Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

everything-i

macrumors 6502a
Jun 20, 2012
827
2
London, UK
Nope. Forstall was a trouble-maker whose screw ups started to outweigh his contributions. I really doubt he's on any list, short or long, to return for any position, much less CEO.

This is probably very close to the actual reality of the situation. After all, the projects he headed were all over the place when I got the boot. Maps was probably the final nail in his coffin.
 

Delegator

macrumors member
Feb 13, 2008
35
0
It is easy to forget, 6 years after the original iPhone and with so many competitors copying it, how big a step forward it was. Go back and look at the original iPhone reviews and you'll see what reviewers were looking at...we don't even think about handheld devices in the same way anymore.
 

kdarling

macrumors P6
I'm assuming this is not the bounce back/rubber banding patent but something different?

It's the scroll lock patent. You know, where a swipe can either move the screen around, or just do a vertical or horizontal scroll, depending on the angle.

(Judge Posner did not like this patent because it had no angle ranges. Pretty vague patent in some ways.)

oh, snap - Apple just got a nuclear weapon!

Nope.

... a massive 364-page patent with 293 pages of drawings dating back to September 2006 and covering many details of the original iPhone.

You'll actually see a lot of the same drawings and pages used in multiple Apple patents, as their standard background introduction.

Steve Jobs is listed as the first of over two dozen inventors on the patent, and it is considered perhaps the most famous ...

Which is weird in a way, since it's neither the most well known (like slide-to-unlock) nor important iPhone related patent. But it was the first people saw with all the drawings, and with Jobs name ceremonially listed at the top along with former SVP Forstall, so that made it famous.

...of his over 300 credited patents.

Interestingly, 85% of those are ornamental design patents. Such as the look of the Mac Mini, where he's listed among a dozen others.

Besides the patent shown in this thread, the few utility patents where he was listed first, included one for the Off slider, and one for an icon changing shape while being dragged.
 

liavman

macrumors 6502
Sep 22, 2009
462
0
But as noted by FOSS Patents, the USPTO has now completed its reexamination of the patent and ruled that all twenty claims have been confirmed as patentable

Eric, I wonder if you really meant to include the word 'but' in that sentence. That sentence is not contrary to the previous sentence.
 

Mark Booth

macrumors 68000
Jan 16, 2008
1,658
495
Jobs had the vision to see where the puck was going to be and skate to it. There were NO guarantees that the iPhone would be a success. Jobs literally bet the farm on the iPhone, a gamble that has paid off to titanic proportions.

On the other hand, Samsung (and others) haven't truly innovated a damn thing in the multi-touch space. They keep skating to where the puck was a few moments ago and, along the way, steal Apple's ideas.

This will all be tied up in the courts for many more years to come. But it's becoming increasingly obvious that, ultimately, Samsung, Google and their ilk are going to have to pay the piper.

It's too bad that Steve Jobs didn't live long enough to enjoy the final outcome. But, today, I'll hoist a cold one in Steve's honor for having the balls to see the future and gamble his company on making it happen!

Mark
 

gnasher729

Suspended
Nov 25, 2005
17,980
5,565
Ive is the new Steve

Ive is the old Ive.

Steve had a strategy that worked and demonstrated to the world that it worked. That's his legacy. Tim Cook will be following that strategy (no matter how many analysts say it is wrong). Mistakes are made, like hiring the wrong guy to run retail which it seems is now being fixed. Some people turn out less effective than hoped and have to leave, like Forstall.

But as long as Apple stays with it's strategy, they'll be fine. If Ive left, they'd have enough money to hire someone who is almost as good, or maybe even just as good, and can be convinced to _not_ make a name for himself by changing everything.
 

See Flat

macrumors member
Oct 24, 2007
85
0
Scott Forstall is the #2 listed inventor. I know it sounds conspiracy nutty..... so he can return later ... as Steve Jobs #2, returning to fix the mess.
I know. Nutty.

Totally agree on the Nutty part.:apple:
 

Piggie

macrumors G3
Feb 23, 2010
9,175
4,104
7 years is just ridiculously long. I hope Apple can use this to smack Samsung up the head.

Indeed yes.
I'm sure you would love to live in a world where Apple had zero competition to any of it's products.

How far back do you think we would be in such a world?
 

Shasterball

Suspended
Oct 19, 2007
1,177
751
The design patents Steve was on his name was usually listed first. The ones he's not on, the names are listed alphabetically.

Lol. Seems like it. Though the order really has no effect. Other than the patent being called the "X" patent where X is the first named inventor.
 

Gemütlichkeit

macrumors 65816
Nov 17, 2010
1,276
0
Indeed yes.
I'm sure you would love to live in a world where Apple had zero competition to any of it's products.

How far back do you think we would be in such a world?

Or you living in a world where IP are all used and abused and innovation takes a back seat.
 

mateus

macrumors regular
Sep 30, 2007
101
2
Bottom right icon says "user-created widget". Was this to be a Dashboard style widget that never got implemented?
 

MikhailT

macrumors 601
Nov 12, 2007
4,582
1,325
This doesn't make the patent "stronger," so it may be best to correct that error. But it is a strategic victory for sure.

What they meant is that it is now more difficult to invalidate the patents, thus making it stronger for Apple to resist companies trying to invalidate the patent, like they've tried to do with many other Apple patents.

Once it survives the reexamination process, it is very rarely that it'd get challenged again later with extremely low chance of total invalidation.
 

kdarling

macrumors P6
7 years is just ridiculously long. I hope Apple can use this to smack Samsung up the head.

They already did.

This was one of the two patents that Apple used to get Samsung's (old) phones recently banned from import.

However, Samsung has used a different method for at least the past year, so I believe that it doesn't affect models made (or updated) since then. (I'm not sure, but I think that Apple is disputing the workaround.)
 

furi0usbee

macrumors 68000
Jul 11, 2008
1,790
1,382
This doesn't make the patent "stronger," so it may be best to correct that error. But it is a strategic victory for sure.

What?? Of course this patent is now stronger. There is no error. What, Samsung/Google are now going to challenge it in court after it's been reaffirmed for all 20 claims? Apple can walk into court with a valid patent, with what amounts to a full overview. An affirmation that the patent is good and valid.

Yes, it's MUCH stronger now. Suing Apple on any of those patents will be pretty much fruit(apple)less from here on out.

Go Apple!

So pre-iPhone 1, Apple was stealing ideas from Motorola, Nokia, Blackberry, et al???? No Apple was creating ideas (and patenting them).

Go Steve!

Bryan

----------

Bottom right icon says "user-created widget". Was this to be a Dashboard style widget that never got implemented?

Don't we have something like this now, where we can put a bookmark icon on the home screen?
 

jayducharme

macrumors 601
Jun 22, 2006
4,611
6,279
The thick of it
I know it sounds conspiracy nutty but I still think Scott wasn't 'forced out' but strategically put out for a 'time in the wilderness' so he can return later

That's not too farfetched a thought. Jobs was a big proponent of making technology "friendly" by giving human interfaces a human component. I'd bet that he loved Forstall's focus on fake leather and stitching and flipping pages. All those details made the iPhone feel "friendly" and relatable.

While Ive's design is more artistically coherent, that fun human element is gone and the technology now somehow feels a bit "colder."
 

Casiotone

macrumors 6502a
Oct 12, 2008
825
111
It's the scroll lock patent. You know, where a swipe can either move the screen around, or just do a vertical or horizontal scroll, depending on the angle.

(Judge Posner did not like this patent because it had no angle ranges. Pretty vague patent in some ways.)

I remember that the scroll lock was triggered much more easily in early versions of iPhone OS/iOS, which was sometimes annoying. But I think they went too far the other direction and these days I often find that the scroll doesn't lock horizontally/vertically as expected even if I did scroll in a straight line.
 

kdarling

macrumors P6
LOL I wonder why...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24567049

Samsung offers to end mobile patent wars

They're just not going to ask for injunctions if a licensee is negotiating in good faith. Which was their position all along.

"Samsung has offered to abstain from seeking injunctions for mobile SEPs (standard essential patents) for a period of five years against any company that agrees to a particular licensing framework," the European Commission said in a statement.

"Enforcing patents through injunctions can be perfectly legitimate, said Joaquin Almunia, the European Commission's vice-president in charge of competition policy.

"However, when patents are standard-essential, abuses must be prevented so that standard-setting works properly and consumers do not have to suffer negative consequences from the so-called patent wars.

"If we reach a good solution in this case, it will bring clarity to the industry,"
he added.

-BBC

The problem was, some EU judges were saying that SEP injunctions were okay no matter what, while the EU Commission kept quiet for a long time, then suddenly decided injunctions during negotiations were bad.

So the question is, was Apple negotiating in good faith? The EU Commission leans to thinking that a single negotiation, even if a while back, counts.
 

kdarling

macrumors P6
"User-created widget" Hmm

They even listed a "Widget Creator Module", which is interesting:

widgets.png

It's really too bad that Jobs killed off Hypercard, and did not want an interpreted programming language ability on the iPhone.

Feels like he wanted to keep control over both apps and app revenue.
 

Pyrrhic Victory

macrumors regular
Feb 6, 2012
152
0
Notice how Scott Forstall is #2 on the list, while Tim Cook, Craig Federighi, Eddy Cue, and Jonathan Ive aren't on the patent at all. It goes to show who really was in charge of innovation at Apple, and why it has slowed to a glacial crawl once he got sacked.
 

Tiger8

macrumors 68020
May 23, 2011
2,479
649
They even listed a "Widget Creator Module", which is interesting:

View attachment 441417

It's really too bad that Jobs killed off Hypercard, and did not want an interpreted programming language ability on the iPhone.

Feels like he wanted to keep control over both apps and app revenue.

Maybe it was dropped for Simplicity? Maybe hardware was not on par? Power issues?

And hey, if I come with something like the iPhone, you bet I will want to milk it and have full control over it. This aint' a charity lol
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.