iPhony

Samsung recently lost billions in its legal battle with Apple over copyright infringement, but did you know Apple has been ripping off someone else for years? That someone is Star Trek.

Apple execs have admitted that the idea for iTunes came from Star Trek: The Next Generation, where the Enterprise’s computer has a full catalogue of every song ever made available upon request. It goes deeper than that.

While visiting the Star Trek exhibit at the PNE in Vancouver, I saw an old prop labelled, “PADD.” It was essentially an iPad, but more 90’s-futuristic. It was exactly the same size, shape, and thickness of an iPad, but all black with red lettering. There were other similar props gathered around it, but that one stood out the most to me because of the name on it. The only thing standing between that prop and billions of consumer dollars was its complete lack of functionality. On the show, however, it was shown as having touch-screen controls and video display.

If you watch TNG, you’d see how everything was operated by touch screen video display, which were prone to exploding. Oddly, when the prequel series Enterprise came out, they lost that technology, although the show is set in the future and it was available when the show was produced. The only other input device on the Enterprise was operated by voice command, which is copied by the latest technology from Apple, Siri. Siri and the ship’s computer both work exactly the same way, except the Enterprise would respond properly.