Grapher is the "version" of Graphing Calculator that currently ships with Snow Leopard, I don't know if it's too clumsy for quick transcription. As for TeX based stuff... I gave up in-line typesetting in the eighties for both proper layout and old-school word processing... *shudder*.

And for vitally important stuff they use the Spanish Inquisition.

I'm curious if a patent ever is a good thing for the public. it really only ever seems to do exactly this.

I mean, look at this. It's clearly Apple's IP. It's clearly a new invention.

It's also clear that Apple has already gained the competitive advantage a patent is supposed to provide, without the patent.

Which means that all the patent does, in this case, is retard progress for twenty years by preventing anyone else from beginning to compete with the iPhone. It's the difference between building new and exciting interfaces that start with the iPhone and expand beyond it, and instead having everyone else have to build ugly hacks to avoid infringing on that patent even when the iPhone is a horribly obsolete product.

Patents should last the amount of time it takes to bring a product to market. That's a year, maybe two or three. Not fifteen or twenty.