Read more here http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/11/idUSN1E77A1MX20110811
All this seems to be over the Android .
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Apple going after Google in tablet spats?
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Read more here http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/11/idUSN1E77A1MX20110811
All this seems to be over the Android .
Apple doesn't need to go after google/Android. Java is doing that for them.
Not to mention that the manufacturers aren't giving Android the best consumer experience, with old versions of the OS, lack of updates to the OS and crappy UI's. And then there is the constant malware and virus issue with the Android marketplace.
Apple is going after other OEM's it feels violates their patents and vice versa. This is nothing new.
Not to mention that the manufacturers aren't giving Android the best consumer experience, with old versions of the OS, lack of updates to the OS and crappy UI's. And then there is the constant malware and virus issue with the Android marketplace.
Apple is going after other OEM's it feels violates their patents and vice versa. This is nothing new.
This all seems to be over the Android for some reason.More than any thing else.
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Apple and Adobe are in a dispute that why no flash support but Adobe is supporting Android and Apple is mad.
This line of rationale just doesn't fit with what we have seen. If Apple doesn't innovate and is just sue happy, then why did the mobile mp3, phone and tablet market follow Apple's lead? Why did every PC maker follow Apple's lead on the use of a mouse, USB, Thunderbolt and the deletion of the floppy drive (and soon the Optical drive). If Apple isn't leading the way in the computer industry, I wonder who is?
Andnot every PC has had the same look and feel since 1981. The Commodore series looked nothing like the standard pale yellow plastic boxes of the time with Windows 2.0 on it. Apple came out with the all in one candy colored see through PC's in the 90's. Not every PC has had the IBM feel to it prior to now.
Why did Apple follow everyone else's lead by making a smartphone and tablet that uses apps and displays their icons in a grid? Why didn't they leap over everyone and create an air gesture, face reader and voice recognition system?
It's always cheaper and easier to do what everyone else has done, to use what everyone else has created a communications infrastructure for, to use chipsets and displays that others laid the groundwork for, and to just do an incremental move instead of a leap.
Nothing Apple or any other company has done could exist without standing on the shoulders of others.
As for following Apple's lead in this case, I think it's partly because no one else thought that people would go for such a tightly controlled environment. Heck, other companies spent years having to comply with FCC regulations on being open to any app from any source. Apple simply skipped over those times a decade ago.
I can't really see how critiscm can be shown to any company looking to ensure that any innovation they hold the patent to is not protected.
I don't think this is about stifling competitors, but more so not letting other brands profit from your inventions which you have developed.
Otherwise patents bare no value, and in a dog eat dog world would only lead to inventors being used for the biggest dogs to steal from. If android has stollen a lot of key features that are patented ..... Then maybe they need to ensure they remove such patents from their software or work out a deal today whichever patent holder they are using.
I don't think this is about stifling competitors, but more so not letting other brands profit from your inventions which you have developed.
Otherwise patents bare no value, and in a dog eat dog world would only lead to inventors being used for the biggest dogs to steal from. If android has stollen a lot of key features that are patented ..... Then maybe they need to ensure they remove such patents from their software or work out a deal today whichever patent holder they are using.
Apple stopped Samsung from shipping in Europe because they (apple) hold a design patent - it basically says that a device which can be curved on the back, flat on the front, have 4 equally rounded corners and displays coloured icons when switched on!
Where's the innovation in that? My TV fits this design patent. Apple should innovate and become the best of the best, not stifle competition with stupid nonsensical patents fights.
Where's the innovation in that? My TV fits this design patent. Apple should innovate and become the best of the best, not stifle competition with stupid nonsensical patents fights.
Do you recall in March how Samsung publicly stated they had to go back to the drawing board after seeing the iPad2? And then low and behold what do we see Samsung come out with in the new Tab 10.1, but a nearly identical iPad2 clone. From the overall design, 30 pin proprietary connector, lack of ports, and I love how the Samsung UI uses 'similar' Apple icons for the phone, photos, etc...
I won't evenget into the Galaxy S II being a complete iPhone ripoff. You think maybe this has something to do with why Apple might be going after Samsung?
Patent Troll: (n) pejorative
Emphasis mine.
It is worth noting here that Apple is, almost by definition, the exact opposite of what we have in mind when considering the worst abuses of Patent Law as it applies to technology.
I find tiresome the arguments that go along the line of "yeah, well Xerox Parc developed the mouse first" or "Microsoft had shown a tablet computer back in 2000" so "Apple really just copies what others had done first."
These arguments are tiresome because they miss the essential point: Apple's innovation was in putting together the various components in a manner that was accessible to typical consumers. Its like claiming that Leonardo da Vinci ought to have been awarded a patent on tanks and helicopters because he drew pictures of them back in the Renaissance. Answer: No, he shouldn't - because he was unable to make the devices actually work.
Emphasis mine.
It is worth noting here that Apple is, almost by definition, the exact opposite of what we have in mind when considering the worst abuses of Patent Law as it applies to technology.
I find tiresome the arguments that go along the line of "yeah, well Xerox Parc developed the mouse first" or "Microsoft had shown a tablet computer back in 2000" so "Apple really just copies what others had done first."
These arguments are tiresome because they miss the essential point: Apple's innovation was in putting together the various components in a manner that was accessible to typical consumers. Its like claiming that Leonardo da Vinci ought to have been awarded a patent on tanks and helicopters because he drew pictures of them back in the Renaissance. Answer: No, he shouldn't - because he was unable to make the devices actually work.
Let's see Apple try and tell Microsoft they can't make tablets early next year shall we?
Pick on someone your own size
Yeah, cause we all know how awesome Microsoft has been in the mobile arena. They've had over a decade to work on a tablet and they just might get us a working prototype by 2013. With Ballmer in charge, m$ has zero chance of threatening Apple. WP7 anyone?
oh god I'm sick of all this legal patent bs. also tired of the apple fanatics and the fandroids passionately defending companies that don't give a damn about them. it's pathetic
Apple also had a decade to work on a tablet, and during that time they gave us... well, absolutely nothing. At least Microsoft tried a few things. Then Apple finally came up with something good after all that time.
As Apple proved by waiting so long to get into the smartphone and tablet market, the past doesn't always matter. The present and future does.
With Ballmer in charge, m$ has zero chance of threatening Apple. WP7 anyone?
WP7 is pretty cool. It's the kind of innovative UI that we should expect from Apple.
While I don't like Ballmer, and I really didn't like him dumping the Courier project, he was smart to partner with Nokia. Might give WP7 the jump start it needs.
<sigh> There are few villains and even fewer heroes in all of this. The patent system as it applies to technology is simply broken. Period. Apple is no more and certainly no less culpable for trying to use the patent system to gain an advantage over its competitors than their rivals.
I don't have a dog in this fight but the notion that Apple is a white knight striving to offer innovative consumer products while its rivals are crass copycats seeking to profit from others' ideas is the fantasy of a twelve year old. Suits and counter-suits are tactical weapons designed to support negotiations for power and $$$.
I don't have a dog in this fight but the notion that Apple is a white knight striving to offer innovative consumer products while its rivals are crass copycats seeking to profit from others' ideas is the fantasy of a twelve year old. Suits and counter-suits are tactical weapons designed to support negotiations for power and $$$.
Or maybe the iPod changed the mp3 player market, the iPhone changed the smartphone market, the iPad changed the tablet market, and according to Intel the most compelling direction for laptops is the MacBook Air-like ultrabook form factor.
Apple isn't the only innovator in the tech gadget industry, but I think you'd be hard pressed to argue that they aren't a major one.
Corporations don't offer innovative consumer products out of the goodness of their hearts. They do it to make money. They invest resources into coming up with that innovative product to make money on it.
I have never believed that Apple is the white knight and everybody else is a crass copycat. I do believe, however, that Apple isn't doing anything wrong. Apple invested resources into developing the iPad and growing it into a successful product. Apple has every right to protect the fruits of their investment. And it's not like Apple is sending out henchmen to go and threaten the families of Samsung executives. They are using legal tools that every entity has at its disposal, including Samsung.
And that's why I didn't argue they aren't a major innovator. Apple is a very impressive firm, a giant in consumer technology. That doesn't make the firm a hero fighting the good fight for the benefit of consumers. Their business model is basically indistinguishable from that of IBM in 1970. (Hint: They, too, were and are a "major innovator.")
Hello guys, I'm a regular reader and had to post for the first time 'cause this is the most non-sensical patent infringement ever. I'm a hardcore MacOs user/fan, won't even dream of switching back to any other PC, but I'm also a happy owner of a Galaxy S.
Basically, what kevinof states and is voted down by rabid fanboys for, is exactly the content of the patent. Bear in mind, as technofiles and people that appreciate technology, a free market and innovation, that the same hypothetical "design patent" could've been issued years ago for a different class of products:
"Battery operated device with a hinged screen connected to a keyboard that can be closed as a clam-shell, the top part being the monitor and the bottom part housing all the components of a personal computer under the said keyboard and input interface."
What Apple sued Samsung (and Motorola) here for is the tablet form-factor. And there's no other way to make a tablet, just as there is no way to make a notebook other than what my "design patent" states up there. The fruition of this lawsuit means that the evolution of the tablet, from which Apple users also benefit as a whole, is halted and under Apple control. If that were the case with laptops, we'd all be paying US$ 2.000 for an IBM 286 today.
The real question is, why was such a patent approved? I don't particularly approve of what apple is doing, but as long as the system allows crap like this to be protected, you will get companies protecting crap.
In my exodus from At&t, I've had a Galaxy S phone which I hated and eventually traded for a HD7. Yes, a Windows Phone 7.
I couldn't say the UI is innovative. It's more like a smart phone for the baby boomer generation, complete with large keyboard, large tiles and simplified UI choices. It's the smart phone for people who don't want their phone to be smarter than they are. It's more like a TomTom or other GPS than any other smart phone on the market.
Don't get me wrong, I do see raw potential in the platform and some choices in its design that reflect a strong understanding of current smart phone market. It's just not there yet and has a lot of catching up to do before winning more praises. And it's that growing gap between WP7 and the rest of the market that makes it hard to prop the platform up as something of a game changer.