This post needn’t be lengthy because the concept image of the interface on Microsoft’s possibly upcoming Zune phone speaks for itself.
The image is from a patent filed by Microsoft last June, so I’m not suggesting that Microsoft borrowed the icons-on-a- touchscreen concept from Apple.
Wired thinks it’s simply a matter of “some ideas seem to have their time and pop up in different places simultaneously, just like the TV which popped up independently on both sides of the Atlantic at the same time.”