Apple announced their iPhone 5 and iOS 6 along with a couple of new iPods today. I hope they do well and sell a lot of these devices.

I just want to say something about the new stuff they have added to their products. A bunch of these are available through third party apps. Some of them are already on competing platforms.

Here are some things that comes to my mind…

1. VIP contacts in mail client is pretty much inspired from Priority Inbox in Gmail
2. iCloud Tabs is clearly inspired by similar feature offered by Chrome and Firefox
3. Panorama feature has been available through apps and is a native feature of Android
4. Apple Maps of course uses the same navigation system offered by Google Maps

It is clear that Apple borrows a lot of features from rivals products and apps from third party developers. None of these are Apple’s own innovations. I do not see Google going after them claiming that Apple stole these features from their own products and services. Companies copy features from competitors all the freaking time. Apple is no different. But when they claim that features on their own products are their own innovations and others are stealing them, it sickens me especially when they are not even that original.

A few of the features they claim to have innovated that comes to mind are: slide to unlock and universal search. They used patents related to both of these functionalities to block sales of Android devices. And both of these are not original from any angle. Google it and you would find enough proof that these features did not appear on Apple products first.

HTC and Samsung are two companies that have suffered the most from Apple’s lawsuits. Both of these companies have LTE related patents that could be used to sue Apple. And they are probably going to do exactly that in the coming days now that the iPhone 5 features LTE support.

I do not want them to do so because LTE the next generation mobile internet technology and it needs to be supported by all new smartphones and tablets in the market. But going after Apple is something I would fully support if it ends up giving them the much needed leverage to protect themselves from similar lawsuits from Apple.

The fact is that Apple might claim to be an innovator and inventor of new technologies and ideas and whatever… They steal things from other companies just like every other tech company out there. They need to stop behaving like that annoying kid that refuses to bowl after getting out just because he owns the bat!