Keep Trying Scoble, You're Bound to Think of Something

Microsoft gets so much grief for copying, I think, because they're so blatant and bad at it. They're like Gus Van Sant remaking Hitchcock’s Psycho: the camera angles are the same, but the spirit is dead. Meanwhile, Apple takes ideas and makes them (like 3M!) better, reinventing the idea with their own particular style.
Robert Scoble thinks this is unfair. Frankly, if I were a former Microsoft blogger with his insight into the company I'd probably feel the same way. Often times Microsoft has taken an Apple idea and made a cardboard copy, but Apple's not exactly the innocent waif either, fast user switching being a great example.
However, I think his comparison between the Xbox 360 and the upcoming "iTV" to be ill conceived. The Xbox is a computer, thinner than normal, but nonetheless inside the case is everything you would expect from a gaming machine. However, iTV is different, it's a discrete device that ties into ability the rest of the network should already have. The iTV has more in common with a Sonos and is really an evolution of Apple's Airport Express.
The difference is subtle, but important.

Microsoft is making another version of the MCE box: a complex system capable of a myriad of different tasks; Apple is making a toaster. A toaster that plays video.

[Update:] Apparently, Apple's been working on an idea similar to the iTV as early as the mid-90s; the device was the "Set Top Box." Microsoft gets a cookie for the XBox and the implementation, but I still think Scoble needs a better example than this one.