<story><title>Apple Acquires Rapid-Fire Camera App Developer SnappyLabs</title><url>http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/04/snappylabs/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sergiotapia</author><text>&lt;i&gt;Major&lt;/i&gt; congratulations to him! What an achievement!&lt;p&gt;I wonder though: in these situations if he were to refuse the acquisition would Apple just steal his idea (NOT implementation) and bake it into the iPhone regardless? I think Microsoft did something like this, no? Any thoughts?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>miles</author><text>&lt;i&gt;would Apple just steal his idea (NOT implementation) and bake it into the iPhone regardless? I think Microsoft did something like this&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Apple has certainly done this before:&lt;p&gt;Apple Literally Stole My Thunder &lt;a href=&quot;https://medium.com/wwdc-round-up/253aed27a455&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;medium.com&amp;#x2F;wwdc-round-up&amp;#x2F;253aed27a455&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Apple rips off student&amp;#x27;s rejected iPhone app - iOS 5 lifts idea, name, even logo
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/08/apple_copies_rejected_app/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theregister.co.uk&amp;#x2F;2011&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;08&amp;#x2F;apple_copies_rejecte...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Konfabulator, Dashboard controversy flows out of WWDC
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.macworld.com/article/1035200/konfabulator.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.macworld.com&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;1035200&amp;#x2F;konfabulator.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Apple stole Karelia Watson
&lt;a href=&quot;http://forums.macworld.com/index.php?/topic/2477-apples-stole-karelia-watson/page__st__-13&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;forums.macworld.com&amp;#x2F;index.php?&amp;#x2F;topic&amp;#x2F;2477-apples-stol...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Apple Acquires Rapid-Fire Camera App Developer SnappyLabs</title><url>http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/04/snappylabs/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sergiotapia</author><text>&lt;i&gt;Major&lt;/i&gt; congratulations to him! What an achievement!&lt;p&gt;I wonder though: in these situations if he were to refuse the acquisition would Apple just steal his idea (NOT implementation) and bake it into the iPhone regardless? I think Microsoft did something like this, no? Any thoughts?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jakobe</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think that this is something he would need to worry about. Implementing complex algorithms is extremely difficult, even if you have detailed instructions (eg. from a published paper). I&amp;#x27;ve read his website before and if I remember, he only published high level details. To steal his ideas, you&amp;#x27;d need to have a similar background, and you&amp;#x27;d need to know just as much about compression etc. as he does. And even if you found someone with the right expertise, it would still take a very long time to &amp;quot;steal&amp;quot; an idea like this.</text></comment>