^ I don't know if you can say one person/company came up with it since the basic building blocks have been around for awhile (certainly longer than Android or iOS).
However, Apple did hire a lead developer from WebOS last year (who worked on notifications among other things) and also apparently hired the developer of MobileNotifier this summer, so it's not too much of a stretch to think Apple might have gotten rights to certain IP along with the hirings.
People say iOS 5's notifications ripped off Android. You could also say they ripped off Palm, WebOS or MobileNotifier too. Or you could say Android ripped off Palm/WebOS. I always LOL when someone points out a feature they've seen before and
assumes that Android invented it. Same way people think iOS was first and Android copied them. A LOT of what's inside both Android and iOS was borrowed from someone else previously. Neither of them are 100% original.
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