Is Dell Following Apple's Patents Closely?
As the New Year Kicks off, we see that Dell is out of the gate quickly with a new Multi-Touch tilting display that mimics a concept that Apple first introduced in a patent published this summer. In fact, it was Apple's number one patent of the year. Dell's new design is to dramatically improve on their first generation All-in-one multi-touch design so as to allow users to relax their hands when typing or moving pictures around on screen or to simply play some awesome games with a friend. The new design could provide Macites with a glimpse of what a new iMac Touch could principally deliver if Apple so chooses to bring this to market. But at the end of the day, it's the PC Copycat that beat Apple to market once again.
Dell's New Tilting Multitouch Display Video
Apple's iMac Touch Patent Concept
A Collage of Dell's Tilting Multitouch Display
Is Dell Mimicking Apple's Patent Concept?
Apple's patent was published on August 23, 2010. That just happened to be the very same day that Dell's Susan Beebe decided to sign up to Follow Patently Apple's Tweets. Is that a coincidence? That's for you to decide, but it sure looks like Dell and other industry players are following Apple's every patent move. Lee Iacocca once said: Lead, follow or get out of the way. I see that Dell has decided to play the follower. And a quick one at that!
At the moment, Dell's unit is restricted to being a stand-alone display. We'll see if they extend this to their all-in-one PC later this year. In September of 2010 we pointed out that Dell would beat Apple to market with a convertible notebook even though Apple had such a unit on the drawing board for two years. Dell may not be able to invent cool stuff in patents, but they're really becoming a lightning bolt at copying great ideas that they see. Here's to hoping that Apple's better ideas will see the light of day this year.
Update Feb. 7, 2011: HP has now joined in on the tilt-display desktop design.
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