer to my explanation on those differences, and how they may apply to Apple, for more information. In the meanwhile, enjoy the breathtaking and innovation shattering ornamental designs below, along with some vexing patents on such things as digital rights management

Never say never. I certainly never thought I would be writing an article about patents for The Mac Observer, but here we are. My last article on the subject drew a little bit of attention, and I think may have caused some confusion over the different kinds of patents that exist. Hopefully, this piece will help make the issues a little more clear

Apple has been busy patenting everything under the sun it seems, and some of those patents may promise interesting things to come. Others might make you stop, scratch your head and ask "huh, you can do that?" If you want to see the full list of Apple's published patents and pending patent applications, just visit the US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO). For those that don't crave reading through hundreds of patents, here's a quick patent round-up of user interface, program, hardware, and otherwise interesting developments from Apple

John Kheit says that for a company calling itself a provider of digital hubs, Apple has a glaring hole in its product line. This hole is one what must be filled if Apple is to succeed in this field