All this crap about patents and lawsuits over these smartphones makes me want to do one thing...
Go back to a normal cell phone.
I don't care for the patents/lawsuit stuff either, but I don't want to go back to
just a telephone.
I am sure there are many that would agree this is a big industry game at this point. Could you imagine a startup trying to make
the iPhone back in 2007? A startup could not have done what Apple did unless they had a few billion laying around. The moment the industry recognizes a threat from a startup, the lawsuits begin and the
startups turns into
shutdowns.
Only big companies can afford the $1-2B USD to buy technology like this. I believe we would have more innovation if small companies could play in the game too. The industry is only as innovative as Apple, Google, HP, HTC, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia, RIM, Samsung, etc. are themselves. These players all seem to work out licensing deals in the end, so the patents don't really affect the other big players; it only seems to crystallize the players. It's no surprise how the entrenched players in the industry were shaken up and angered when Apple and Google threw the balance off.
Imagine if we did away with patents for a moment... Would Apple still be doing well? I think so. At this point there are already 100 models of smart phones on the market (even doing multi-touch without a license), but the iPhone is still king of the hill. It's not what the iPhone does, but how Apple does it. The execution of the product... design, quality, usability, etc. These are all
art, not science. I wouldn't be surprised if most of the companies listed above weren't displaced by Chinese iPhone counterfeiters.