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First of all, I'm against Apple's abuse of the patent system just as much as the average slashdotter, though I also think they're on similar footing with every other company. Not that this makes what they're doing good, but that's how the game is played these days.

However, I do feel the need to address this particular point:

> Everything they've "invented" is nothing but mashups of technologies that already
> exist in software frameworks made by people other than Apple.

Yet, for some reason, no one else on the planet has been able to combine these existing technologies as well or as successfully as Apple.

The iPod was not the first MP3 player, but far and away the best selling for ten years. The iPhone was not the first smartphone but it has over half the industry's profits with just 1/20th of the market. And then Apple came along with the iPad and sold more tablets in one year than the whole rest of the PC industry had sold in the previous (almost) decade.

When you say "They are a decade late to the smart phone race, but they claim to be the most prolific innovators in the market." -- can you look at this slide of what were the state-of-the-art smartphones at the time of the iPhone's release and really claim that Apple was not an innovator in the smartphone market? If not, can you explain why every single major manufacturer now makes phones that strongly resemble the iPhone?

If Apple is "just" stealing everyone else's ideas and adding no value to the mix, then their success ought to be easy to replicate, right? Or maybe you're wrong, and they are doing good work, and you're just unable to see just what it is they're doing.

And if you think all their success is "just" because of good marketing--well, that oughtta be easy enough to replicate too, right? Just go find a good marketing company and give them some money, right? Hell, if cigarette companies can sell things that will kill you, selling anything can't be that hard, right?

One other point: your claim that "they steal from the open source community" is flat out wrong. (At least in terms of what matters to the open source world--there, "stealing" means "using and not giving back." "Using" alone does not equal "stealing") Ever heard of WebKit? Apple started out with KHTML, drastically improved, it, and released it. A little company called Google also uses it.

A few individual companies suing each other over patent disputes is one thing. When Apple is going out and suing ANYONE who has anything to do with an Android phone (which is raping the iPhone in sales and market share), that's using litigation over innovation.

An oldie but a goodie, this graphic should be updated but it shows the problem doesn't lie with Apple but with the general state of mobile computing at the moment. Everyone is suing everyone else, a side effect of mobile being the most competitive business out there at the moment (a good thing.) Apple is just more visible because everything they do is news, apparently.

As to Android "raping" Apple in marketshare, all Android manufacturers combined have 38% of the market while Apple by itself owns 27% of the market and a whopping 50% of the profits. That's a pretty comfortable position. Worst comes to worst, long term they end up with something resembling their mac marketshare now, another profitable business if not a cash-cow.

As for innovative products? I'm not sure what you're talking about when they make minor improvements to hardware without adding new features (usually - they did finally put a front facing camera on) and copying OS features from other mobile OS's..... I had an iPhone a couple years ago when it was the best and most innovative thing out there - now it's not, so I moved on.

That's the Apple Way(tm), great leap forward followed by incremental improvement. That's why they spent a decade tweaking the iPod and why you find people who don't get it bitching about the (perceived) lack of new features in OSX releases. What Apple don't do is feature bloat, in many cases they even prefer to cut rather than to add. Personally I like it but many don't, especially the more hardcore spec-obsessed geeks. Thing is, taking away things and improving the UI and user experience is also innovation. For an example look no further than Google Search's famously uncluttered interface which was innovative in its portal-riddled day (though possibly accidentally so.)

If Windows Phone 7 turns into the best mobile OS with the best hardware next year, I'll ditch Android for WP7. I'm not a fanboy - I go with who's producing the best product for the best price. Sadly, Apple fails on both counts - but I blame that on Lord Jobs arrogance in knowing that he can literally sell dog shit with an Apple sticker on it (iShit) and fanboys will pay hundreds of dollars for this (literally) useless piece of shit. Why innovate when your core customer base is so religiously devoted to you that they will always unquestionably buy anything you tell them to?

Saying you're not a fanboy (I really hate that word, it's the "nigger" of the geek world), and then spouting off nonsense like "Lord Jobs", "iShit", "religiously devoted", etc doesn't jive. Keep it rational and factual. You and I have a different idea of what makes up the ideal smartphone that's all. All these insults just confuse and inflame.

These are coordinated attacks on Google

BWAHAHAH you actually believe that BS underdog story they recently put out? Did you know Google bid on those very same patents which they now say are being used to attack them? What do you think their board of directors would have insisted they do had they actually spent the approximately $4 billion required to win the auction? Sit on them?

Two more bits of food for thought:

1. - Google is actually in competition for owning the worst patent ever, beating out Amazon's 1-click for stupidity and triviality.
2. - Apple and other mobile manufacturers have been on the receiving end of a lot more lawsuits than Google. It's par for the course in the industry.

I am sure Google is not happy about having failed to win the patent auction (on which they bid billions), but pretending like they are some kind of innocent victim is nonsense. They should have just bid more.

Isn't Apple trying to claim ownership of the word (abbreviation) "app"?

And I am pretty sure it would be hard to put this news in a light that wasn't anti-Apple.

I am one of the most anti-Apple people out there. I own a very old iPod I bought from a friend for $30 and I love the device but I hate the software so I use my own GPL software to access it. I will never buy an Apple product first hand. I will never buy their software and I will never develop for them. But I don't let that get in the way of facts about current news.

I personally feel like all the major phone makers were playing nicely until Apple joined and then someone kicked the patent hornet nest. If I recall correctly, Apple sued Samsung first but Samsung has since retorted with a patent lawsuit against Apple and as far as I'm concerned there are very few innocent players in the mobile phone market these days. It is my opinion that Apple's design (ornamental?) patents or look and feel patents do disgust me more than other functional oriented patents ....

Chart of who is suing who in mobile. It's war out there and the gloves are off. What is amusing is that people are only bitching about Apple like the little hypocrites they are.

Here's a nice chart of who is suing whom in the mobile industry. Everyone is suing everyone else over anything and everything.

Someone has reworked the diagram to give a clearer picture of what's going on

http://news.designlanguage.com/post/1252039209