Haha, that is good. 

Might be that Apple had a look at BEO. It is known that Jobs was a big fan of BEO. 

Perhaps rather than "stealing" this was a case of a design element being used because it was just in the mind of the apple person, who used/saw B&O products for some time.

There are some things that are hard to design completey uniquely -  and a wheel, be it an icon, control or an actual wheel is a good example. 

That design also looks a bit like the BBC clock design of the 70's. 

Imagine if every car made was deemed to be a rip-off of the 1st Model T by Henry Ford....just because it used wheels..... after all, they are round, ones, at each corner, with an axle.....its so obvious.   plus, there was a seat for the driver.   ALL cars are derivative. !!

The wheel on the bcom 6000 ( maybe even the MCP) is said to be the inspiration behind the first ipod wheels.... maybe, but either it was just round and a similar size, or Apple did enough differently behind the scenes for it not to be theft ( or did B&O not register the mechanism fully, to prevent "theft"  ?? )

Either way, you can hardly blame apple for adopting (legally) the best options aavailable for design elements.

The loading icon was also used on a reel to reel player my dad had in his office once. That might have been pioneer. 

Interesting find jon especially in the light that apple thinks that android is operating on stolen ideas. 

It always amuses me when Apple accuses any one else of stealing ideas, considering Apple is based almost entirely off ideas stolen from Xerox PARC and others themselves.

The whole Apple vs. Microsoft argument basically boils down to who managed to more successfully develop ideas stolen from Xerox.

Quite uninformed comment there, Jeff. You might want to code up your history quotient a touch. The Xerox Parc canard's getting boring - the real story is a lot more telling, and interesting.

Having someone using the spokes of a wheel, or the hour bars of a clock as a rotating count-down seems too obviously generic to be called imitation or theft. But I'd say that Apple's present generation of devices has borrowed extensively from the B&O expression that Jacob Jensen created and David Lewis therefore hated. Ive's also been known to be a great fan of Braun design, as evidenced in more instances than one.

BTW - the wheel for the dial actually comes from a Braun transistor radio, which predates both B&O and Apple.

Here's a first hint, Jeff:

The closest thing in the history of computing to a Prometheus myth is the late 1979 visit to Xerox PARC by a group of Apple engineers and executives led by Steve Jobs. According to early reports, it was on this visit that Jobs discovered the mouse, windows, icons, and other technologies that had been developed at PARC. These wonders had been locked away at PARC by a staff that didn't understand the revolutionary potential of what they had created. Jobs, in contrast, was immediately converted to the religion of the graphical user interface, and ordered them copied by Apple, starting down the track that would eventually yield the Lisa and "insanely great" Macintosh. The Apple engineers-- that band of brothers, that bunch of pirates-- stole the fire of the gods, and gave it to the people.

It's a good story. Unfortunately, it's also wrong in almost every way a story can be wrong. There are problems with chronology and timing. The testimony of a number of key figures at Apple suggests that the visit was not the revelation early accounts made it out to be. But the story also carries deeper assumptions about Apple, Xerox PARC, computer science in the late 1970s, and even the nature of invention and innovation that deserve to be examined and challenged.

That may be, but it did not stop Apple from then filing rather specious lawsuits over products they claim they invented and then patented.

1. The "Soap Bar " lawsuit: Anything that looked or acted like a mouse was Apple's product and could not be used without royalties paid.

2. The " Colour " screen Lawsuit. Mozaic had also been invented and patented, but again Apple claimed again it was an Apple invention and patent.

There is a historical pattern of this most recently here in Europe regarding Samsung and Apple. It is clear if one wishes to read very long and boring legal transcripts that many Patent Jurists listen to the PR arguments presented in court, rather than actually reading the actual details of the patents themselves. That might be too long and difficult for them to do.

Please do not take this as a crticism of Apple itself, which has clearly revolutionized our world in this Century. If B&O made the naive mistake of not making a patent registration, and Apple then did so later with the IPOD, that is a mistake B&O surely regrets. But it is more than refining an original product or component into a better one, as the Japanese were known for regarding quality.

This is something else when one takes credit and claims royalties in court, for legal patents very strongly documented by other companies and their hard working employees many years before.

One wonders what might have happened to the IPOD if B&O had actually registered and enforced a patent on the wheel control it originally came up with.  B&O missed the Ferry on that one sadly, but good for Apple and the IPOD.

soundproof wrote:

But I'd say that Apple's present generation of devices has borrowed extensively from the B&O expression that Jacob Jensen created and David Lewis therefore hated.

I'm not so sure that Lewis hated the Jacob Jensen design. 😕 One of the first audio products that Lewis designed -the Beocenter 2200 was very much inspired by Jensen. And f.ex. the Beosound 9000 looks like it could have been designed by Jensen. 

WOW!! I was just being 'tongue-in-cheek' with my OP!!

It seems I've opened Pandora's Box 😂😂😂