Aside from Xerox, what large company has originated a UI paradigm or OS?
Apple bought the multi-touch stuff, MS licenses Kinect, etc, etc.
Nintondo maybe with the Wii?
Nintondo maybe with the Wii?
I didn't know that they bought or licensed the entire UI paradigm from someone else. Or do you just mean the low level parts? Because there's more to a UI paradigm than the input device. So, if it's just the screen tech that Apple bought and not the interaction software, I would count multi-touch as an Apple-originated UI paradigm, just as you credit the desktop GUI to Xerox, not Stanford Research Institute where Engelbart invented the mouse.
Also, the iPod scroll wheel is an Apple-originated UI paradigm.
That thing even let you switch between apps with gestures.
The iPod scroll wheel isn't an Apple paradigm either; jog dials for menu selection existed years before the iPod. I remember seeing it on the minidisc recorder in our school's music department.
Don't forget, other companies were still scrambling to find a legal way to clone it right up until the day when Apple released the iPhone.
Xerox had overlapping windows, a mouse, networking and Smalltalk.
Apple lost the network and Smalltalk (later to reappear as Appletalk and Obj-C) but added icons, pull-down menus and the desktop metaphor.
Apple's track record here is pretty darn good.
Blackberry for mobile texting?
We're past them now but we still see lots of bad UIs that could learn with their success. I'm thinking about the heterogeneous button layouts on Android and previous generation Windows Mobile devices.