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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."
While software patents have become increasingly common in the past few years--leading to long and contentious strings of litigation over seemingly basic computing techniques--not all companies are taking Apple's approach.
A RealNetworks spokesman said his company had not sought any directly comparable interface patents for its 10-year-old media player software, for example.
Of course RealNetworks has not sought any interface patents! How could you patent bloat, resource-hogging, and un-usability!?!?
Not trying to be funny, but has the command line been patented yet? It seems that many companies are trying to get a piece of a very limited "interface pie". You never know, one day some scummy group may claim that DOS, xterm, command.com, a unix console and my old Wyse 60 terminal infringe on their IP.
Trolling is a art,
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?
MS pioneered it long ago.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
Because even Apple knows where the real bozos work: in the patent office.
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
Compare this to Compare this
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 :)
Which, oh by the way, Apple actually paid to use...
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
Designing a novel, useful, original UI is as difficult as any other aspect of product development in the business world. If I can patent the design of a remote control [which wouldn't send the /. crew up in arms] why is it such a logical stretch to patent the interface for a software product that has the same type of functionality? In the case of the iPod the interface is both hardware and software. Doesn't Apple deserve the benefit of developing it just like a carmaker would for a braking system or a drug company for a new medicine?
UI design is [b]hard[/b] and good solutions require careful development.
Good. iTunes definitely has an innovative design. Although Apple bought the basis for iTunes from another company (Cassady & Greene's SoundJam program, which was great), they really took it to the next level...and then the next level after that. I haven't seen an interface for a music app than can top iTunes for power or ease of use.
Electric Monkey Pants
I issue this post as a fair warning. I have a patent request pending on an interface component, called "generic power toggler", which I have ingeniously called "power switch". Anyone found using this innovative and unprecendented interface element will be sued to death
Thank you for your attention
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
Software patents are fast becoming the 21st century equivalent of a land grab, in which those with the muscle are laying claim to a resource that has up to now been firmly in common ownership.
There is only one possible outcome, I believe. This is that every corner of IT knowledge finishes as "property", whatever its origins. This would spell the end of independent software development and (rapidly thereafter) the end of innovation. We are clearly within sight of the day when writing _any_ software without legal backing in the form of a dossier of defensive patents becomes a dangerous sport.
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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.
I thought that it was decided back in the 1980's wars between Lotus 123 and others that interfaces couldn't be protected? If they could, we'd only have one legal spreadsheet program today because that was their claim, i.e. that they had created the spreadsheet interface concept and owned it.
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.
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.
Looking at the hideous ad-plastered screen for their Real Player, I'm surprised that Jeff Gordon hasn't sued them instead for patent violation.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
What become clear to me over the last few years is that the US Patent Office has descended to little more than a registry system, like copyright registration. All a patent really says these days is "I had this idea on this date."
Personally, I think the USPTO should stop claiming to even attempt to research patents. They should just take your submission, slap a date on it, and stick in their files. The USPTO clearly does not have the resources/desire/ability to verify that everything that crosses their desks are actually vaid patents, so we should quit assuming that they are and let the court system sort it out when necessary.
Life is too short to proofread.
Microsoft used the South by Southwest Music trade show that ran over the weekend to confirm plans to launch a music service later this year. The opportunity was also taken to show record labels the service running behind closed doors.
No details of pricing were given, but it has been made clear that Microsoft aims to promote the service almost exclusively through the MSN portal. Users will be able to sign up via MSN and then view the catalogue of available songs for purchase and download. The amount of music that will be available is also unknown, but a Microsoft spokeswoman stated the company is "going to be striving for a large catalogue of music."
Initially, the user interface was to be copied from the popular iTunes software, but since Apple Computer Inc. has been awarded a patent by the U.S. Patent and Trademark office for the iTunes interface, Microsoft is shifting gears. When Bill Gate's was asked about the situation he reiterated: "Well, I think it's fun to talk about this because the rate of advance is so incredible, and not just in a numeric sense. The whole way that we interact with systems, the way we write software, the way we administer these systems, the way we collaborate, it will be very, very different."
Microsoft warned that they may have to move operations of their upcoming music store to an undisclosed country, where patent laws do not exist.
[/parody]
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
music players that "rip off" iTunes are certainly not inventive or innovative, but this is hardly a justification for Apple to have a patent on that interface design.
iTunes, like every modern music player, represents incremental innovations over existing products. the iTunes interface boils down to three elements ... a 3-column library area, a play queue area, and a transport control. the idea that Apple should be granted a monopoly on this interface is outrageous.
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
But, on the mac it takes next to no CPU time. This is just a problem on the Windows version. So what? You have plenty of choices, and as you said, they work with iTunes. You don't have to use it. Some people decide to use it despite it's speed because the UI is just that great. I think that says a lot about Apple's design.
- Sherman
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
One small catch. You need a lot of money.
Doing all the paperwork yourself (and you must be a patent lawyer), budget $1000 per patent.
Paying a patent lawyer, for searching and filing, budget $10,000 per patent.
Defending a patent against violation and/or contestation, budget $100,000 per patent.
These are minimal figures. You can go much higher.
Now add the fact that your patent portfolio is like a hand of cards. Even if you invest in (say) 20 excellent patents, you are unable to compete against a company that has 200 patents, of which you may be infringing 50.
Software patents are a game where you can not really compete unless you are a large player.
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Since it has lesser parts in it
A good designer knows that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Patents are necessary because, barring any political or economic issues, they keep the bad designers (or unix geeks) who don't understand this essential concept and who only think in terms of parts from hurting the general public.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!