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Apple Wins iTunes Interface Patent
phalse phace writes "There aren't too many details, but C|Net's news.com.com is reporting that Apple was issued a patent for its iTunes software interface on May 4. If you remember, Apple recently applied for a patent for its iPod interface as well."
Will Linspire be in trouble?
Thank god... Maybe Apple now can sue the makers of Lsongs because they completely ripped them off.
What's so bad about being lazy? What if there was a war and nobody showed up?
Maybe in their eyes, it'll keep history from repeating, when a lot of the early Apple UI elements were ripped off right and left.
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. -Thomas Cardinal Wolsey
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What's so bad about being lazy? What if there was a war and nobody showed up?
Any chance Apple is just building a defensive portfolio to keep the trolls at arm's length?
Who knows what kind of patents on music software are already out there... patent trolls line up to sue companies like Apple, and the latter can hardly be blamed for trying to insulate itself from such attacks.
Of course, if it were Microsoft, I'd be all outraged and stuff.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
How will this affect rhythmbox? For those who don't know, it's a free iTunes-alike for GNOME. I like it since mp3blaster is buggy without anyone trying to fix the bugs, xmms seems to have stopped innovating and everything else...well, sucks :)
I don't think they would get very far since command lines are used so much by so many people. If you do have a legitimate claim to IP, you must make an honest effort to protect it or you lose it. For instance, you can't develop a data structure, patent it, let everyone use it as if you had not IP rights - then after a lot of people use and depend on it, start enforcing your rights. The judge should throw you out for that. You have to show that you at least tried to enforce your IP rights from the beginning, or they are gone.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
Which, oh by the way, Apple actually paid to use...
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
Someone more lawyerly will likely correct me, but you're thinking of trademarks from my understanding. Trademarks must be protected or else they're lost. Patents however, especially as of late, you'd think were designed specifically for the rather underhanded practice you just described. Consider GIF, as the most common example.
-N
I've nothing to say here...
Rhythmbox is looks and feels close to iTune how it is going to effect it. As thay say Rhythmbox is an integrated music management application, originally inspired by Apple's iTunes
The real question is, in my mind, what they do with it. If they just use it as a defensive patent, to protect themselves against, say, Microsoft using a similar patent to shut down their music service, then I don't see the problem. If they start using it to try to kill iTunes-alikes, like juk or rythmbox, THEN its cause for alarm.
Though that leads to a second question - how specific is it? juk, at least, is significantly different from iTunes in practice, even though it looks similar and has similar functionality.
Just a few reminders of what various slashdotters originally though of the iPod before "iPods are the shiznit" became /. canon.
;-)" - jaoswald
.. "groundbreaking" I think was the term I heard them use to describe this new secret product the other day. How "groundbreaking" can something be when I can walk up the street and buy something with similar (and in some cases, additional/better) features? Sigh. One day Apple will live up to the hype. OS X is cool, and their plastic molding team has skills, but the hardware just sucks." - nebby
"iPod is a good product, but nothing to get excited over." - harlows_monkeys
"It's not cool at all. It's just another Mac attempt to have the coolest looking, hippest sounding gadget on the market. It adds nothing serious to the current options. For instance, no Ogg Vorbis support (and yes, I realize it probably decodes mp3 in hardware, but...) and it doesn't appear to be cross-platform. I guess this falls into the Dilbert principle of "the best target market is stupid rich people." Since they'll fall for anything and have the money to burn on it." - ichimunki
"...the "rose-colored glasses that you will need for this to seem like a worthwhile product. What a let-down, geez!!" - david614
"People need to realize that all apple ever really delivers is mediocre equipment that, while it may look really cool, is less technically advanced/powerfull/whatever than competing products that cost 20-25% less." - greysky
"A waste of time. Probably OEMed by someone else. Agree with the article poster - Lame. Not only is this a lackluster MP3 unit (which by virtue of being firewire will be limited to Apple Mac owners), but it has virtually no UI wizardry that might define it as an Apple product. A total waste of time." - Ars-Fartsica
"I'd rather pay $100 for a Rio Volt. 700mb of songs per CD with an unlimited number of CD's, provided you change them. Yeah, this should compete favorably with the solid state units, but they've already lost to the CD-MP3 units, IMO." - Fred Ferrigno
"I think it'll sell as well as the G4 Cube. Oops.
"And I was all excited they were gooing to release a OS X based wireless web pad. Instead we get yet another portable MP3 player
"I am very sad that Apple seems to be repeating the same mistake they made with the Cube - great, nifty product that anyone would love to own, except that it's burdened by an unbelievably poor price/performance ratio." - jchristopher (Apple shareholder)
"...this was a VERY poor design decision. This could have been a $150 device if they'd used a regular laptop drive." - jchristopher again
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
If MS or IBM did this, we'd rightfully calling them stupid, and the patent office idiots.
But apple does this and people are thrilled. As if their mom's iron lung depends on Apple getting the software patent.
Really just plain stupid. From every possible angle.
As intuitive as iTunes' interface may or may not be, that helps little for the many people who've found the application to be too slow or CPU intensive on their PCs. I'm sure there are some who can provide their own anectodal evidence pointing to the contrary, but iTunes is still a memory hog for many others.
Similar programs like Foobar or Winamp 5 barely slow down people's systems, and can even be configured to run MUCH faster. Their file sizes are also noticeably smaller. You could argue that iTunes does much more with it's iPod support, but Winamp's connectivity with the iPod is just as seamless and even has features iTunes lacks. Foobar also sports a formidable iPod plug-in.
>And yet people praise Microsoft for doing it
Only suits praise Microsoft for "innovating" (not knowing MS steals most of its stuff).
Big difference.
If the "interface" is simply how it looks then it will be covered by either:
1) a design patent
2) a trademark
But, if the interface involves more than anything just visual properties it will be covered by a utility patent.
In the case of iTunes, the parts of the layout have actual meaning. And their functionality is related (clicking on an item in one panel changes another panel). Therefore this is more than just the "look" of the item and also includes the "functionality".
Keep in mind that GUI elements like Expose can also probably be patented with a utility patent. Only things like the gumdrop buttons would not be protectable with a design patent.
iTunes for Mac ignores Apple's HIG*. Apple is an equal-opportunity HIG-ignorer. In fact, Apple has been making it a point to abuse and destroy HIG's everywhere.
What I don't understand about the Windows HIG is why everything is set up for lefties. With the kind of marketshare Windows has, it should be for righties, not to mention the fact that most lefties prefer MacOS. And stupider still, in light of the "lefties prefer MacOS" thing, MacOS is set up for righties! WTF!
* HIG stands for Human Interface Guidelines.
Patents protect a functional product, its composition and slight (negligible) differences. Software, instructions that hardware follows, is a debatable "boundary condition" for patentability, because software "simulates" a machine on another, such as a Turing "universal machine" like a Pentium (or PPC). But an API does not even simulate a machine. It is a specification, data about a "machine" (software or hardware) which interoperates with other machines. Data isn't patentable. It's copyrightable. Why do APIs get patents, rather than copyrights? Why would such a patent (or even copyright) prevent any action other than cloning the API? Even a patented Ford dashboard doesn't prevent GM from making a dashboard featuring the same interface devices, like steering wheel, speedometer and tachometer, so long as the actual parts that deliver those features are electro/mechanically different, or licensed. Why does IT suffer from stricter constraints than mechanics, especially when IT is so free from inherent constraints, to deliver better value at lower cost?
--
make install -not war
See here for a grab I just made of winamp's library.
I click on an artist and get a list of that artist's albums in another pane. Click on one of those albums and get a list of tracks on that album in another pane.
Now, did this design come out before iTunes? I don't have time to go check on the release dates, but like you said, this is a pretty fundamental UI solution.
iTunes was originally SoundJam, so although I couldn't find the original release date for SoundJam, the interface may have been developed for longer than you think