Slashdot Mirror
Apple Is Giving Away Its Secrets By Litigating
An anonymous reader writes "Apple, by going to a jury trial to defend the patents of its most prized products, is allowing competitors and the public to see inside one of the most secretive companies in the world. From the article: 'While in court on Friday, Philip W. Schiller, Apple's senior vice president for worldwide product marketing, pulled the curtain further back when he divulged the company's advertising budgets — often more than $100 million a year for the iPhone alone. Also at the hearing, Scott Forstall, senior vice president for iPhone software, explained that the early iPhone was called "Project Purple." Mr. Forstall said it was built in a highly secure building on Apple's campus. A sign on the back of the building read "Fight Club." Behind the security cameras and locked doors, most employees on the project did not even know what they were working on.'"
So the secret sauce I need to become a multibillion dollar multinational corporation is spend a lot on advertising, give my projects fabulous color names, hang up a fight club poster... Thats all it takes?
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Patents are publicly available documents...any way you go...there's no secrecy there at least...Thank you Google!
There are three kinds of people in the world. Those that can count, and those that can't.
This a slow day samzenpus? This article is bad, and you should feel bad.
Possibly the worst headline ever. I notice nowhere in the summary or the linked article where Mr. Schiller specifically avoided commenting on the new iPhone due this fall. Don't worry, I'm sure there will be plenty of back and forth between fanboys and fandroids. Slashdot will get pageviews, and my karma will end up in the terlet.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
So I guess when I code a url in my app to point to the app store for posting a review I finally know what the "purple" means "itms-apps://ax.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewContentsUserReviews?type=Purple+Software&id="
Uh, ok. I admit - I'm an Apple fanboy so I follow Apple news pretty closely but, thus far, nothing secret has been revealed. A large marketing budget for their key products? Uh, duh! A massive and secretive development process behind the iPhone? Seriously, duh! Literally, nothing at all that has been revealed thus far is anything remotely close to a "secret". The closest thing to a secret has been the revelation of specific prototypes but everyone knew there were prototype iPhone designs and most people already had a basic idea of what they looked like - now we have pictures. But the only people who consider any of this a secret are people who don't follow the tech industry at all and anyone who follows Apple surely finds nothing to be a shocking secret thus far.
A tour through Willy Wonka's chocolate factory? Where's the sweatshop full of Oompa Loompas?
iOompa iLoompas you insensitive clod.
<old man rant>
When Slashdot didn't cover the smart phone wars and we conversed open source and linux, then did a healthy microsoft bashing for good measure. I miss those days.
I get that the editors love the traffic from Apple stories but I find them so damn tiring. Yes, they are a tech leader but does the Slashdot community need to notified about every little quibble? (hey look, a slashdot headline!) If Tim Cook so much as farts, it makes frontpage news here, followed by some idiotic editorial that would be modded flamebait if posted to a story.
Slashdot reminds me of this video ... with Slashdot playing the role of Paranoia. Now, if only we could successfully "stab em".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bCD8M0EnxA
</old man rant>
Apple's not doing anything spectacular. The company is just creating a product design that differentiates themselves from the competition and marketing it. They have a lot of money to do that. It's not like they really have anything all that unique functionality wise. They are dependant on the same companies Dell, HP, and everybody else is. That is they are dependent on Samsung for hard drives, Atheros/Realtek/Intel/etc for wireless chipsets, Intel/AMD for CPUs, etc. If they actually were to create a new product it would be one thing. They aren't doing that though. They might be the first to market for some items although more frequently than not it seems they really aren't. They are just the first to mass market a particular product.
The portable audio player is a perfect example of this. Apple didn't invent the portable mp3 player. These were around before Apple and another company fought the hard battle to 'legalise' the technology.
They didn't invent the sleek design. There have been other products with few buttons. Palm had devices that were extremely sleek. Even to this day would be considered slim. Like the Palm M500 (though it did have a few buttons- which actually made it better than the crap Apple puts out).
Apple just takes a product and mass markets it and then claims to own the technology/design. It's a load of crap. There are smaller players on the market like ThinkPenguin which have similar products. I'm not saying everything came before Apple. What I'm saying is that Apple's product line isn't that unique. It's not the only company which sells hardware with a non-Microsoft operating system or the only company capable of designing / releasing a sleek stylish design. Humorously there are a lot of "Apple" fanboys who like ThinkPenguin's stuff. Sadly they like it for all the wrong reasons. They should like it because it's freedom friendly. Not because it's stylish, slim, fast, etc.
Every new iPhone model sells more than all the previous models combined. That's a heck of a lot of people to pay off for standing in line. I want in.
The amount of people in line is eerily similar with each product launch, how many of these people are the same and what is their association to Apple?
Or maybe the same early adopters line up for upgrades each time. No conspiracy theory necessary.
Much like the same people line up to buy [insert appropriate video game franchise name here] at midnight on launch day.
Yesterday I was at the Mall of America to let my kid ride some rides while it drizzled outside. I needed a new Invisible Shield for my phone (not realizing that the one that began to peel off, had I gone to a kiosk with it still on the phone, would have been covered by their lifetime warranty) and had one put on there for an additional $5 (saving me 20 minutes of utter frustration and sweat).
After waiting the 30 seconds for the dude to do it for me, I was about to walk away when a young guy and his family came up to me and asked about the product. I told him I had it on my phone for nearly two years and never suffered a scratch--except in the material itself. Two days after peeling it off, I ended up with a scratch in the glass--and thus why I was more than happy to pay the $20 to get another (even though, if I had known better, I wouldn't have had to). He bought one himself right then and there.
Could this have been interpreted as undercover marketing? Surely it could have. In fact, it probably would have looked just like that to anyone who walked by who is as paranoid as the typical Slashbot. However, I am genuinely impressed with the product (even though I was HIGHLY skeptical when my wife bought it for me the first time) and I have absolutely NOTHING to do w/the company.
These are the important secrets?
It's more likely that Apple's competitors are going to look at this thin slice of evidence and apply it badly, as has been done so frequently in the past.
I'm more worried about Apple drifting away from its own successful values than I am about somebody else "discovering" them on the basis of this trial's discovery.
How many of those Apple users lining up to buy the new Iphones are Apple employees or associates paid to stand in line? The amount of people in line is eerily similar with each product launch, how many of these people are the same and what is their association to Apple?
Undercover marketing is real. For all who don't know what it is, here is a video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcZkbUH-lOc
The man in the video does not appear to be honest.
Why would you pay kids to walk around and eat popcorn and cotton candy when you could just hand out a few free ones?
Same with the "leaners", it sounds too contrived, a poster, coasters, or again, giving away free stuff would be cheaper.
A huge line doesn't make people want to go stand in it. Disney puts a lot of work into hiding long lines to make the wait appear to be shorter.
What is supposed point of secret marketing other than an explanation for the popularity of something you just don't like?
Geeks can make serious money at suburban malls these days. Apple pays me to stand around in front of their store, and Abercrombie and Fitch pays me to stay away from theirs.
Sorry I know too many regular people who get excited by Apple products and do that sort of things. On the annual WWDC when new hardware is often announced there a 1/2 dozen websites live blogging for the people who can't wait till the next day to watch the video.
I find it curious Apple spends so much money on advertising yet its pretty seldom i have seen an Apple advert at all. Where does all that money go really? Since not much seems to end up in normal advertising one could suspect it was spent on guerilla marketing or astroturfing as i call it.
HTTP/1.1 400
I would argue that the predominant perception of patents is that they exist to secure the privileges of the inventor. Nowadays they seem to serve as the fulcrum by which litigators pry large sums of money away from alleged violators of their clients' dubiously-granted rights. Whatever the original intent of patents, it was obscured by virtual mountains of cash a long time ago.
Koans and fables for the software engineer