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Google Looks to Distance Android from Apple vs. Samsung Ruling

vrDrew said:
This verdict is probably the last thing Google wanted to happen. And it comes at just about the worst possible time.

Lets be very clear about one thing: It certainly is possible to design a smartphone and mobile operating system that doesn't infringe on Apple's patents. None of the patents Apple asserted in this suit are Standard-Essential. And so Samsung (or HTC, or Motorola, etc.) can engineer work-arounds for the functions the jury found had been infringed.

The problem is that doing so will further fragment the Android user experience. Even if Google comes up with a workaround for "scroll and bounce back" that is better than Apple's solution, its going to require users to learn a new way of interacting with scroll lists. And App developers that make use of lists are going to have to make two versions.

The reason, IMHO, that Google warned Samsung a few years ago was because they figured that a little bit of patent infringement would probably be tolerated. That Apple would weigh the costs and uncertainties, to say nothing of the negative publicity, involved in litigation, and decide to leave Samsung alone.

Instead, thanks to this verdict, pretty much every smartphone manufacturer using Android has to be waiting for the day Apple sues them. And of the major smartphone manufacturers only Samsung (and Apple, of course) are actually making money. So the HTC's and Motorolas of the world are looking at the potential for billion dollar infringement judgements on top of a business they are already losing money on.

What makes the timing so bad is that Microsoft is making a big push for Windows Phone. All of a sudden, paying the folks up in Redmond $20 a handset (rather than getting Android "for free") doesn't seem like such a bad deal.
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How they have to workaround them when most of the patents are not part of Android AOSP?
 
shulerg said:
Samsung stole, they got what they deserved. They can easily take a $1 billion hit. Google is next.

That said, some of these patents being granted are ridiculous. The US patent system must be modified.
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I doubt Apple will go after Google. Both are HUGE companies with HUGE patent portfolios. It's like two superpower nations with an arsenal of nukes. Apple will sue google for pinch and zoom, google will sue apple for Notification, Apple sues for OS-Wide search, google will sue for voice... or whatever (don't know who has what patent). I think they will both just agree to cross license patents as Apple has done with Microsoft. I think the Samsung touched apple too closely because of the obvious copy on MANY aspects, not just "rounded rectangles" or "green call button" as I've seen people allude to on these forums.
 
Peace said:
Steve never excused Schmidt. Just the opposite.

"Also, when Jobs and Schmidt met at the cafe in Palo Alto, Jobs also told Schmidt:
I don’t want your money. If you offer me $5 billion, I won’t want it. I’ve got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that’s all I want."
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Really? As someone in the PR industry for over 20 years - let me explain how a press release like that quoted below works. If there's animosity, or "shady" reasons - the release is very short and doesn't have a quote from the CEO that is glowing in praise. If there is a quote from the CEO - it would be short and factual. And you can bet Steve Jobs wasn't the type to allow this quote - whether he said/wrote it himself or not - if the didn't agree to it.

Steve might have hated Google. But you're equating Google with Schmidt. One is a company. One is a human being.


http://www.apple.com/pr/library/200...t-Resigns-from-Apples-Board-of-Directors.html

“Eric has been an excellent Board member for Apple, investing his valuable time, talent, passion and wisdom to help make Apple successful,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Unfortunately, as Google enters more of Apple’s core businesses, with Android and now Chrome OS, Eric’s effectiveness as an Apple Board member will be significantly diminished, since he will have to recuse himself from even larger portions of our meetings due to potential conflicts of interest. Therefore, we have mutually decided that now is the right time for Eric to resign his position on Apple’s Board.”
 
LagunaSol said:
Notice even on the "touchscreen" phone he's still doing almost everything via a directional thumb-pad. :rolleyes:
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So? Doesn't dispute the fact that it's a large touch screen phone, I see that argument made here a lot, "Apple did it better than the competition, so somehow that means Apple did it first".

If the touch screen in Microsofts R & D department with the insane response time came out in mass production, could people then claim that Microsoft did the touch screen first? No.
 
tdream said:
"No it doesn't"? I'm not sure what that's meant to refer to but I'll take it as disagreement.

I agree that Apple are using/abusing a corrupt system. Much like when Apple get patents from companies that don't make products using the patent. Apple are collecting a warchest, everybody knows this. For example, clamshell phones. I don't think we're going to see a clamshell phone design from Apple anytime soon, yet they own the patent for this. Strangely clamshell has been done already, but Apple are seeking to patent it nonetheless.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/03/apple-patents-c/

It's one thing to collect patents for corporation protection, it's another to use it to sue another company. Therefore IMO Apple are patent trolls.
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Apple doesn't have a patent on the clamshell design. They applied for a patent six years ago on a double sided clamshell touchscreen device. It says so right in the article you linked to. I don't recall seeing the market awash with double sided touchscreen devices back before the iPhone came out. Do you?
 
samcraig said:
Really? As someone in the PR industry for over 20 years - let me explain how a press release like that quoted below works. If there's animosity, or "shady" reasons - the release is very short and doesn't have a quote from the CEO that is glowing in praise. If there is a quote from the CEO - it would be short and factual. And you can bet Steve Jobs wasn't the type to allow this quote - whether he said/wrote it himself or not - if the didn't agree to it.

Steve might have hated Google. But you're equating Google with Schmidt. One is a company. One is a human being.


http://www.apple.com/pr/library/200...t-Resigns-from-Apples-Board-of-Directors.html

“Eric has been an excellent Board member for Apple, investing his valuable time, talent, passion and wisdom to help make Apple successful,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Unfortunately, as Google enters more of Apple’s core businesses, with Android and now Chrome OS, Eric’s effectiveness as an Apple Board member will be significantly diminished, since he will have to recuse himself from even larger portions of our meetings due to potential conflicts of interest. Therefore, we have mutually decided that now is the right time for Eric to resign his position on Apple’s Board.”
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You're quoting PR spin not the truth.

;)
 
iSee said:
I can somehow guess you haven't been using the different i-devices over these 5 years.
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You know one place Apple is sort of innovating on now? Cloud. and NO they didn't invent the cloud so don't start the attacks. But they are getting people to use the cloud who had no idea the cloud even existed. My wife is using it, nieces are using it... none even had a clue what cloud computing was. so they are kind of bringing that mainstream.
 
kingede said:
Well, actually:

1.The iPhone does not have a large capacitive touchscreen (nexus screen area nearly doubles the iphone's)
2.While the iPhone has minimal number of buttons (one), the nexus doesn't (it does not have any buttons at all)
3.Android's general display is a homescreen with widgets and app-shortcuts

:)
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Oh sure, if you want to be nit-picky about it :p Besides, the GNexus actually has three physical buttons (vol +/-, power) while the iPhone has four. And "large" is relative. ;)

Even given all this, Apple still went after the Nexus using the "slide-to-unlock" patent, did they not, resulting in it being pulled from the Play store albeit temporarily? Or was it the "universal search" patent? These software patent shenanigans are difficult to keep track of! Either way it's clear it's not just Samsung/Touchwiz they have a bee in their bonnet about, it's Android as a whole. I sincerely hope they fail in their crusade to "destroy" Android but given how this lawsuit turned out, who knows what will happen.
 
sazivad said:
I don't think it tells the whole story. You should read this article to understand what's really going on here.
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A video posted in November 2007, 10-11 months after Steve Jobs demonstrated the iPhone, and 6 months after it went on sale in the US, doesn't really prove that Android planned a touchscreen phone independently of the iPhone, though, does it?

Look carefully at the touch-phone demo: he's primarily driving it using similar buttons/wheel/trackball (we can't see the controls) to the smaller device shown earlier. There are pop-up menus clearly too small to have been designed for a touch interface. It looks like only select applications are touch-enabled. Sorry guys, but that looks like a button-based OS with a touchscreen bolted on. The Android phones that were launched later kept the trackball and more buttons than the iPhone but could be mostly touch driven.

I won't cite the lack of pinch-to-zoom because it's common knowledge that early Android phones had pinch-to-zoom disabled after a warning shot from Apple. However, that's irrelevant unless there's evidence that Android had pinch-to-zoom (or even a touchscreen) prior to the iPhone demo in Jan 07.

However, what I think this does show (as do other videos of early Androids) is that although it is probable that the iPhone 'inspired' Android to concentrate on touch interfaces, that "separated-from-an-iPhone-at-birth" look is primarily Samsung's work.

(For the record: I'd love to see certain of Apple's patents thrown out, lest they are turned against small developers and websites, but it's not gonna happen while US courts still support software patents, or in a trial where both litigants are big patent holders who aren't going to try too hard to turn the jurors against patents. I've no sympathy with Samsung though - their non-3G patents are just as silly as Apple's and they copied so many cosmetic aspects of the iPhone as to be beyond possible coincidence).
 
Peace said:
what kool-aid have you been drinking ?

They ALL prove my point. Steve Jobs believed Schmidt stole from Apple. Plain and simple.

And he vowed to go "thermonuclear".
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Steve believed GOOGLE stole from Apple. Nothing you've quotes states that Steve accused Schmidt. Are you intentionally being obtuse?
 
samcraig said:
Steve believed GOOGLE stole from Apple. Nothing you've quotes states that Steve accused Schmidt. Are you intentionally being obtuse?
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What part of Steve's biography don't you understand ?

Steve Jobs was furious when he learned of Google’s plans with Android, famously yelling at then Google CEO Eric Schmidt for what Jobs deemed as being stabbed in the back. You’ll recall that Schmidt, at the time, was a member of Apple’s board of directors before resigning in August 2009 citing conflicting interests.
It’s subsequently been reported that Jobs “hated” Schmidt and recently released excerpts from Jobs’ upcoming biography appear to confirm the depths to which Jobs couldn’t stand Schmidt and was determined to destroy Android. And believe it or not, ‘destroy’ might be putting it mildly.
What truly sent Jobs over the edge was when HTC introduced an Android phone in January 2010 that housed many of the more popular iPhone features. This prompted Apple to sue as Jobs explained to Isaacson that Google’s actions with Android amounted to “grand theft.”
 
Peace said:
"Google acquired Android Inc. on August 17, 2005, making Android Inc. a wholly owned subsidiary of Google. Key employees of Android Inc., including Andy Rubin, Rich Miner and Chris White, stayed at the company after the acquisition"
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Exactly. So it's quite interesting that Apple, knowing about Android and secretly thinking of doing its own phone, would INVITE Schmidt onto their board a year later.

We know one reason for sure: Apple needed Google's help. The original iPhone would've been far less impressive without Google search, Google Maps, Google translating YouTube videos, and Google non-GPS cell id location services.

We can guess at the second reason from biographical hints: Jobs felt that he could better keep an eye and possible influence on what Google itself was doing, if he befriended Schmidt.

--

As for the common myth about stealing, Jobs never accused Schmidt of doing so while on the Apple board. Heck, he only came to the board a few months before the iPhone came out.

In fact, Jobs had nothing bad to say about Android from 2007 to 2009. Mostly, he dismissed it as a threat.

Jobs did not start ranting about Android until it turned on multi-touch in 2010, THREE YEARS AFTER the iPhone was first shown off, and over a half year AFTER Schmidt left the Apple board in 2009.

It wasn't until early 2010, after Google finally enabled multi-touch, that Jobs went ballistic over Android and started accusing it of copying. (Apparently Jobs had a mistaken belief that Apple owned the idea of multi-touch.)
 
Peace said:
What part of Steve's biography don't you understand ?

Steve Jobs was furious when he learned of Google’s plans with Android, famously yelling at then Google CEO Eric Schmidt for what Jobs deemed as being stabbed in the back. You’ll recall that Schmidt, at the time, was a member of Apple’s board of directors before resigning in August 2009 citing conflicting interests.
It’s subsequently been reported that Jobs “hated” Schmidt and recently released excerpts from Jobs’ upcoming biography appear to confirm the depths to which Jobs couldn’t stand Schmidt and was determined to destroy Android. And believe it or not, ‘destroy’ might be putting it mildly.
What truly sent Jobs over the edge was when HTC introduced an Android phone in January 2010 that housed many of the more popular iPhone features. This prompted Apple to sue as Jobs explained to Isaacson that Google’s actions with Android amounted to “grand theft.”
Click to expand...

Again - even the parts you highlighted don't indicate Jobs hated or blamed Schmidt. Apparently you have a problem differentiating hating a person and hating a company or product that company makes.

Further -"subsequently reported' - by whom? What was actually said? You're bringing attention to this statement as if there's a quote there from Jobs. There isn't.

Again- you're being intentionally or unintentionally obtuse.
 
It Is all effectively very sad. With technological evolution, improvements and solutions what strangely happens is for the World to become dehumanized. The lost harmony and cooperation between people (or corporations) is not a good thing for anyone. Defacing people's faces on street view still makes my neighbors, the friendly same-bench local bums and local cops fully recognizable to all. This, in many way pathetic race of great tech innovation with cocaine like rush deployment speed is unnecessary for the good of all, other than the profiteers. This war needs a vacation in the Maldives. Naked, barefooted, and unconditionally without common, diposable, polluting, value distorting electronic gadgets for the fooled masses.
 
Peace said:
What part of Steve's biography don't you understand ?

Steve Jobs was furious when he learned of Google’s plans with Android, famously yelling at then Google CEO Eric Schmidt for what Jobs deemed as being stabbed in the back. You’ll recall that Schmidt, at the time, was a member of Apple’s board of directors before resigning in August 2009 citing conflicting interests.
It’s subsequently been reported that Jobs “hated” Schmidt and recently released excerpts from Jobs’ upcoming biography appear to confirm the depths to which Jobs couldn’t stand Schmidt and was determined to destroy Android. And believe it or not, ‘destroy’ might be putting it mildly.
What truly sent Jobs over the edge was when HTC introduced an Android phone in January 2010 that housed many of the more popular iPhone features. This prompted Apple to sue as Jobs explained to Isaacson that Google’s actions with Android amounted to “grand theft.”
Click to expand...

I have this biography, can you point in which page I can find those quotes? The biography doesn't say nothing bad about Schmidt.

FYI, your link is before the biography was published.
 
So there is a small chance of Samsung phones not running Android in the future? I don't think Google can control who uses Android, but still.
 
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