Flawed Evidence In EU Apple vs. Samsung Case

An anonymous reader writes "The Dutch site webwereld.nl has found incorrect evidence submitted by Apple (Google translation of Dutch original) in the EU design-right case against Samsung. In the ex-parte case, a German judge recently issued a temporary injunction against the sale of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the whole EU except the Netherlands. The faulty evidence is a side-by-side picture of an iPad 2 and the Galaxy Tab. The Tab is scaled to fit the iPad2, and the aspect ratio is changed from 1.46 to 1.36, which more closely matches the iPad 2 aspect ratio of 1.3, according to webwereld.nl."

Comments

Incorrect?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

An injunction against Samsung's inferior copy was issued, protecting our sacred exclusive right to produce rectangular objects with touchscreens. Any evidence that contributed to this correct outcome was itself necessarily correct.

-S. Jobs

Re:Incorrect?

[bennomatic]

Double-plus good!

Re:Incorrect?

[camperslo]

A less than 7% change in the aspect ratio is negligible. And they're complaining about the size of a picture too? Good grief. The point is how similar the products look to consumers. Of course it's best to have things displayed at the same size to best see similarities in the design, any border width, curvature of corners etc.

If someone wants to fuss about small differences in size, please do something about those containers of ice cream that aren't a half-gallon any more. That's a crime against humanity!

Re:Incorrect?

[Asic Eng]

These guys will be next. A black rectangular design with a fruit on it? Who do they think they are fooling?

Re:Incorrect?

[h4rr4r]

They also changed the color of the Tab to make it look more similar than it really is.

Of course it's best to have things displayed at the same size to best see similarities in the design, any border width, curvature of corners etc.

Resizing the image changes border width, as it change the size of everything. They should have just submitted some actual tablets.

Re:Incorrect?

[Hijacked Public]

If it is negligible, why go through the trouble to change it?

Re:Incorrect?

[Anonymous Coward]

They also had more iPad like icon layout vs the standard home screen and removed the Samsung branding from the Tab.

Re:Incorrect?

[nbsdx]

+1 for the reference!

Re:Incorrect?

[Sinthet]

I think its important. They're accusing Samsung of copying their design, and to prove it they decide to resize samsung's product as to make it look as similar as possible to their own design? Somebody mentioned they changed some colors as well.

This is seriously unfair for Samsung. At the very least, the case should be thrown out. Personally, I think Apple owes the courts an apology, and at least some symbolic monetary compensation to Samsung. This kind of behavior shouldn't be allowed.

Re:Incorrect?

[rvw]

These guys will be next. A black rectangular design with a fruit on it? Who do they think they are fooling?

I think they fooled you! It's a tomato, you fruitcake!

Re:Incorrect?

[Asic Eng]

A tomato is a fruit, surely on Slashdot we know stuff like that?

Re:Incorrect?

[eu4ik]

Um, a tomato is a fruit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato

Re:Incorrect?

[tomhudson]

These guys will be next. A black rectangular design with a fruit on it? Who do they think they are fooling?

I think they fooled you! It's a tomato, you fruitcake!

Tomatoes are fruits, you fruitcake! :-)

Just because Reagan tried to claim ketchup was a vegetable to make it look like the feds were doing better than they were with the nutritional standards of school lunch programs doesn't make it so.

Re:Incorrect?

[ALeavitt]

Botanically, as tomatoes are the ovary of the tomato plant, they are considered to be fruits. However, culinarily, as they are not sweet and are primarily used in savory dishes, tomatoes are considered to be vegetables. The upshot of this is that no matter what you call them, you are wrong. Thanks, science!

Re:Incorrect?

[Anonymous Coward]

Knowledge is knowing that the tomato is a fruit.

Wisdom is never putting one in a fruit salad.

Re:Incorrect?

[WrongSizeGlass]

It is either an altered/retouched image of a Galaxy Tab or it isn't. There is no reason to alter the image to look more like an iPad if it already looks too much like an iPad.



Disclaimer: Mac & iPhone owner.

Re:Incorrect?

[beelsebob]

However, culinarily, as they are not sweet

Uhh, they are sweet.

Re:Incorrect?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck. Steve. Jobs.

Re:Incorrect?

[BitZtream]

Only on the vine, its a fruit. Otherwise its a vegetable.

True story, put a little more research into your statements, the tomato is a great example of a plant that fits into both categories perfectly.

Re:Incorrect?

[BitZtream]

If you're eating sweet tomatos, you're probably getting drunk too. Heres a hint: eat them before they are rotting and fermenting.

Re:Incorrect?

[PRMan]

If you're eating un-sweet tomatoes, you need to stop buying them at the store and plant your own tomato garden. Trust me, when vine-ripened, they get too sweet to put on sandwiches and people eat them like fruit.

Re:Incorrect?

[tomhudson]

So, since lemons and limes are sour-tasting, they are not, culinarily speaking, fruits?

How about grapefruit, which is a bit of both?

Or tart-tasting apples? Crab-apples sure are fruit, but they will certainly make you pucker.

Tomatoes are fruits. Perceived sweetness has nothing to do with whether something is considered a fruit, neither in the lab nor the kitchen.

Next you'll be saying that peanuts are nuts.

Re:Incorrect?

[arose]

I guess comparing a home screen to a secondary application chooser is also negligible? All together though, the Galaxy looks entirely unlike the iPad, which is not negligible at all.

Re:Incorrect?

[kelemvor4]

The modified picture looks like an iPad, the unmodified one does not really look so much like one. If you disagree, put your money where your mouth is and falsify some evidence next time you provide it to a court and see how well that works out for you.

Nobody ever said it was a crime against humanity, but it definitely is a crime in most countries.

I bet that judge is going to have a coronary when he finds out he's been made a fool of in such a high profile case...

Re:Incorrect?

[andydread]

Its not about a less that 7% change or an "almost 10% change" Its about an attempt to fool the court into believing that the Galaxy Tab is a copy of the Ipad using doctored evidence. Such as manipulating the aspect ratio in order to make the dimesions of the products more similar, Its about removing the Samsung logo from the evidence submitted to the court. Its about changing the color, also taking a picture with the Android app window open and depicting that as the home screen which is not true. etc. All of these things display a deliberate attempt to mislead the court and play the judge for a fool. I'm not sure if you would be amused if you were a Judge in a situation like this.

Re:Incorrect?

[PoolOfThought]

No.It only fits into different categories when the categories are defined by different groups of people.

Scientists (botonists) agree that a tomato is scientifically a fruit.

It just so happens that some people (cooks) want to call it something else due to how it is USED. That is cooks want to call it a veggie.

The US Supreme Court, in 1883, defined the tomato as a vegetable in Nix v. Hedden, but acknowledged that it was botanically a fruit. --- "Knowledge is to know that a tomato is a fruit, but wisdom is to know not to put one in a fruit salad."

Re:Incorrect?

[MightyMartian]

Next you'll be saying that peanuts are nuts.

Maybe Linus and Peppermint Patty, but Charlie Brown, Lucy, Snoopy and Sally, nahhhh

Re:Incorrect?

[blind monkey 3]

It is a vegetable for the purpose of extracting your foot from your mouth.....

Re:Incorrect?

[realityimpaired]

It's a good thing I'm not a judge, I suppose... if it were me, I'd issue a punitive injunction against Apple selling the iPad 2 under any circumstances, for wasting the court's time, and for submitting falsified evidence in an effort to obtain the same injunction against Samsung.

Re:Incorrect?

[tlhIngan]

I guess comparing a home screen to a secondary application chooser is also negligible?

Well, Apple might be making the best design decision for Samsung ever, actually - to scrap TouchWiz and ship just plain old Android. That secondary launcher does look way too much like iOS' launcher, after all.

Hell, maybe Apple can do Android a favor and have all the manufacturers scrap their crappy "value added" features. TouchWiz, MOTOBLUR and the others, out the door, and everyone gets the standard Android UI.

Re:Incorrect?

[ALeavitt]

Well, I suppose I could point out all the ways in which you are wrong, but it would be a lot easier to point out the fact that you clearly don't know what you are talking about. See, I'm not the one who initially made the determination that tomatoes are not traditionally eaten with the dessert course and are rather served with the main course of a meal. I'm not the one who put a tax on fruits and then didn't tax tomatoes because they are not, traditionally, fruits. (That one would be the US Supreme Court.) I am, however, just relaying facts as they are, and you are getting all pedantic and trying to split hairs and ultimately it makes no difference because, again, you clearly don't know what you are talking about. As stated above, botanically speaking tomatoes are, yes, fruits because of their biological function. However, completely separate from that issue and backed up by centuries of tradition (and the fact that they taste fucking disgusting in a pie) is the fact that any chef worth his salt - hell, anybody who has any clue how to find his way around a kitchen - would know better than to conflate the biological function with a part of a plant with its proper usage in a dish. Now, if you could find me a savory lemon or a bag of mixed nuts that didn't contain a single peanut, maybe I would be willing to concede that there is a one-to-one mapping between biological and culinary function, but I really doubt whether that's going to happen.

Re:Incorrect?

[arose]

That secondary launcher does look way too much like iOS' launcher, after all.

And everything else ever that used icon grids. The iOS version is only iconic (har-har) because of the marketing machine, not because it's something new.

Re:Incorrect?

[nosferatu1001]

Try some decent varieties then. one is called "Dolce" for the precise reason it is quite sweet...

Re:Incorrect?

[Anonymous Coward]

A less than 7% change in the aspect ratio is negligible.

While I would usually agree that a 7% change in aspect ration is negligible I can also note that there is less than 7% difference between the iPad design and the LCD-screen I am looking at now. Regardless of what apple fanboys says the design of apples products are hardly unique and there is not much difference between their products and the earlier tablets, pocket-pc's and touchscreens.
Apple might be right in claiming that Samsung ripped off their design, but it was not theirs to begin with.
And regardless of how much you think you are right, bringing "adjusted" evidence to court is a pretty serious crime.

Re:Incorrect?

[siddesu]

culinarily, as they are not sweet

Good tomatoes are sweet, if you grow them properly.

Re:Incorrect?

[tomhudson]

I am, however, just relaying facts as they are, and you are getting all pedantic and trying to split hairs and ultimately it makes no difference because, again, you clearly don't know what you are talking about. As stated above, botanically speaking tomatoes are, yes, fruits because of their biological function. However, completely separate from that issue and backed up by centuries of tradition (and the fact that they taste fucking disgusting in a pie) is the fact that any chef worth his salt - hell, anybody who has any clue how to find his way around a kitchen - would know better than to conflate the biological function with a part of a plant with its proper usage in a dish.

You really want to use tradition as your main argument that tomatoes are not a fruit?

Anyone with two spare brain cells knows that tradition can often be seriously wrong. Tradition says treat frostbite by rubbing the affected body parts with snow - totally wrong. Just like tradition had people rubbing burns with butter, burning women who were too smart as witches, bleeding people to "release the bad humours that ailed them", drinking turpentine to "cure" other ailments, associating the full moon as the cause of lunacy, and not allowing women to be educated because our place is in the kitchen.

But let's take a closer look at the stupidest assertion you made - that tomatoes "taste disgusting in a pie." Again, you let tradition cloud your thinking, and seeing the obvious - pizza pies taste great in large part due to tomatoes (and the occasional pineapple - another fruit, btw). Or are you going to argue now that pizza pie is not a pie? It meets the definition of a single-crust pie. Or will you now also want to exclude steak and kidney pie, pork pie, fish pie, chicken pot pie, and a whole assortment of quiches, just because they don't meet your definition of a pie?

As for tomatoes in desserts, a quick search would have turned up plenty of results, including this - mentions of tomato shortcake and tomato sorbet, among other things.

What next? Claiming that carrot cake can't be a dessert because it includes a vegetable?

Don't be so ethnocentric with your traditions. It's wrong. Tomatoes are fruits, and continuing to argue otherwise when science says otherwise, on a tech site, makes you look like a nutbar

-- barbara

Re:Incorrect?

[Greyfox]

I'd not be amused by most things if I were a judge. I'd constantly be fighting the temptation not to tell the attorneys to approach the bench, and then whacking them with my gavel. It's probably best I don't become a judge...

Re:Incorrect?

[ALeavitt]

Yes, I would actually like to cite precedent when forming my arguments. It seems like a reasonable way to do things. After all, if one are not arguing from precedent, one is simply pulling facts out of one's ass.
The fact that some precedents are flawed is no excuse for throwing out all precedents. I genuinely can't believe that anybody would put forth such a fallacious argument so I'm just going to leave that one be. You obviously hadn't thought it through and now I'm thinking it through for you. You're welcome. Obviously you would never have been in danger of being burned.
The facts that I laid before you, and which I will lay before you again, are that, culinarily speaking, a plant's biological purpose has nothing to do with how is is used in the kitchen. To argue that tomatoes and carrots are primarily found in sweet dishes or that pineapples and plums are normally found in savory dishes is to argue dishonestly. If you would make that argument, I would really see no point in replying to you. Citing aberrations only emphasizes the creativity of chefs and does nothing to change the culinary category under which something falls. Further, to call a pizza a "pizza pie" shows your ethnocentrism, as it is only a "pie" in English.
Tomatoes are the ovaries of plants. Biologically speaking, ovaries are fruits. The point that I have been trying to make all along is that chefs, for the most part, really could give two shits what a particular ingredient's biological purpose is. Does it go well in a salad? Then it's probably a vegetable. Does it make a good dessert? Then it's probably a fruit. "But wait!" I can hear you thinking, "What about fruit salads?"
I just got done arguing with one.

P.S. Slashdot isn't a "tech site." It is a "news for nerds" site. If you would like the tech section, here's a handy link for you. A chef can be every bit as nerdy as a physicist and he doesn't even have to give a shit about science to do it.

Re:Incorrect?

[ALeavitt]

My mistake. Here is your link.

Re:Incorrect?

[sg_oneill]

They also had more iPad like icon layout vs the standard home screen and removed the Samsung branding from the Tab.

To quote the apple lawyer "What could possibly go wrong?". Yeah, pissing off a trial judge has a very poor history of working out well for people.

Re:Incorrect?

[tomhudson]

Precedent, when it contradicts the facts, has to bow to the facts. Otherwise, you end up with stupidity like governments trying to legislate Pi as equal to 3.

Or do you still cling to the world being flat?

-- barbara

Re:Incorrect?

[Anonymous Coward]

The modified picture looks like an iPad, the unmodified one does

Still looks like an iPad. Samsung is lose this one big time. Hopefully they will out of business because of this.

http://peanutbuttereggdirt.com/e/custom/Apple-vs-Samsung-1-Hardware-Design.html
http://peanutbuttereggdirt.com/e/custom/Apple-vs-Samsung-2-Interface-Icons.html
http://peanutbuttereggdirt.com/e/custom/Apple-vs-Samsung-3-Package-Design.html

Re:Incorrect?

[ALeavitt]

I can see I won't get through to you, most likely because you are being deliberately obtuse through obstinacy. Congratulations, you have the arguing skills of a five year old. On reading this, I fully expect you to put your hands on your hips and pout.
Repeat after me: Culinarily speaking, nobody gives a shit what the biological function of an ingredient is. What people care about is its flavor profile and with what ingredients it mixes well.
Hell, even the government considers them vegetables. Face it. Your opinion on this matter is irrelevant.

Re:Incorrect?

[tomhudson]

After all, if one are not arguing from precedent, one is simply pulling facts out of one's ass.

So, Copernicus, Galileo, Harvey, Einstein, Fleming, Mendel, Darwin, etc., were pulling facts out of their rectums? Wow!

You're not, by chance, a member of the Tea Party or some other fact-free zone, are you?

Does it go well in a salad? Then it's probably a vegetable.

So, olives, macaroni, shrimp, octopus, crab, cucumbers, bacon bits, chicken breast chunks, cheese chunks, grapes, orange and apple slices, tuna fish, turkey, pineapple, salmon, salt, sausage slices, strawberries, cream cheese, croutons, and tomatoes are all vegetables? Only the worlds worst "chefs" would actually believe that.

Please, stop pulling "factoids" out of your hemorrhoids, and leave the kitchen to those who know what they're doing.

Re:Incorrect?

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile, with injunction in place Apple sales up 25% across the EU. When the injunction is lifted, with Samsung's sales stifled, sues Apple for 40% downed sales and settles out of court for 25% of Apple's gains. Apple wins 15-5..

Re:Incorrect?

[tomhudson]

Face it - you got caught being stupid, and I called you out on it, and your only argument is to ignore the facts. Abraham Lincoln once asked "If we call a tail to be a leg, how many legs does a cat have?" And when people answered "5", he said "Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one."

Similarly, calling a tomato a vegetable doesn't make it one, and trying to use the same culinary practices to preserve it as you would for vegetables, as opposed to fruits, will result in rotten tomatoes.

Tomatoes are sweet fruits - it's the cheap tomatoes that taste like veggies. Good home-grown tomatoes are easily more flavourful than, say, most apples. Like grapes (another vine-grown fruit), they're juicy and they make a great snack all by themselves.

Your opinion on this matter is irrelevant.

Except that your opinion on this matter is plain wrong, whereas mine is based on fact. Ignore the facts if you want, but don't try to rewrite them.

It's bad enough that the government does that all the time, with disastrous results, like trying to convince markets that a US deficit over 10 trillion would be sustainable instead of passing the tipping point and snowballing, as I predicted here when the deficit was under 10 trillion. So, while you say that my opinion is "irrelevant", it sometimes is pretty well aligned with the facts, same as my prediction in another journal entry that houses would drop by at least 20% while they were still rising.

One of my other predictions was that the US would try to "inflate the deficit away" - that's also coming to pass, with officials saying that the idea of a US default is ridiculous because "we can always print more money." So the greenback, which has already lost about 95% of it's value in 40 years, will continue its decline. But you're free to ignore reality and say that it's not a decline. Won't change the facts, just like calling a tomato a veggie doesn't make it one.

Re:Incorrect?

[ALeavitt]

Walk into any restaurant today and ask for a fruit salad. Tell me how many serve you one that contains tomatoes and cucumbers.
The simple fact is that enough people calling a tomato a vegetable does, for all intents and purposes, mean that a tomato is considered a vegetable. You know why? Because of the point that I keep bringing up: nobody gives a flying fuck about the biological function of a piece of food. A word's meaning is whatever people make it; that's the way language works. If eaters, who vastly outnumber botanists, want to call tomatoes a vegetable, who are you to tell them that they are wrong? You're tilting at windmills. You can sit in your lab all day and wax scientific about how fruits are ovaries and that is just wonderful for you, but the simple fact is that when a chef asks you to hand him some vegetables he sure as shit means those cucumbers and tomatoes and peppers sitting right there, and when the people in the restaurant order grilled vegetables that is exactly what they expect. No amount of hooting about the deficit (wtf?) is going to change the fact that you're clearly a terrible cook.

Re:Incorrect?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the thing. Without alteration, it looks like an iPad as much as a Lamborghini Gallardo looks like a Ferrari 458. Maybe one of those manufacturers should patent "aerodynamically designed vehicle with four round objects used for mobility -- two on either side of said vehicle".

Wooo, car analogy.

Re:Incorrect?

[tomhudson]

Walk into any restaurant today and ask for a fruit salad. Tell me how many serve you one that contains tomatoes and cucumbers.

So only the fruits contained in a fruit salad are fruits? Your logic fail is astounding. Opening up a can of fruit salad, by your logic bananas are not a fruit. Apples are not a fruit. Mangoes are not a fruit. Raspberries and strawberries are not fruit. Neither are the vast majority of these fruits. (btw - notice the tomato is listed as a culinary fruit).

With your massive denial-of-reality and unwillingness to admit you got it wrong, you should be careful of who you call a terrible cook.

Culinarily speaking, nobody gives a shit what the biological function of an ingredient is.

Really? Tell that to the people who recommend foods because of their anti-oxidant properties, or because they include roughage that helps prevent colon cancer, or the people who drink coffee for the caffeine, or the people who have dietary restrictions (lactose intolerance, allergies, Crons disease, diabetes, etc) who have to be careful about the biological functions of ingredients.

If you feel you're an exception, feel free to drink a cup of hemlock and ignore the biological properties. Let us know how that works out.

The simple fact is that every living animal on this planet eats food primarily for its' biological properties - the supply of raw materials and energy - and not because of the taste. So you even got that assertion wrong.

Keep on - you're just further exposing your oh-so-easily-damaged ego for what it is, since you clearly can't admit you're wrong in the face of the facts, and have to keep making stupider and stupider excuses (like your "fruit salad" example, which a quick search of the internet will disprove - there are fruit salads that contain cherry tomatoes, among others).

Re:Incorrect?

[TheSpoom]

You almost certainly could not. I'm pretty sure judges can't just make up injunctions on the spot like that; they have to be based in law or precedent.

Re:Incorrect?

[ALeavitt]

Botanically tomatoes are fruits - I have never argued this, and it is in fact part of the point that I initially raised - but here are just a few sources that back me up. As you can see, legally and culinarily speaking, there are a whole hell of a lot of people who consider a tomato a vegetable. This is a fact. This is inarguable. All of your "technically"s aren't going to change this. This is the point that I initially made, this is the point that I have continued to make, and this is the point that you have continued to deny in the face of overwhelming evidence. My ego is not particularly connected to what people think of tomatoes. Maybe you, on the other hand, should consider why yours is so connected to putting on blinders and denying simple facts as they are.

Re:Incorrect?

[tmarsh86]

Only on the vine, its a fruit. Otherwise its a vegetable.

True story, put a little more research into your statements, the tomato is a great example of a plant that fits into both categories perfectly.

Scientifically, it is a fruit no matter which way you slice it. People can call it a vegetable all they want, and the law can designate it whatever it wants, but it does not change the fact that it is a fruit.

Re:Incorrect?

[tomhudson]

The fact is that tomatoes are fruits. Calling them vegetables is just spreading ignorance. Trying to detract from that by saying I have the reading skills of a 5-year-old was childish on your part. Trying to claim that precedent takes precedent over the facts, and accusing me of being the one pulling facts out of their rectum, was no better.

But lets look at your original assertion

Botanically, as tomatoes are the ovary of the tomato plant, they are considered to be fruits. However, culinarily, as they are not sweet and are primarily used in savory dishes, tomatoes are considered to be vegetables. The upshot of this is that no matter what you call them, you are wrong. Thanks, science!

You invoked both a claim that tomatoes are not sweet (false), a claim that they are not considered fruits for culinary purposes (again false), and science (again, false).

You then go on about how tomatoes are never used in fruit salad (lame and false), and how they "taste fucking disgusting in a pie" (the Food Network disagrees), etc.

You then argued that if it goes into a salad, then it's a vegetable, which is obviously again false, since olives, macaroni, shrimp, octopus, crab, cucumbers, bacon bits, chicken breast chunks, cheese chunks, grapes, orange and apple slices, tuna fish, turkey, pineapple, salmon, salt, sausage slices, strawberries, cream cheese, croutons, and tomatoes are obviously not vegetables.

So when you write:

Maybe you, on the other hand, should consider why yours is so connected to putting on blinders and denying simple facts as they are.

... I have to wonder just how wilfully blind you are, to deny simple facts - tomatoes are used in fruit salads in some places, tomato pie exists and is not disgusting, salads contain non-vegetables, including vine fruits such as grapes and tomatoes, and that your trying to argue that precedent has to take precedence over the facts would have us all joining the flat earth society.

Lame, lame, lame. Typical male stupidity - you keep going down the same road rather than admit you're wrong, despite all the signs saying "you're going the wrong way."

-- barbara

Re:Incorrect?

[tmarsh86]

I can see I won't get through to you, most likely because you are being deliberately obtuse through obstinacy. Congratulations, you have the arguing skills of a five year old. On reading this, I fully expect you to put your hands on your hips and pout. Repeat after me: Culinarily speaking, nobody gives a shit what the biological function of an ingredient is. What people care about is its flavor profile and with what ingredients it mixes well. Hell, even the government considers them vegetables. Face it. Your opinion on this matter is irrelevant.

It is you who won't see the facts for the trees. Citing the government as a source of evidence regarding anything, especially something the scientific world has already cataloged and covered, is ridiculous. A tomato is a fruit as deemed by science, the god of /. Your opinion and your "evidence" is irrelevant.

Re:Incorrect?

[Anonymous Coward]

They just give the Judge a free ipad too keep him amused.

Re:Incorrect?

[ALeavitt]

Well, I didn't say that you had the reading skills of a five-year-old, but as you just demonstrated that you do, I'll let that claim stand. I have already successfully dismantled each and every one of the points in your post. I wasn't sure about it - I had actually started rebutting some of them - but then I realized that I had, indeed, already answered every single one of those points. Go ahead and check if you don't believe me. At this point you're arguing in circles and chalking my unwillingness to bow to your refusal to face the facts to... male stupidity? Astounding. Truly astounding. It seems fairly obvious that you just Can't Understand Normal Thinking. I think my work here is done.

Re:Incorrect?

[mikechant]

...(and the fact that they taste fucking disgusting in a pie)...

Unless it's one of my mum's sausage meat, egg and tomato pies...

Re:Incorrect?

[tomhudson]

See, I'm not the one who initially made the determination that tomatoes are not traditionally eaten with the dessert course and are rather served with the main course of a meal.

So by that logic, the local restaurant believes oranges and melons are vegetables because they serve them with eggs and bacon for breakfast.

Ditto for all those pineapples on the ham at thanksgiving and Christmas.

And the apples used in the turkey stuffing are also veggies?

And those olives in the before-supper cocktails or with the main course are now somehow veggies?

Or all those stuffed bell peppers are now veggies?

What course of the meal a fruit is served with has nothing to do with whether it's a vegetable or a fruit, and if we stopped trying to call fruits vegetables, we'd realize just how many different fruits we consume, and how we consume fewer real vegetables than we think. Fruits and vegetables can be mixed in the same dish without the world falling apart, same as vegetables and legumes.

Fruits are not all sweet, nor are they reserved just for dessert.

Re:Incorrect?

[webmistressrachel]

Your work is far from done, idiot.

There are more scientifically-minded people here who can see what you're doing.

All your original assertations were disproved, you then proceeded to twist the meaning of your original statements and fire them back again. You also insulted our Barbie, which has not hing to do with tomatoes.

"Normal Thinking" got is in Iraq, it caused 9/11, and it's the reason your country is imploding economically. None of it is (was) rocket science, just like the anomaly that tomatoes are fruits but can belong in a salad!! Are you that narrow minded and dumb that how you use the things and their biological classification cannot be seperated in your mind?

Are Americans all so dumb - you said it - "Normal Thinking" - that I can no longer blame the world situation on malice, that I should feel sorry for you all, after all, you were just being dumb when you bombed Iraq??? Sorry, doesn't wash. Dumb asses.

Re:Incorrect?

[mldi]

They also had more iPad like icon layout vs the standard home screen and removed the Samsung branding from the Tab.

You mean tiled icon layout right?

Re:Incorrect?

[ALeavitt]

hahahahahahaha

Re:Incorrect?

[webmistressrachel]

If this is your attempt at humour, you need a brain transplant. If it's your attempt at winning the argument about tomatoes, then you should have realised you lost ages ago. You lost when you started bullying someone who was armed with cold, sharp facts for having the er, cold sharp facts and the sheer-mindedness to stand by them. :P

Re:Incorrect?

[bennomatic]

Thank you, thank you; I'll be here all week!

Re:Incorrect?

[tomhudson]

Even my very dated copy of "The Joy of Cooking" makes fun of the U.S. Supreme Court trying to classify tomatoes as vegetables. BTW - they only classified them as vegetables for the purpose of taxation - they made it clear that they were still fruits for all other purposes. So, since we're talking about cooking and eating, and not taxes, your Supreme Court reference is yet another fail.

Read all the other comments by other posters under the original post that started it all - there are plenty of people who know that tomatoes are fruits, that good ones are in fact as sweet as other fruits, and that they can and are often treated as a fruit when preparing food.

The salad I'm currently eating consists mostly of fruits - grapes, tomatoes, green peppers, olives, hot red pepper rings (I skipped the cucumbers today) ... the non-fruit parts are romaine lettuce and spanish onion, and bacon bits. Take the lettuce, onion, and bacon bits out and it is indeed a fruit salad.

Either way, it's an entire meal in itself, but the majority of the taste and nutritional value is provided by the fruits. Next time, maybe I'll include apple slices and orange chunks.

Your real mistake is being bound by "tradition" rather than by taste and nutritional value. Your loss.

Re:Incorrect?

[kenshin33]

(and the fact that they taste fucking disgusting in a pie)

Where did you get that idea??? there exists a pie named tomato pie and it's absolutely fucking delicous (and it's not a desert).

Re:Incorrect?

[Anonymous Coward]

Beautiful.

Re:Incorrect?

[Khyber]

Except tomatoes in a fruit salad are fucking awesome, so those judges were very obviously unqualified to make such a legal call.

Re:Incorrect?

[Khyber]

"However, culinarily, as they are not sweet"

BULLSHIT. Go pick up a cherry or grape tomato that's been on the vine in the sun, and bite into it. Tell me that isn't sweet.

I cultivate hundreds of tomato cultivars as part of my LED research. Let me guess, only had store tomatoes your entire life?

Re:Incorrect?

[Khyber]

Please have a seat and let knowledgeable people talk, as you're not qualified for this discussion.

There are dozens of extremely naturally sweet tomato cultivars.

Re:Incorrect?

[Khyber]

Dude, you got owned by a girl on slashdot and had your ass handed to you. Quit being butthurt about the fact someone with more brains than you kicked your ass.

Also, speaking as a research director, you very obviously have a crappy pool of knowledge to draw from. Precedence, hah.

Re:Incorrect?

[Khyber]

"Walk into any restaurant today and ask for a fruit salad. Tell me how many serve you one that contains tomatoes and cucumbers."

Multiple ones with half a fucking clue (Oh, hi, I'm a trained chef, engineer, research director, and porn store clerk. Your ANYTHING is invalid, son.)

Re:Incorrect?

[LoudMusic]

Blue Bell Ice Cream.

http://bluebell.com/the_little_creamery/still_a_half_gallon.html

If Blue Bell is not available in your area I am very sorry :(

http://bluebell.com/the_little_creamery/blue_bell_country.html

Re:Incorrect?

[xiaix]

And where, exactly, do you think a precedent comes from?

Re:Incorrect?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fucking Wanking Yankee Tosser

Re:Incorrect?

[inject_hotmail.com]

Someone else?

Tee hee. :B

Sorry, couldn't resist...

Re:Incorrect?

[Anonymous Coward]

At what point is changing evidence not negligible to you then? Could I murder someone then place your finger prints on less than 7% of their body and would that be negligible evidence tampering?

Re:Incorrect?

[gordo3000]

I'm confused, because a bunch of US based sites and US laws treat a tomato as a vegetable, the entire world and all chefs everywhere now agree with you?

look, I agree, America is basically always right. but I'm pretty sure it's not a coherent or complete argument. nothing technical involved. anyways, as the websites (at least the few I opened) said, it is "used as a vegetable", not, "it is a vegetable".

Popcorn ready...

[boristdog]

Come on folks, don't disappoint me.

Re:Popcorn ready...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish I had popcorn on me.
But now that Apple created the iPop and sued nature in to poverty, and sell per-the-corn at $1, I can no longer afford popcorn.

Seriously though, damn, they are SO screwed.
I seriously hope they don't hold back. I know they WILL, but some part of me hopes that there is some sort of sense left in the courts.
Apple should be fined a stupid amount for such bullshit, as well as causing SERIOUS damage to sales from Samsung using doctored evidence.
And someone should be held directly responsible for the fake imagery too. I'm getting sick of companies being used as armor in stuff like this. I want the actual people behind this kind of stuff to be punished directly. They shouldn't be allowed to get away with it.

Re:Popcorn ready...

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

I just wish somebody would accuse Apple of copying the look and feel of something so we could shout about how Apple should quit ripping off ideas and do something original.

Re:Popcorn ready...

[Anonymous Coward]

Been there, done that: http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/10/08/10/1533241/How-Star-Trek-Artists-Imagined-the-iPad-23-Years-Later

Re:Popcorn ready...

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean how the iphone stole the samsung phone design look and feel???

Re:Popcorn ready...

[Serpents]

Apple should be fined a stupid amount for such bullshit, as well as causing SERIOUS damage to sales from Samsung using doctored evidence.

Not only that but the people who submitted such evidence (and approved the move on behalf of Apple) should face criminal charges just as anyone else trying to lie to the court would.

Yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because this case is about the aspect ratio, right?

Re:Yeah...

[h4rr4r]

They also made the surround on the Tab darker to make it look more like the iPad. Submitting photoshoped images to the court should cost them their case.

Re:Yeah...

[robmv]

and they removed the big Samsung text in front of the tablet, and they say people will confuse it with an iPad? please, if they need to remove that text they know people will know it id not an iPad

Re:Yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

Should also cost their lawyers and possibly lead to disbarment. Manipulating evidence is a serious crime.

Re:Yeah...

[whoever57]

Submitting photoshoped images to the court should cost them their case.

It could and should cost them much more: damages for lost profits and the presumption in any future proceedings that the evidence they give is accurate.

Re:Yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

and they removed the big Samsung text in front of the tablet, and they say people will confuse it with an iPad? please, if they need to remove that text they know people will know it id not an iPad

I have a Galaxy Tab and at a glance people think it's an iPad.

Re:Yeah...

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

From the article, there's speculation it could've been a proto image dug up during discovery and that would be actually much worse for Samsung.

Re:Yeah...

[luis_a_espinal]

They also made the surround on the Tab darker to make it look more like the iPad. Submitting photoshoped images to the court should cost them their case.

Not to mention that the "evidence" shows the Galaxy Tab in a vertical position when the default/intended usage is in a horizontal position.

Exhibit A: Samsungs Galaxy Tab 1.0 microsite: http://www.samsung.com/global/microsite/galaxytab/10.1/index.html

Exhibit B: Endgadget Galaxy Tab 1.0 review : http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/08/samsung-galaxy-tab-10-1-review/

Exhibit C: CNet's review : http://reviews.cnet.com/tablets/samsung-galaxy-tab-10/4505-3126_7-34505347.html

... and so on and so on. In fact, IIRC, its predecessors have always been marketed in a default horizontal position, and that's how I've always seen it display at Costco and at tmobile (my cell phone provider).

Call me conspiracy theorist, but this cannot be by accident. Morphed dimensions by itself an accident? Maybe (and that's pushing it). Shown in a vertical position as opposed to the horizontal position it is shown everywhere else as an accident? Maybe. But both, as legal evidence? Got to have been done on purpose.

Re:Yeah...

[WrongSizeGlass]

Should also cost their lawyers and possibly lead to disbarment. Manipulating evidence is a serious crime.

They should just put the lawyer's balls in a vice.
Bailiff: Do you swear to tell the truth [tightens vice] the whole truth [tightens vice] and nothing but the truth [tightens vice]? Um, man, that's just nasty. Is there a urologist in the house?

Re:Yeah...

[the_leander]

Editing images to suit themselves again?

Iirc they got slapped for that in the UK for doing exactly the same with their comparisons between the macbook air and the EeePC.

Re:Yeah...

[BitZtream]

There is no default. Its designed to work both ways. Portrait or landscape is irrelevant, both devices care not about their orientation. WTF kind of argument is that?

Re:Yeah...

[arose]

Why would a non-release version be relevant to design patent and trade dress concerns?

Re:Yeah...

[oakgrove]

Hey, stupid. Android Market in Honeycomb will only work in landscape mode. As the market is probably the most important differentiating factor for a "blessed" Android device, I'd say that points to the intended use orientation being landscape.

Re:Yeah...

[andydread]

hmmmmm I would say the ipad looks like this at a glance

Re:Yeah...

[ksandom]

Because if it was the case, then apple could say that sumsung were trying to make their tab look more like the ipad in the promo material to sell more.

Re:Yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not nearly as similar as the Tab is to the iPad.

Re:Yeah...

[arose]

Only if it was, indeed, something used for marketing as opposed to internal. I still don't see how not using a more similar design for the final product would be worse.

Re:Yeah...

[luis_a_espinal]

There is no default. Its designed to work both ways. Portrait or landscape is irrelevant, both devices care not about their orientation. WTF kind of argument is that?

Ever used a Galaxy Tab?

Re:Yeah...

[MrHanky]

Nope, that still doesn't make any sense.

Re:Yeah...

[nicovl]

An injunction in Germany does not require any evidence! It simply needs to be made believable..

Re:Yeah...

[Serpents]

maybe because the images haven't been edited?

Lies make Baby Steve cry, Apple

[elrous0]

My psychic powers are tingling. I'm sensing a "It was just an honest mistake, a simple oversight from our graphics department. Nothing to see here. These aren't the Droids you're looking for." statement coming from Apple. If I'm right, James Randi owes me money.

Re:Lies make Baby Steve cry, Apple

[oakgrove]

This just figures. Dishonest bastards. The Android news just keeps getting better and better today.

Re:Lies make Baby Steve cry, Apple

[jellomizer]

Is that your comment, or a comment for an installed piece of spyware?

Re:Lies make Baby Steve cry, Apple

[oakgrove]

I have no idea what you are talking about.

Re:Lies make Baby Steve cry, Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

You are not alone with that.

Re:Lies make Baby Steve cry, Apple

[hierophanta]

you're not alone on that one oakgrove

Re:Lies make Baby Steve cry, Apple

[jatoo]

It's just an error in the equation for the Samsung. Not a hardware problem.

Re:Lies make Baby Steve cry, Apple

[RivenAleem]

Okay guys, we knew this day would eventually come. Sit tight and buckle up, we're dialling the Reality Distortion Field to 11.

Re:Lies make Baby Steve cry, Apple

[EdgeCreeper]

He is insinuating that you wrote this comment on an android device with malware on it, and that iOS devices don't have a problem with malware since they are far more locked down.

innovation

[Anonymous Coward]

why everyone still thinks apple innovate anything?

all they do is remove control from the user.

now they are also trying to remove your choices.

Re:innovation

[s0litaire]

as they saying goes...:
If you can't innovate
Litigate!

Re:innovation

[Anonymous Coward]

I always knew Apple would turn into another Microsoft, but who'd have thought they'd turn into another SCO?

Re:innovation

[X0563511]

I propose an extension... ... and if you can't litigate, incubate (your patents)!

A rectangular screen with a bezel is original?

[Animats]

Apple is claiming to have originated the concept of a rectangular screen with a dark bezel of equal width on all sides and rounded corners on the bezel? That's the standard format of most generic LCD monitors and book-like "e-readers". If you're going to make a touch-screen device, that's the obvious form factor.

Re:A rectangular screen with a bezel is original?

[Daetrin]

Rectangular screen, bezeled edges, rounded corners.... wait a second...

Re:A rectangular screen with a bezel is original?

[synapse7]

They did originate the concept in this sketch! http://www.osnews.com/img/25056/000181607-0001.png

Re:A rectangular screen with a bezel is original?

[WidgetGuy]

Nice one!! Wish I had mod points today. Will some kind soul please mod the parent up. Thank you!

Not only did Apple "borrow" the Macintosh GUI from Xerox PARC back in the early 1980s (via the Lisa, which was the "approved" development environment for the Macintosh back then), they proceeded to hire many of the designers/developers away from Xerox PARC to work on the Lisa/Mac development team(s).

Re:A rectangular screen with a bezel is original?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not the concept, but the design (eg: look) of the thing. Read up on "design patents" for more information.

Re:A rectangular screen with a bezel is original?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and a boat has a keel, hull, stern and a bow. It is supposed to be bouyant, and facilitate some form of propulsion, otherwise its only good for a dock at the very least. I don't hear of ship builders fussing over the basic design. Just so many whiny lawyers, these who work for filthy rich tech companies, instigating the stifling of innovation and the promotion of wasteful resource management, worldwide.

Re:A rectangular screen with a bezel is original?

[vegiVamp]

Just like "on the internet", "with a touchscreen" seems to be a magic phrase that makes everything all new and improved.

Re:A rectangular screen with a bezel is original?

[Coren22]

Steve Jobs: It has too many controls. We need to remove those two knobs, and it is perfect for sales.

flawed ?

[martiniturbide]

...nice and polite topic.. "Flawed"? It is "FAKE", "FALSE" evidence.

Re:flawed ?

[Anonymous Coward]

This was my first thought, "Flawed?"

More like Falsified,...

Re:flawed ?

[pz]

"Intentionally misleading and fraudulent," would be more acurate phrasing. And a more appropriate reaction would be to throw the case out, followed by disbarment proceedings for the lawyers.

Harumph.

Re:flawed ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, this is /. anything against Apple is heavily biased.

Re:flawed ?

[RivenAleem]

No, the reality of the Samsung Tab has been distorted. This is quite common when in the presence of Steve's field emitters. Once the evidence spends enough time in decontamination it should return to normal, we hope.

Re:flawed ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even facts, apparently.

Are we to believe...

[arcite]

That there were no physical tablets to compare in person? Was the judgement made solely based on 'pictures?...

Re:Are we to believe...

[whoever57]

That there were no physical tablets to compare in person? Was the judgement made solely based on 'pictures?..

What, and give the judges a way to see that the back sides of the 2 tablets are different? Hardly likely.

Re:Are we to believe...

[recoiledsnake]

Maybe it helped them take up the case. Judges and lawyers are usually pretty non-tech savvy and Android tablets are pretty obscure right now anyway.

Regardless of the justification for the result, evidence submitted by lawyers to court in a lawsuit should NOT be messed with in any way. Agreed?

Re:Are we to believe...

[h4rr4r]

Anything you can walk into bestbuy and get is not obscure.

Re:Are we to believe...

[Asic Eng]

Probably: courts like to have evidence on paper, so that it can be signed, filed, reproduced and published. (Imagine you were a judge and the case was about similarity in truck design ... )

Re:Are we to believe...

[Baloroth]

Probably. If you read TFA, it was an 'ex parte" decision. Samsung wasn't even allowed to respond to or see the complaint before the ruling was issued, and Apple's complaint was the basis for the decision. It is also temporary, and this sort of thing bodes very (very very) badly for Apple. Hopefully they get slapped silly for this. Accident or not, it clearly indicates a contempt of the legal system.

Then again, it should have been obvious Apple had no true respect for the legal system when they sued Samsung for making a thin rounded-edge rectangle.

Re:Are we to believe...

[h4rr4r]

I would imagine I would want to see both trucks, at the very least be allowed to hire an impartial photographer to get some pictures.

Re:Are we to believe...

[bberens]

Apple tried to provide one to the court but those things are crazy hard to get ahold of these days.

Re:Are we to believe...

[X0563511]

If anything they should have submitted the undoctored original, the modification, and a detailed list of the modifications. This way they still can point out how similar they are, without coloring the tone.

Re:Are we to believe...

[Em Adespoton]

Anything you can walk into bestbuy and get is not obscure.

Now try walking into a BestBuy in the EU and get one....

Re:Are we to believe...

[CharlyFoxtrot]

Let's review all that is being implied here :
- 1 picture on page 28 of 1 document apparently swayed the verdict Apple's way
- Samsungs lawyers were incompetents that didn't have enough arguments to counter that 1 picture

Conspiracy fail.

Re:Are we to believe...

[Asic Eng]

Well, I have personal experience with German civil courts, though not in that field. It seems to me that generally evidence is submitted by the parties involved and it's up to the opposing side to challenge that evidence. Unless there is evidence to the contrary, both sides are assumed to act in good faith and be trustworthy.

So if Apples submitted false data, why did Samsung's legal team not challenge that?

Re:Are we to believe...

[Asic Eng]

Because they didn't even get to see the complaint - sorry should have read the article properly.

Re:Are we to believe...

[Anonymous Coward]

- Samsungs lawyers were incompetents that didn't have enough arguments to counter that 1 picture

Conspiracy fail.

Samsung's lawyers were never given a chance to contest the complaint. Reading comprehension fail.

Re:Are we to believe...

[WidgetGuy]

You should try reading TFA (or at least have read this post). Apparently, Samsung's lawyers weren't invited to Apple's little injunction party.

Re:Are we to believe...

[realityimpaired]

Le sigh... points for reading, really. :)

1. It's a temporary injunction, not a permanent one.
2. It's a preliminary injunction that was issued to stop sales pending an actual hearing.
3. (and most importantly) Samsung's lawyers weren't allowed to look at the submission from Apple prior to the injunction being issued, because the actual hearing hasn't actually started. They also weren't allowed to argue against the injunction... as others have pointed out, that's what an "ex parte" judgement means.

Now that Samsung's lawyers can look at and dissect Apple's case in preparation for the actual hearing, I expect that this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to things Apple has done wrong on this one.

Re:Are we to believe...

[Wovel]

Well it is clear you did not bother to look at the complaint that has at least 3 pictures of the back of the tab. Far be it from me to suggest anyone on Slashdot try and investigate the facts and make informed comments.

Re:Are we to believe...

[whoever57]

OK, so now I looked at the complaint. Unless there is something abut the way Scribd presents the document, I doubt that anyone looking at the pictures would realize that the iPad has a metal back (this may be explained in the text, but I don't read German). Even if it is explained, what is that saying about a picture and its value in words? Given the manipulation of the aspect ratio of the tab photo, I think that it is reasonable to think that the photos of the back of the iPad are lit in such a way to mask the metallic appearance and hence make the back of the tab look similar.

Re:Are we to believe...

[sribe]

Samsung wasn't even allowed to respond to or see the complaint before the ruling was issued...

That is a lie that Samsung has been spinning.

Re:Are we to believe...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because they didn't get to. They they had no idea what apple were up to, until they received the injunction out of the blue.

Re:Are we to believe...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup.. there are things called parking lots the judge could walk out to and see the trucks in person

Re:Are we to believe...

[Anonymous Coward]

Anything you can walk into bestbuy and get is not obscure.

Obscure or not, it's a long walk to Bestbuy from the Netherlands.

Re:Are we to believe...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not it's not - check the ruling.

Re:Are we to believe...

[Xest]

The problem is they wont get slapped hard enough to matter.

Apple got what they wanted- they fucked up Samsung's European launch, and we all know launch time is the most important, as it's where far and away most tablets are sold and sets the pace of sales for the duration of the product's life.

Apple were shit scared of the Galaxy 10.1 and they've pulled this stunt to gimp it's chances of becoming a serious competitor. It doesn't really matter if they're issued with a fine, it wont be enough to make up for the detriment to competition in the tablet market Apple has caused.

It wont help Apple in the long run - they can't do this to every competing product, but perhaps they're hoping they can fuck up their competitors with bogus legal claims just long enough to get the iPad 3 out, perhaps raising the game again and allowing them more of a chance against the newer tablets their competitors are churning out than the iPad 2 would have.

In cases like this though courts shouldn't be able to ban the sales, the sales should be able to go ahead and if the product is indeed found to be infringing then the company who made said product should forfeit all profits for that product to the company they infringed against. Allowing for European wide bans by one half assed court case like this just invites trolls to fuck their competitors over for what will likely be a minor slap on the wrist which wont even be able to begin to cover the damage done to competition in said market

Tablets are a new market, we need competition on it, I have an iPad 2 but frankly I feel not just the iPad 2 but tablets in general are a bit lacklustre. If the iPad remains largely uncontested in the market then it'll continue to be the half assed device it is currently with all it's pissy annoying little quirks. Competition would force Apple to fix those, and produce a better product for all of us consumers.

Re:Are we to believe...

[Anonymous Coward]

I suggest you look up the legal definition of "ex parte". The literal translation is "from one side".

Re:Are we to believe...

[Macthorpe]

Actually, there's one up the road from me. :)

Re:Are we to believe...

[Baloroth]

That is why the court should examine Apple's claim. If they found it would have been valid, the case merely gets dismissed due to Apple's lying/incompetence. If it wouldn't have been valid, not only should Apple pay a major fine to Samsung for lost sales (restorative), they should have an injunction filed against their own iPad (either the 2 right now or possibly the 3 when it comes out... not sure if the latter would work) as punitive damages for what they did.

Never happen, though.

Re:Are we to believe...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure there were. They could both be viewed side by side by peering with one eye into a small hole in a box specially prepared by Apple's lawyers.

Apple just used special in house rulers!

[Kenja]

Its just like the benchmarks that showed how much faster PPC was compared to Intel. Until Apple switched to Intel of course. Or how they proved that the G4 Cube was the worlds most powerful super computer. Apples benchmarks and measuring systems are just that much "better" then the rest of the worlds. For example, the universal measurement for a tablet size is IPUs or IPad Units and the smallest IPS is 1. So all tablets SMALLER then one IPU are in fact the same size as an IPad.

Re:Apple just used special in house rulers!

[h4rr4r]

Of course that is true. The silly x86 CPUs had to run those totally fair benchmarks in a PPC emulator.

Re:Apple just used special in house rulers!

[Anonymous Coward]

Its just like the benchmarks that showed how much faster PPC was compared to Intel. Until Apple switched to Intel of course.

Did the existing Intels magically get faster when Apple switched? No.
Did Intel release the initial Core series which crushed the P4 architecture? Yes.

I'm not claiming that the PPC vs. Intel benchmarks were representative or anything, but the PPC had stagnated while Intel innovated.

Re:Apple just used special in house rulers!

[JamesP]

Well, the G4 was very fast. example: http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/G4ZONE/photoshop_1GHzPCvsG4.html

Intel only became competitive when Moore's Law turned all the x86 crap irrelevant (in terms of die size). And then they went down the P4 fiasco.

Too bad IBM didn't improve the G5 (I'm sure it wasn't very easy for them. And of course, Intel has lots of R&D there)

Re:Apple just used special in house rulers!

[Anonymous Coward]

Did Intel release the initial Core series which crushed the P4 architecture? Yes.

The Core series processors also crushed the Intel and AMD lines preceding them...

Revisionism much?

They same could/would have happened if they had switched when Nehalem chips came out, which again stomped Intel's own previous generation processors.

They switched because Intel was making rapid advancements while IBM struggled.

Re:Apple just used special in house rulers!

[Coren22]

You back up your claim with a test showing a single core Intel vs a single and dual core PPC, which shows that the Intel outperformed the single core?

Re:Apple just used special in house rulers!

[JamesP]

See again, Intel P3 at 1GHz compared to a single core G4 @ 500MHz (two leftmost columns)

Total time, P3 took ~80% of the time of the single core G4 @ 500MHz.

Re:Apple just used special in house rulers!

[Anonymous Coward]

The PPC/Intel benchmarketing was quite serious, but my favourite example has always been Apple's '100dpi is the optimum resolution' claims, like this one.

It's quite sad to watch Jobs gush over the 'retina display' when Apple had spent years claiming that 'other vendors may offer ... a smaller monitor with a high resolution that causes eyestrain and headaches."

IMHO, the most interesting aspect of the claim was the way in which Apple withdrew it. Instead of suddenly withdrawing it, which might have attracted more attention, Apple gradually faded it out over the better part of a year. The claims first appeared in early 2004. In early 2005, the "100ppi optimum resolution" graphic was withdrawn, but the 'smaller monitors with high resolution cause eyestrain and headaches' claim remained, only this time with 'minor feature' status. Then later in 2005, the claim was again altered to "smaller monitor[s] with very high resolution may cause eyestrain and headaches." This weasel version of the claim remained for another year before finally vanishing only when an entirely new range of Apple monitors was launched, together with a total revamp of the website (was white, became black).

Long story short, another advertising job well done - Apple could happily bullshit their way on both sides of the fence, just as they did with their PPC->x86 transition.

Florian again???

[sgrover]

Florian Mueller is quoted in the article. I normally stop reading when I see his name. And I do see a fair bit of articles mentioning him posted to SlashDot. Hmm, and the article was submitted by an anonymous reader... coincidence??

Re:Florian again???

[Lieutenant_Dan]

Agreed, between this fellow and BitCoin articles, it's becoming evident that there is some sort of undercurrent that actively manipulates /. or whereby /. actively contributes.

Or perhaps I'm just getting more cynical in my old age.

Re:Florian again???

[recoiledsnake]

What's with the obsession with Mueller? Wasn't he accused to being anti-Google in the Java case? Now he's anti-Apple and pro-Google in the article, is that a problem?

As far as I can find out, he did the crime of questioning PJ's motivations and funding which is considered a crime against a sacred cow in these parts. However, speculation is rife that he's a paid shill for someone. Anyone miss the delicious irony in this, one is considered above board and her motives unquestionable to the degree of being sacrosanct, whereas another is actively accused regarding his motivations?

Re:Florian again???

[Asic Eng]

Florian is a high-school graduate, that's it. Referring to him on legal matters (as the article did) is a dubious choice, regardless whether he happens to be right or wrong in this particular instance. I would have preferred to read the opinion of an actual expert.

Re:Florian again???

[Anonymous Coward]

Now he's anti-Apple and pro-Google in the article ...

Say what? Making a neutral or even a positive statement about something doesn't make that person in favor of it. Furthermore, he DOESN'T make a positive statement about Google, and he states that Apple probably used a prototype image.

Re:Florian again???

[brainzach]

Florian Mueller is an expert analysts when it comes to software intellectual property and he is not giving out specific legal advice in the article. He is just there to provide some context of what the decision means to the industry, an area where he specializes in.

Re:Florian again???

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice try Florian Mueller.

Re:Florian again???

[Coren22]

Nice try PJ. See this can go the other way too.

So now someone has to graduate college in order to be an expert in any field?

Wait, what?

[WillyWanker]

You mean Apple lied, fabricated, or otherwise obfuscated the truth? You. Don't. Say. Color me [not] shocked.

Re:Wait, what?

[X0563511]

This might just be appropriate.

Re:Wait, what?

[WillyWanker]

Yep, that's pretty much spot on LOL!

Re:Wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you're as cynical as you claim. I, for one is extremely surprised, since courts tend to take an EXTREMELY dim view on people who lie to them.

And remember, this is Europe, not Corporate States of America. Apple is going to pay dearly for this, I think.

Kyle going to work for Apple?

[Nidi62]

Clearly this image was supposed to be for demonstrative purposes only, and was not intended to be considered a factual statement.

Re:Kyle going to work for Apple?

[Coren22]

You mean they're just holding it wrong?

Someday Somewhere In Some Court

[MightyMartian]

Prosecution: The man before you murdered ten people in cold blood, and we have a witness to prove it!

Defense: Your honor, witness claims the man he was was 5 ft 11, weights 130lbs, had a handlebar moustache and had blond hair. My client is 6 ft 3, weighs 330 lbs, is clean shaven and has brown hair. The police photos were intentionally doctored to make my client look like that man.

Prosecution: Your honor, we've merely altered the image to make it clearer that the accused is obviously the same man! Any sensible person would see the two are the same man!

Re:Someday Somewhere In Some Court

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that the client is actually 5 ft 11.5 in, weighs 135 lbs has a handlebar moustache and has dirty blond hair.

Re:Someday Somewhere In Some Court

[MightyMartian]

And one was named Hugh and the other Bob.

Any similarities are because of the nature of the device. Apple submitted heavily reworked images in an attempt to bolster a weak case. Let us hope the court kicks in the nuts very badly.

Re:Someday Somewhere In Some Court

[Anonymous Coward]

Heavily? Yeah, only if you're a Fandroid.

Re:Someday Somewhere In Some Court

[hierophanta]

lets be fair - using the same percentage that was misrepresented 1.46/1.36 = 10.7%
so then, if the suspect was 5'11" - he would be misrepresented as 6 foot 6.6 inches.

the weight is a little over the top (agreed) - 130 lbs = 143.91. either way - there is a glaring difference between someone who is 5'11" and someone who is 6'6". and personally i think the ratio is even more pronounced in a small form factor object - anyone who has compared the width of different phones should be able to relate

Re:Someday Somewhere In Some Court

[darkgrayknight]

Actually, it'd be more like the client is a 6 ft 135 lbs woman with red hair.

Re:Someday Somewhere In Some Court

[Coren22]

They changed every aspect of the device that matters to the case...yes that is heavily changing it. The size, color, what was on the screen, all of it was faked.

Show me a single thing they didn't change and I will be surprised.

subjectivity

[luis_a_espinal]

A less than 7% change in the aspect ratio is negligible. And they're complaining about the size of a picture too? Good grief. The point is how similar the products look to consumers. Of course it's best to have things displayed at the same size to best see similarities in the design, any border width, curvature of corners etc.

If someone wants to fuss about small differences in size, please do something about those containers of ice cream that aren't a half-gallon any more. That's a crime against humanity!

Just because it is negligible to you that does not imply it is negligible to the case (after all, Apple claimed that they are "practically identical".) Considering the difference in aspect ratio, and the fact that the wrong evidence shows the Galaxy Tab in a vertical position (as opposed to the horizontal which is the default), then you see that there is a problem with the evidence presented to the judge as proof that these two products are "practically identical".

Whether you think that's a fuzz about nothing, that's as irrelevant as unquantifiable personal opinions go in a court of law.

Re:subjectivity

[Anonymous Coward]

Whether you think that's a fuzz about nothing, that's as irrelevant as unquantifiable personal opinions go in a court of law.

You might want to tell that to jurors. They seem to think that is precisely what they are there for.

Re:subjectivity

[luis_a_espinal]

Whether you think that's a fuzz about nothing, that's as irrelevant as unquantifiable personal opinions go in a court of law.

You might want to tell that to jurors. They seem to think that is precisely what they are there for.

Here you are being obtuse as I'm clearly referring to the subjective opinion of someone over the internet with respect to what constitutes a valid legal argument presented to a judge, as opposed to the role of jurors who must examine evidence according to the rules of the court and the laws applicable in that jurisdiction. Feel free to conflate both if it makes you feel there is validity in your argument.

Re:subjectivity

[BitZtream]

Just because it is negligible to you that does not imply it is negligible to the case (after all, Apple claimed that they are "practically identical".)

And they practically are. Not exactly. Not technically. But practically, they are identical to the casual observer.

Way to prove their case for them in an attempt to do the opposite. Please don't try to be a lawyer.

Re:subjectivity

[myurr]

Do you honestly think that if you put the two side by side that the average consumer would be unable to see the difference? Apple have deliberately misrepresented their case here to manipulate the courts into giving them their injunction. They have adjusted the size, bezel colour and branding of their competitors product to produce an image allowing them to claim it's practically identical. That in and of itself is illegal as it is falsifying evidence amongst other offenses.

Re:subjectivity

[stewbacca]

Do you honestly think that if you put the two side by side that the average consumer would be unable to see the difference?

You grossly over-estimate the intelligence of the "average consumer".

Re:subjectivity

[Anonymous Coward]

At least the "average consumer" does not go running around with Steve Jobs' dick in his mouth.

Re:subjectivity

[mldi]

Just because it is negligible to you that does not imply it is negligible to the case (after all, Apple claimed that they are "practically identical".)

And they practically are. Not exactly. Not technically. But practically, they are identical to the casual observer.

Way to prove their case for them in an attempt to do the opposite. Please don't try to be a lawyer.

I can't imagine what would happen if the toilet paper industry got all panty-twisted up over how their competitors' products looked like theirs.

Or how about generic branded cereal?

Cars?

Re:subjectivity

[squiggleslash]

I went to Best Buy this weekend. I can't say any of the tablets looked like each other, in any respect. Quite honestly, the flat screen TVs looked more alike than the tablets did. The tablets had different sizes, aspect ratios, borders, colors, thicknesses, etc; their user interfaces were very different. There was even a fairly substantial discrepancy between the "standard" way of holding the things, with most Android tablets apparently being oriented towards landscape use, while the iPad seemed to be primarily designed for portrait use.

I'm not sure what an "casual observer" is supposed to be, but given the length of time most people spend agonizing over which flat screen TV to get, I suspect you're wrong in ascribing to the "casual observer" the lack of ability to distinguish between tablets.

Further, I think the industry "gets it" too. That's why, for example, Google felt obliged to rush out Android Honeycomb when tablet makers like Samsung were putting out Froyo based devices. These two platforms - which fundamentally run the same operating system - are nothing like one another from a user standpoint. Google was right that Froyo was, for all kinds of reasons, not ready to be a tablet operating system. Whether Honeycomb is the right answer is open to question, but it's a fair attempt to produce something that works on a larger screen.

I don't think a "casual observer" will be unable to distinguish between the different tablets, any more than they can't between different SUVs, different three bedroom two story townhouses, different flat screen TVs, or different T-shirts.

Re:subjectivity

[firstnevyn]

*Cough* They have.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110801/03544615342/judge-waxes-comedic-whether-you-can-trademark-quilted-diamonds-toilet-paper.shtml

Re:subjectivity

[Florian Weimer]

There are no jurors in this case, not even lay judges. The German judicial system is different.

Re:subjectivity

[mldi]

*Cough* They have.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110801/03544615342/judge-waxes-comedic-whether-you-can-trademark-quilted-diamonds-toilet-paper.shtml

What. The. Hell. Idiocracy here we come?

As a side note, I did enjoy that Judge's remarks on the case.

Those Darned Interns

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that the information regarding screen size is accurate, but the re-sized photo isn't is such a minor 'aspect' of the case that it seems to trivial to me. If this is a proceeding (e)stopper, I'd be quite surprised. On top of which, the story doesn't seem to indicate that it's viewed as a material issue by either side, let alone the court.

Is it a slow news aggregation week for the flagging performance of the Slashdot ad revenue generator?

Perhaps Apple isn't the only one that needs a more dedicated, committed intern... maybe Slashdot could use some help finding real news items to distract the community from more meaningful pursuits.

No Way To Spin These Lies Away

[AddisonW]

Let's just sum up how badly Apple lied to the court:

* Altered the aspect ratio

* Changed the colour of the device

* Rotated the device 90 degrees from its standard

* Fabricated screen contents to look like an iPad instead of the standard Android OS

Judges have little tolerance for crap like this.

Re:No Way To Spin These Lies Away

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Unfortunately, the bottom of the injunction against Samsung read "The Court So Rules. Sent From My iPad", so the judge may be a bit more lenient...

Re:No Way To Spin These Lies Away

[NatasRevol]

I'll give you the aspect ratio if you give me the rest:

Changed the colo(u)r?

It's black. Blackety black black.

Rotated the device 90 degrees from its standard?

It's designed to do that.

Fabricated screen contents to look like an iPad instead of the standard Android OS?

You mean organized icons similar to the iPad for the point of comparison?

Re:No Way To Spin These Lies Away

[umghhh]

I am so shocked. Evil Samsung goes really trough lengths - they even make devices in such mischievous ways that they do not look like ours! I am sure there is a law against that!

Re:No Way To Spin These Lies Away

[Anonymous Coward]

* Fabricated screen contents to look like an iPad instead of the standard Android OS

You noticed that too, huh? I thought it was funny that no one was talking about it. If you've used Honeycomb, that screen does exist. But it's different from Apple's all together in what part of the OS it is, really (well, to an extent... I recognize Apple fills that same space by just using the "Home" screen, whereas that is not the "Home" screen of Android but the "App Drawer" instead, which is usually built into the "Home" screen but is not necessarily and can be taken off all together with the right setup--I don't know of the setup on that for Honeycomb at this point, but up through Gingerbread, it has remained an option through home screen apps and I wouldn't doubt Honeycomb having the same by any means). Good luck getting anyone to accept that, though.

Re:No Way To Spin These Lies Away

[VGPowerlord]

Changed the colo(u)r?

It's black. Blackety black black.

The way it's been colored in the Apple photo has been darkened. They made two mistakes while darkening it

1. The Camera is missing. Even under poor lighting conditions, it should be at least somewhat visible if hard to see.
2. The Samsung logo is missing.

Fabricated screen contents to look like an iPad instead of the standard Android OS?

You mean organized icons similar to the iPad for the point of comparison?

Yes, because the look of the OS was one of Apple's claims against it:

Die Gesamterscheinung der zwei oben gezeigten Produkte ist fast identisch, weil das GalaxyTab 10.1 alle unterscheidungskrÃftigen Elemente der Ausstattung des iPad 2 kopiert: ... (vi) wenn das Produkt eingeschaltet ist, farbige Icons innerhalb des Displays

Google Translate tells me that phrase means this:

The overall appearance of the two shown above products is almost identical, because the GalaxyTab 10.1 All the distinctive elements of equipment to copy iPad 2: ... (vi) if the product is switched on, colored icons within the display

If you tweak things to intentionally make them look the same just so you can claim that they look the same, that would tampering.

Unfortunately, the translation loses something... I don't know how literal this is supposed to be. It could mean any icons, or it could be saying that the icons are laid out almost identically.

Re:No Way To Spin These Lies Away

[arose]

(vi) wenn das Produkt eingeschaltet ist, farbige Icons innerhalb des Displays

"Your honour, here we have a computer using colored icons! Everyone knows that before he release of the iPhone in 2007 computers used either black and white icons or text based interfaces. We demand hangings."

Re:No Way To Spin These Lies Away

[arose]

Unfortunately, the translation loses something... I don't know how literal this is supposed to be. It could mean any icons, or it could be saying that the icons are laid out almost identically.

(vi) Hasn't lost anything in the translation, it really does say: "When the product is turned on, color icons on the display".

Re:No Way To Spin These Lies Away

[Anonymous Coward]

Tampering? Only if you're a Fandroid.

It's called optimizing your comparisons.

And you didn't actually disagree with any of the GP's points. More like refined the points.

Re:No Way To Spin These Lies Away

[TheRaven64]

Actually, they just showed two iPads side by side and said 'the left one is a Galaxy Tab'.

Re:No Way To Spin These Lies Away

[Anonymous Coward]

Like every windows computer i've ever used.

Re:No Way To Spin These Lies Away

[stewbacca]

The way it's been colored in the Apple photo has been darkened.

Apple, having the Creatives market sewn up, would know best how to make black even more black, for sure!

Re:No Way To Spin These Lies Away

[Daniel Phillips]

Adds weight to the proposition that Apple's deep desire is to challenge big brother Microsoft for title of most egregious corporate falsifier of evidence.

Re:No Way To Spin These Lies Away

[Anonymous Coward]

That has no relevance what so ever. Samsung broke the law and they are going to pay for what they did.

Re:No Way To Spin These Lies Away

[GigaplexNZ]

Changed the colo(u)r?

Is that a lame stab at the correct spelling of colour in the (non-American) English language?

Re:No Way To Spin These Lies Away

[Anonymous Coward]

Which law did they break? They were definitely found guilty were they? Did they get put in jail?

Re:No Way To Spin These Lies Away

[dokc]

Die Gesamterscheinung der zwei oben gezeigten Produkte ist fast identisch, weil das GalaxyTab 10.1 alle unterscheidungskrÃftigen Elemente der Ausstattung des iPad 2 kopiert: ... (vi) wenn das Produkt eingeschaltet ist, farbige Icons innerhalb des Displays

The general appearance of both above shown products is almost identical, because GalaxyTab 10.1 copied all substantially differentiated elements of iPad 2 features: ... (vi) when the product is switched on, colored Icons on the display.

Better?

Re:No Way To Spin These Lies Away

[NatasRevol]

No, it was actually a respectful showing that the GP & I spell it differently, which I was acknowledging.

It must suck to live in a world where you always see the negative in everything.

Re:No Way To Spin These Lies Away

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called optimizing your comparisons.

So... what you're saying is that we can take an ASUS EP-121 Windows 7 tablet, change the background wallpaper to look like the IPad with Icons. Hide all of the Windows Icons. Turn the bezel black and black out any ASUS or Windows logos... Oh, and adjust the aspect ratio and bezel sizes to match and viola! It's an infringing product, too! Genius!

Re:No Way To Spin These Lies Away

[Anonymous Coward]

They were found guilty by a self selected group who view itself as an innovator and will buy any crap from Infinite fruit-Loop. Isn't that enough for you?

Re:No Way To Spin These Lies Away

[thegreatbob]

The AC is talking to itself again...

Re:No Way To Spin These Lies Away

[wzinc]

I know; why is Apple wasting their time on this? Let the market continue to decide not to buy Android tablets on their own. Injunctions are not necessary.

WHO GIVES A FUCK ?? APPLE RULEZ !! STEVE IS GOD !!

[Anonymous Coward]

So just eat shit and die you fucking neanderthalers !! LEAVE STEVE ALONE !!

What the hell?

[MaWeiTao]

Why weren't they examining actual devices? What am I missing here?

Re:What the hell?

[padraic2]

Agreed - the fact that this constituted "evidence" at all is laughably ridiculous.

Re:What the hell?

[nicovl]

A German Injunction does not require any evidence... The case simply has to be made "believable"! In addition, the judge is a Civil judge who has no idea about technology or design. Therefore, making the case believable is not hard to do and the judge will often be satisfied with just a few screen shots or photos...

Re:What the hell?

[F.Ultra]

Because only Apple filed, Samsung wasn't allowed to file anything so they couldn't.

Re:What the hell?

[EdgeCreeper]

A German Injunction does not require any evidence... The case simply has to be made "believable"!

And it goes for the entire EU. Wow... just wow.

The proof of whether the image manipulation was in

[Jmc23]

Florian says the picture probably wasn't intentional and was likely from a pre-release photo. Correct me if i'm wrong, but isn't that the new interface that was only available after the pre-release photos? Wasn't the screen already sourced and aspect ratio known?

If this was really about copying the look why didn't they go after HP's Touchpad which practically has the same dimensions and design, as well as having EXACTLY the same screen specs 9.7" 1024x768 IPS panel. Who knows it might actually be the exact same panel.

The explanation should be awesome

[sl4shd0rk]

Probably follow one of these formats:

a) We had an elderly worker collecting images for the court. She had them on her laptop and mistakenly transmogrified them.

b) Our twitter account was hacked and the faulty images placed instead

c) We mistakenly used pictures from the apple website which are scaled to enhance browsing on mobile devices

d) It was a typo

Look and Feel redux

[steveha]

This reminds me of the "Look and Feel" lawsuit against Windows, way back a couple of decades ago. Apple sued Microsoft and HP, claiming the "look and feel" of Windows was too close to the Mac. As part of the evidence, there was a screen shot of a Mac desktop, and a screen shot of Windows with some HP shell software (called "New Wave") running. But to "improve" the screen shot, Apple had used the user-customization features of New Wave to customize the desktop, and every customization made it look more like an exact copy of the Mac.

IIRC the default settings were colorful, but Apple customized all the colors to black on white to more exactly match the Mac. They moved around icons. I think they even renamed "Recycle.Bin" to "Trash". (But it's been quite a few years so maybe my memory is making that up.)

Sorry, no links to support my memory; Google didn't find me any screenshots from this pre-Internet lawsuit.

This sort of trick doesn't win you any friends in the court, and it always gets revealed, so it's kind of stupid that Apple tried it.

Re:Look and Feel redux

[MightyMartian]

As I recall, Xerox pretty much killed any future noise in this direction by pointing out that they had developed the GUI to begin with and if Apple was victorious over Microsoft, well, that would obviously mean Xerox could beat the living snot out of Apple.

Re:Look and Feel redux

[steveha]

As I recall, Xerox pretty much killed any future noise in this direction by pointing out that they had developed the GUI to begin with and if Apple was victorious over Microsoft, well, that would obviously mean Xerox could beat the living snot out of Apple.

No, that never happened. Xerox didn't keep the case from going to court; the case went to court and Apple lost.

http://lowendmac.com/orchard/06/apple-vs-microsoft.html

steveha

Re:Look and Feel redux

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm... yeah you got a tiny bit wrong there. It wasn't HP, it was Digital... Apple won that lawsuit.
Tell me this isn't a ripoff of Mac OS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gem_11_Desktop.png

Now... The Microsoft suit, Apple lost but NOT because MS didn't copy Apple... it was primarily because of 2 things: Apple had a license agreement in place with Microsoft that permitted this, and the court ruled that some of the primary components that made up the Apple GUI was derived from Xerox tech ( as indeed it was ).
Apple had argued that the GUI elements needed to be examined as a whole. That Xerox's Icons, objects, dekstop, etc didn't interact the way Apple's did, but that Microsoft's icons, desktop, objects indeed interracted the exact same way that Apple's did. The judge did not agree that this was necessary to prove infringement. He did not say, however, whether or not this was true.
And don't make MS out to be an innocent here. There were found guilty of pretty much ripping off Quicktime whole hog a year later.

Don't be a hater without trying to understand. Apple's no innocent here, but they deserve props for what that have truly innovated.
Beat them up for their lack of innovation in other otherea, or purposely choosing to leave features out of hardware and software. Or for hanging their customers out to dry repeatedly when they decide something is "past its prime" ( hyper card, iWeb, Shake, etc.. )

Re:Look and Feel redux

[steveha]

Umm... yeah you got a tiny bit wrong there. It wasn't HP, it was Digital... Apple won that lawsuit.

Please see this URL:

http://lowendmac.com/orchard/06/apple-vs-microsoft.html

Oh look, HP NewWave, not Digital GEM. And yes, Apple lost.

Please see this URL:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc._litigation#GEM_.22look_and_feel.22_suit

I believe that is what you are talking about. It is not clear from that link whether Apple won or whether Digital settled, but either way Apple didn't lose.

Tell me this isn't a ripoff of Mac OS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gem_11_Desktop.png

It looks like a desktop metaphor GUI to me. I am not clear on how much of that metaphor Apple can legitimately claim to own, but Apple and everyone else were all copying Xerox.

Note that in GEM you don't drag a floppy disk to the trash to eject it, and there are many other Apple-isms not present in GEM. So okay, I'll say it: this isn't a ripoff of Mac OS. Not as I define a ripoff, anyway.

But Digital was forced to make changes, so my opinion doesn't seem to be very useful.

Apple lost but NOT because MS didn't copy Apple...

Offtopic. The topic is that Apple submitted, as evidence, screenshots of HP NewWave running on Windows, and had used the customization features of NewWave to make it look very much like the Mac; this despite the out-of-box look being very different.

And don't make MS out to be an innocent here.

Where did I do that?

Don't be a hater without trying to understand.

Where did I do that?

Apple's no innocent here, but they deserve props for what that have truly innovated.

Offtopic. I was discussing one specific incident, which I thought was sort of related to the recent incident where Apple changed the aspect ratio of an image of a Galaxy Tab to make it look more like an iPad. I was not discussing whether or not Apple "deserves props" for innovation, just their legal shenanigans.

Or is it okay to submit doctored evidence if you "deserve props" for innovation?

steveha

Why is it even important?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like a boring detail, what is the significance?

Re:Why is it even important?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a case about boring details...

Re:The proof of whether the image manipulation was

[h4rr4r]

Why would it even be a problem if they use the same panel?

Screen ratio is not design it is obvious, resolution is bound by price and rounded corners are again totally obvious.

Aspect ratio!

[mmcuh]

No no, they didn't change the aspect ratio of the photo. You see, the Geniuses (TM) at Apple have designed the iPad to be viewed exactly at 21.3 degrees for the most ergonomic User Experience (TM). At that angle, it has the intended aspect ratio of 1.36.

Re:Aspect ratio!

[Anonymous Coward]

If that were the case, won't the icons on one side look thinner?

Link to the Actual Court Filing

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.scribd.com/doc/61993811/10-08-04-Apple-Motion-for-EU-Wide-Prel-Inj-Galaxy-Tab-10-1

Despite what the commentards are saying here, there are plenty of pictures in that filing showing the different aspect ratios. The picture called out here (page 28) has scaled the two tablets to be the same height, though this results in the Galaxy Tab 10.0 being narrower in both the screen and total device width -- it's just not obvious unless you line them up vertically.

And for the commentards claiming that there should be a logo, that the Galaxy Tab doesn't do portrait, etc. I direct you here:
http://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/samsung-galaxy-tab-10.1-front-and-back-view-portrait.jpg

Re:Link to the Actual Court Filing

[andydread]

Speaking of commentard.

Re:Link to the Actual Court Filing

[Anonymous Coward]

But please note that in all other pictures showing the iPad and Galaxy Tab together, the devices are shown in perspective, with each device in a slightly different perspective making it more different to recognize the different aspect ratio's. This increases the importance of the flat top-view in the picture in the filing. The faulty picture is not "just one of several" images.

Just checked: measuring up the images reveals that the changed aspect ratio of the Galaxy Tab can be reproduced by scaling the Tab to iPad2 size along the long edge, leaving the short edge unchanged.

Re:Link to the Actual Court Filing

[arose]

Despite what the commentards are saying here, there are plenty of pictures in that filing showing the different aspect ratios. The picture called out here (page 28) has scaled the two tablets to be the same height, though this results in the Galaxy Tab 10.0 being narrower in both the screen and total device width -- it's just not obvious unless you line them up vertically.

It just so happens that page 28 has the only full frontal that isn't at an angle. It seems whoever put this together was very careful to avoid comparisons that showed any differences. The closest we get to a picture showing how different the aspect ratio makes them appear is on page 39, even there, the angle makes it less obvious. The picture on page 28 isn't just scaled vertically, the aspect ratio of the screen is 1.5 in this doctored picture, the actual aspect ratio is 1.6. In a proper comparison the width difference is clearly evident.

Re:Link to the Actual Court Filing

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.scribd.com/doc/61993811/10-08-04-Apple-Motion-for-EU-Wide-Prel-Inj-Galaxy-Tab-10-1

Despite what the commentards are saying here, there are plenty of pictures in that filing showing the different aspect ratios. The picture called out here (page 28) has scaled the two tablets to be the same height, though this results in the Galaxy Tab 10.0 being narrower in both the screen and total device width -- it's just not obvious unless you line them up vertically.

And for the commentards claiming that there should be a logo, that the Galaxy Tab doesn't do portrait, etc. I direct you here:
http://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/samsung-galaxy-tab-10.1-front-and-back-view-portrait.jpg

Finally an observant and intelligence observation. The mind sees what it wants to see and the rest of you were fooled by what you expected (or told) to see. Good catch!

Re:Link to the Actual Court Filing

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't Digg. It's okay to not start throwing around "tard" because you disagreed with something.

Re:Link to the Actual Court Filing

[oogoliegoogolie]

What are you talking about? I just scrolled through the scribd link you presented and it's plain-as-day that the majority of pictures are doctored. Page36:the ipad is photographed at an angle to make it match the Galaxy's aspect ratio. Ditto on page 39.

Re:Link to the Actual Court Filing

[Anonymous Coward]

None of the rest of the photos show the two tablets side by side in a non skewed orientation. The photo in question is the only orthogonal view that offers the best head on comparison.

They also show the Ipad in the homescreen where as they show the Galaxy Tab with the app drawer open. A more fair comparison would have been both tablets at their home screens...

But regardless of those details, Apple is claiming they own rectangular devices with rounded corners. It is hardly something you could say is original. There were other "tablets" on the market before Apple that had that design...

One funny example:
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/02/chinese-ipad-maker-threatens-to-sue-apple-for-plagiarism/

Re:Link to the Actual Court Filing

[Anonymous Coward]

The only commentards here are the fucktards that modded a POS like you up.

Re:Link to the Actual Court Filing

[Anonymous Coward]

It is also the only comparison that is not at *different* angle for the two tablets. Any other picture has the galaxy tab with at a bigger angle. You would expect that Apple has enough money to buy a camera stand and a flat surface to make these shots...

Re:Link to the Actual Court Filing

[snowgirl]

*shock* Lawyers presenting only the evidence that shows their argument in the best light. News at 11...

Seriously, every lawyer does this. There's a massive amount of "confirmation bias" like argument that goes on in court, where each lawyer only really presents the evidence and laws that best support their arguments. It's up to the other side to point to the flaws in their legal arguments. Welcome to the adversarial legal system.

LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

Just...LOL

Jobs wishes

[kelemvor4]

That it was another body part instead of his nose that would grow when he lies. I wonder if this will fall under some sort of perjury law, or something related to falsifying evidence.

Re:Jobs wishes

[Anonymous Coward]

Leave the guy alone - he has this Reality Distorsion thing. It's a medical condition. Otherwise I would call him a pathetic mo**********g son of a b***h liar if I didn't know that.

Re:Jobs wishes

[Anonymous Coward]

That it was another body part instead of his nose that would grow when he lies.

His liver?

Are Slashtards really this shallow? Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you guys honestly believe that this was the sole piece of evidence to compel an EU judge to order an injunction across most of Europe? This is why you don't do IP law for a living. Take a look at Apple's community design cert and note it's scope.

Re:Are Slashtards really this shallow? Really?

[kelemvor4]

You're right, falsifying evidence is no big deal as long as it's not the only piece of evidence.

Because HP holds more real patents than Apple

[Kupfernigk]

Samsung is relatively naive and comes from a country where people innovate rather than litigate. It was possible to ambush them. Apple ambushing HP would result in their being crushed by an elephant.

Sizes are clearly stated

[etresoft]

Just below the picture in question, the sizes of the two devices are clearly stated. I didn't even need Google Translate to see that.

Not so much

[Theaetetus]

If you actually go to the complaint, you see that there are several photos of the actual Tab, showing the different aspect ratio. There's also a listing of the actual dimensions of both, side by side.

Re:The proof of whether the image manipulation was

[Theaetetus]

Why would it even be a problem if they use the same panel?

Screen ratio is not design it is obvious, resolution is bound by price and rounded corners are again totally obvious.

And if Apple was claiming to have a particular screen ratio patented, this would be relevant.

Re:The proof of whether the image manipulation was

[kelemvor4]

Maybe even made in the exact same place, since both companies outsource manufacturing to foxconn.

Re:The proof of whether the image manipulation was

[oakgrove]

Because Jobs doesn't see HP as a threat. He knows Android will eventually eat the iPad's lunch and he's just trying to stave off the inevitable.

-- Sent from my iPad. :)

Re:The proof of whether the image manipulation was

[Anonymous Coward]

Florian says the picture probably wasn't intentional ...

You mean like: 'Sorry Your Honour, I tripped while masterbating and my cock accidently hit the "Modify TAB Picture to Look Like Ipad" key on my computer.'?

Einstweilige Verfügung

[nicovl]

The German "Einstweilige Verfügung" (injunction) is a bit of a joke. There is no need for any real proof to get a German injunction. Basically the judge just has to be convinced that the claim might be valid. It is almost impossible to get an "Einstweilige Verfügung" reversed.

The "Einstweilige Verfügung" is a disgrace and should be abolished. You just need one judge to be dumb enough to approve it (no real evidence required) and from that point on, there is nothing anyone can do about it until the case is settled in court. Needless to say anyone with good connections to judges can easily make a big mess of things...

Re:Einstweilige Verfügung

[nicovl]

One thing I didn't mention in my first post...

From my experience, it is the Civil Court that grants an "Einstweilige Verfügung". This also seems to be the case here. This means judges that typically decide on things like divorce and other civil matters are making decisions about techno-legal matters. Needless to say, these judges are in no way qualified to make such decisions and are completely overwhelmed when confronted with technology. There is nothing just about the justice system, just a new framework for Mafia-like practices to be carried out under an official banner. What a joke....

Re:Einstweilige Verfügung

[olau]

Hope you get modded up. There was also a discussion on osnews.com.

Come on..

[Wovel]

At least Slashdot could have mentioned the other 20 photographs in the complaint. All of which clearly depict the appropriate aspect ratio. Oh well. Independent thought really is dead.

Re:Come on..

[dwightk]

don't let a bit of truth get in the way of a good ignorant rant

Re:Come on..

[arose]

Not one of those other photographs is a proper face-to-face comparison showing the rather stark difference in size. Looking at significant angles masks this, the closest is on page 39, but it still is less than obvious. Of course none of this excuses the doctoring of any one of the pictures.

Re:Come on..

[Anonymous Coward]

I only faked *one* piece of evidence your honor!

Re:Come on..

[AbRASiON]

Why would they? Quibbling over the details isn't the problem. The lawsuit is a load of bullshit from a company scared. I hope they fucking crumble.

Re:Come on..

[Anonymous Coward]

More importantly than the size (imagine one TV manufacturer suing another because they use the same size and aspect ratio), the look of the tabs are nowhere near the same. Man, this might be the most rediculous thing in the history of Apple, and tbh, they've been bat crap crazy in the past as well. Though, now there's a bat crap crazy judge involved as well... that's kinda scary...

Re:Come on..

[Anonymous Coward]

It actually appears that they've elongated the iPad in a couple of them

Look at pages 27 and 28 and tell me both iPads have the same aspect ratio (Even accounting for perspective)

Re:Come on..

[Anonymous Coward]

It actually appears as if the iPad is stretched on some of them - particularly page 27

Re:Come on..

[Kynde]

At least Slashdot could have mentioned the other 20 photographs in the complaint. All of which clearly depict the appropriate aspect ratio. Oh well. Independent thought really is dead.

At least you could have mentioned the other 20 photographs in the complaint all to be from an angle. None of which depicts the aspect ratios as clearly as the picture in page 28 does or would have. Oh well. Apple fanboys accept one in 20 pictures to be fake when evidence is presented.

Re:Come on..

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed to many appel fanbois these days, really saps the value of the conversation dealing with fools so deeply in lurve with a brand that is now racing to find the lowest common denominator in relation to technology.

Re:Come on..

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple fanboi much?

Amazing

[Dracos]

Now we know the Reality Distortion Field can perform basic image processing.

Has anyone changed sides after this revelation?

[erroneus]

I am just curious here. There are clearly still two sides here -- "for Apple" and "against Apple." I am unashamedly in the latter camp even if I do currently own some Apple computers -- I dislike what they are doing, not necessarily the computers. But more and more of this stuff keeps emerging which shows Apple for being a pretty disgusting company. Have any Apple fans here reconsidered their position after any or all of this? (Or are you still "thinking different"?)

No such thing as evidence in a German injunction

[nicovl]

The title of this slashdot post, the refered article and many of the comments seem to be a little miss-informed.

Everyone is refering to evidence whereas no evidence is required or submitted when applying for an injunction (Einstweilige Verfügung) in Germany. To get a German injunction, the submitter simply has to make their claim believable to the judge. There is no need for any evidence... simply statements, references and photos that make the request for the injunction believable. To make matters worse, these injunctions are dealt with by Civil Courts meaning the judges have no idea about technology or design. The submitted believability statements (as they are called in German) are not tested for validity they are not properly scrutinized and they need no real foundation they simply have to be made believable.

The problem here is the German justice system more than anything else. Any justice system that can make such far reaching decisions based on belief is without a doubt not worth taking seriously.

Wouldn't it be nice to see companies actually competing instead of playing silly mafia games with lawyers and judges. A flawed system run by incompetent people simply trying to make some cash based on nonsens instead of doing something productive... Who needs them?

Rhubarb to you.

[itsdapead]

Tomatoes are fruits. Perceived sweetness has nothing to do with whether something is considered a fruit, neither in the lab nor the kitchen.

...and there's no problem with them being vegetables and fruits because the noun "vegetable" isn't a term used in science (it may be used as an adjective, e.g. "vegetable matter" and a tomato is definitely vegetable matter).

Clue: words can have both technical and colloquial meanings and anybody with half a brain ought to be able to work out when scientific pedantry is, and is not appropriate. In the lab, it can be important. In the kitchen, tomatoes can be vegetables, rhubarb can be a fruit and all sorts of things which aren't technically speaking nuts can be nuts because you're trying to cook the fucking things, not classify them. Next thing, you'll be so busy arguing over whether "mushroom" refers to the whole fungus or just the fruiting body that you'll accidentally add 200 Newtons of the things instead of 200 grams and completely ruin your pizza.

Maybe using Latin for science wasn't such a bad idea: it might stop scientists re-defining commonplace words like "work" and "weight" then coming over all smug when people get confused.

Re:Rhubarb to you.

[tomhudson]

"Fruit" is definitely used in the botanical sciences to have a specific meaning, and tomatoes are fruits, not just "vegetable matter." Your attempt at being overly pedantic failed, but it was a nice try. Still, I give it a -1.

Also the distinction between peanuts and real nuts is important in the kitchen, because so many people mistakenly want to avoid contact with peanuts because of an allergy to nuts, when peanuts are definitely NOT nuts. They are two distinct allergies, though they are often present in the same individual. BTW - science has uses in the kitchen - cooking is applied chemistry, last time I looked.

-- barbara

Re:No such thing as evidence in a German injunctio

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

It'd be nice to see companies compete instead oF blatantly ripping each other off.

just like which benchmarks?

[reiisi]

More like the benchmarks that INTEL was putting out at the time Apple started using those ads. Apple did use them too long.

At all was too long in my opinion, because they were just begging for what happened next.

INTEL was able to improve performance by buying the best engineers money can buy away from all the companies that were making better CPUs. That was a no-brainer, and a primary reason taunting the competition is not a good approach to ad campaigns.

And with all that talent, INTEL still can't overcome the basic deficiencies in the x86, all the vaporware to the contrary notwithstanding. They still have to resort to things like planting rumors that they have to keep the performance down to keep AMD in the game to keep the justice department at bay.

Shifting topics.

[reiisi]

I think the original problem is that you start out being reminded of the look and feel suit against "Windows" and end up dodging and focusing on HP.

Microsoft borrowed huge pieces of Apple code. They fudged the share agreements and tried to compete against Apple with Apple's own technology, a pattern they have a habit of repeating regularly. Different case, and, no, it's not the same. If Microsoft is doctoring the end product to hide Apple tech, trying to un-doctor the end-product is not unreasonable.

But that was then, when Apple was sort-of justified in grasping at straws. Funny those same straws turn into logs these days for non-practicing entities, but that's another insanity.

This year has seen Apple show some of its worst sides. This is now.

Re:Shifting topics.

[steveha]

I think the original problem is that you start out being reminded of the look and feel suit against "Windows" and end up dodging and focusing on HP.

As I said before: Apple sued both HP and Microsoft, the screenshot I am talking about was Windows with HP New Wave running, and Apple had used the customization features of New Wave to make the screenshot look more like a Mac.

Since that is what I said in the first place, how is this "dodging" or "shifting topics"?

And hey look, I tried a Google search and this time hit on the correct search words to find it. Here is a Google Books scan of the InfoWorld computer magazine. See page 5, under the heading "Windows Are Common, But Their Implementations Vary". There is a picture of the black-and-white New Wave screenshot submitted by Apple, and another picture of the default colors for HP New Wave.

Windows Are Common, But Their Implementations Vary

So, I trust that I have adequately explained to you what HP has to do with the topic at hand? Just as a refresher, in case you forgot: Apple supplied a screenshot of HP New Wave running on top of Microsoft Windows as part of its lawsuit against both Microsoft and HP.

If Microsoft is doctoring the end product to hide Apple tech, trying to un-doctor the end-product is not unreasonable.

I disagree. You can use the word "un-doctor" but it is still dishonest doctoring of evidence. It was stupid, too, because there was no way they were going to get by with that without a challenge, and it just made Apple look bad.

Apple was sort-of justified in grasping at straws

No. Doctoring evidence is not justified at any time.

Funny those same straws turn into logs these days for non-practicing entities, but that's another insanity.

Dude, I have no idea what this sentence is supposed to mean. If the idea is important, perhaps you should rephrase it.

steveha

Streisand effect?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes please. Go away Apple design/IP/patent trolls.

The end of all this...

[aaaaaaargh!]

In the end, we'll all end up with having to make a choice: Either we buy an Apple product or we will have to use an octahedral pocket device/phone and a command line TUI because anything else will violate some of Apple's patents. Oh wait a minute....now that I've mentioned it, some company will probably file a design patent for octahedral electronic devices with command line TUI...

Hell, I would reverse the injunction

[Shivetya]

and keep iPads off the shelf for six months or more.

That would fix idiocy like this real quick

You like to argue with history --

[reiisi]

HIstory:

Microsoft "borrowed" a huge amount of tech from Apple. They massaged it with macro-preprocessors and did some other near-mechanical transformations to functionally project the Macintosh Toolbox onto a pseudo-object concept they had been calling "windows" (windows on code). I think the concept was derived from the stupid segmented addressing in the x86. They did that because they could not figure out how to force their pseudo objects onto a windowing environment that would be flexible enough to replicate the functionality of the Macintosh. MSWindows 3 could not compete, and they did not understand enough about GUI to do it on their own.

There was a lot of stuff that seems obvious to us now, that their engineers could not grasp. They had to resort to a mechanical transformation of existing code, projecting it onto their pseudo-objects. This is not the same as Apple appropriating the concepts they saw at Xerox Parc. This is taking code.

I say "seems" obvious because real graphical user interface coding is nowhere nearly as obvious as we want to believe it is, especially on the limited processors they were using back then. These days, we are able to work with GUI by implementing general events and general graphical environments and near-general context entities that we call window managers and desktop managers, and our processors have the speed and memory to do it in a reasonably responsive manner. Back then, they had to cut a lot of corners, and figuring out which corners to cut is real engineering.

That is not deniable if you understand the programming and have ever looked at the orgiinal Mac toolbox code and the materials given to Mac programmers and compared it with the equivalent from MSWindows 95. There was no way any agreement between them was supposed to allow the level of borrowing. But Microsoft fast talked their way out of that somehow and Apple had to either give up and go home like a whipped dog or at least go down fighting. They chose the latter, and took a lot of wild swings. They salvaged enough of the fight to survive long enough to bring Jobs back.

Fast-forward that to today and the non-practicing entities and you see that courts have swung way too far the other direction, and are still unwilling to even try to read source code. The trolls are getting huge awards with the same wild punches that got Apple barely more than scratch. They are still hitting nothing but air, so to speak, and courts are awarding the match on bizarre technical points from misreading of law and misapplying it to the computer industry.

How Microsoft fast-talked their way out of it was that courts did not understand the sort of mathematical transforms that can be performed on source code without changing its essence. The suit should have been focused on copyright violations of the code, but the courts could not understand it. There are still very few people who understand it. This problem is probably the core motivation for the spurious invention of "intellectual property".

You raise some suit against Windows. There was no suit against "Windows".

The suit was against Microsoft and some of its partners over Microsoft Windows. The suit was against Microsoft, primarily. Microsoft Windows was the object of contention, but could not be dealt with directly because of the previous flawed court decisions. The partners were dragged in because the primary evidence had been passed over and thrown out.

It is not uncommon in patent fights for a general approach that allows multiple implementations to be found infringing for instances which implement elements of a prior patent. In such cases, the owner of the general approach can be required to take technical steps to prevent the uses of the instances which held to infringe. It seems insane, but most of the so-called IP law is based on similarly unreasonable convolutions to allow specific kinds of temporary monopoly but still disallow monopoly.

The specific instance you drag up was not about Apple re-painting and photoshopping

Re:You like to argue with history --

[steveha]

Microsoft "borrowed" a huge amount of tech from Apple. They massaged it with macro-preprocessors and did some other near-mechanical transformations to functionally project the Macintosh Toolbox onto a pseudo-object concept they had been calling "windows" (windows on code).

This is an extraordinary claim. I'd like to see some evidence to support this claim.

As I recall, Apple did the early Mac development in Pascal, while Microsoft was very devoted to C in those days. You are claiming that Microsoft stole actual source code from Apple, and mechanically translated it? And Microsoft got that stolen code to run decently on the sucky 8088 processor, while the Mac got to run on the so-much-better 68000 processor? I find this rather difficult to believe.

And Microsoft started Windows before they had dealings with Apple; Bill Gates visited Xerox too, same as Steve Jobs. So Microsoft threw away what they had already written in favor of the stolen translated code? Or what, exactly?

Back then, they had to cut a lot of corners, and figuring out which corners to cut is real engineering.

Yes, exactly. Apple made their own engineering so much easier by standardizing on a 68000 processor, while Microsoft kept trying to shoehorn a GUI desktop onto an 8088 (or at least 8086). (For Windows 3, they gave up on that and required at least a 286, and quickly standardized on 386 or better.)

Windows 2 was a dancing bear: the wonder was not that the bear danced so well, the wonder was that it danced at all.

This is why I find it impossible to believe that Microsoft was able to mechanically translate Pascal and get it to run in Windows 2. Also, your comment here on Slashdot is the only place I have ever seen this claim made, and I don't know you, so frankly I don't put much stock in anything you say. Evidence or it didn't happen.

MSWindows 3 could not compete, and they did not understand enough about GUI to do it on their own.

Whoa wait, Windows 3? Apple sued Microsoft and HP over Windows 2 plus HP New Wave. So you aren't talking at all about what I was talking about then? I still would like to see the evidence, but I'm wondering why you are dodging and shifting topics.

That is not deniable if you understand the programming and have ever looked at the orgiinal Mac toolbox code and the materials given to Mac programmers and compared it with the equivalent from MSWindows 95.

Wait, you are claiming you can tell that Microsoft stole code and mechanically translated it just by looking at APIs? Isn't it rather more likely that Microsoft implemented similar APIs by writing C code on their own? I don't think it's even illegal, or even immoral, to look at another company's API and make your own API similar, so you haven't convinced me of anything yet.

What Apple is being questioned for now is a bit different, although it is sort of the same. Apple is trying hard to defend tech they spent real time and money developing. They are trying to show how the other implementations map onto their tech.

If I understand correctly, Apple is trying to claim that any rectangular tablet with a bezel around the touchscreen is an unfair copy of their product. That's not acceptable.

Apple also tried to patent many obvious multitouch gestures, such as pinch-zoom. The obnoxious thing is that they succeeded in many cases. It's hard to blame Apple, the blame there needs to fall on the patent office.

I assume the above will be as hard for you to understand as my earlier comment about non-practicing entities.

Has it ever occurred to you that, if I have trouble understanding something you wrote, the problem might be with your writing and not with me?

Fortunately, I don't actually care what you think about me, so I'm not going to get bent out of shape about this. But, word of advice here, many people don't like it when you imply that they aren't smart enough to understand your writings. This is not the way to make frien

Calling it "Photoshopped" is rather inaccurate

[93 Escort Wagon]

The tablet on the right is obviously a jailbroken iPad 2 running the Galaxy Tab theme.

Thank you Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for your frivolous intellectual property suits, I now have a moral ground for resisting the temptation to buy your IShwag at least until developer duties force my me to join the Apple developer dictatorship.

since when can you copyright an aspect ratio?

[EDinNY]

It is sad if dimensions are the only argument Apple has.
Can I copyright the golden ratio?