Why Apple Is Suing Every Android Manufacturer In Sight

First time accepted submitter amiller2571 writes "The eyes of the technology world are focused on the epic patent struggle between Apple and Samsung — the latest iteration of Apple's frantic legal battle against everything Android. The iPhone maker has also brought suits against Android device manufacturers HTC and Motorola. Apple has faced criticism for its endless lawsuits designed to stunt competition from Google's Android, but a quick look at Android device shipments in the second quarter of 2012 reveals a key number that suggest Apple is right to worry." Spoiler alert: the number the article focuses on is 68 — as in, the 68 percent of the smart phone market in this year's second quarter that consisted of Android phones.

Comments

History

[kd6ttl]

We need a repeat of SEA vs. PKZip, with Apple as SEA.

Re:History

[Nerdfest]

Unfortunately, the market in question is not as well versed in the details as it was in that case. That said, it's getting better. I've seen a large percentage of former iPhone users with Galaxy II and II Android phones. All are amazed at how much better it is, mainly in how you can customize the interface. One switch to one of the new BlackBerry phones because she wanted a physical keyboard (I'm in Canada, so we still have a bit of a soft spot for them). This isn't a valid statistical sample or anything, but it is a decent number. The only people I know that are keeping their iPhones are the ones that really don't use them for much.

Re:History

[Nerdfest]

Where's SEA now versus the ubiquity of the zip file format. Katz had to change the extension, but won overall. He won because the community knew he had a better product, and SEA was using the courts to block him ... it's actually a really good comparison, and if people spread the word, Apple might be in the same position eventually, or have to at least change their ways.

Re:History

[The Snowman]

Are you under the impression that SEA lost? They won, and forced Phil Katz to abandon PKARC. Not PKZip, which was what Katz came up with him after he was forbidden to use the SEA file format.

SEA won the battle, but Phil Katz won the war when the ARC format fizzled and died leaving ZIP as the predominant compressed file format.

I think the OP was saying let Apple win their lawsuits, they're still drowning in a sea of droids in terms of market share.

Re:History

[Bill_the_Engineer]

That said, it's getting better. I've seen a large percentage of former iPhone users with Galaxy II and II Android phones. All are amazed at how much better it is, mainly in how you can customize the interface.

As a counter-point to your purely ancedotal evidence, count me as one of many Android users who are waiting for their carrier to natively support the iPhone on their 3G+/4G network. I'd much prefer a phone that doesn't require a reboot simply to regain signal strength (I have an HTC) over a customizable interface, which I must admit I can live without. I've been an Android phone owner since the early days of 1.4 and my phone usage has never revolved around the home screen.

Re:History

[phrostie]

I was an iphone user.
I didn't leave for Android, i left because of itunes.

i have a Galaxy S. it's not perfect, but it's close enough i won't go back.

Re:History

[hherb]

You might be sorely disappointed then. At least with the iphone 3GS and iphone4 we have in our family, we too have to reboot on occasion in oredr to get out of the "no signal" in areas where there is definitely a good signal. Doesn't happen often, but happen it does. It does certainly not happen any mpre often than on my son's Galaxy S2.

In terms of stability and reliability I would rate them "on par", but in terms of user friendliness and features in our family's collective opinion the Galaxy2 wins by a small but significant enough margin for the remaining 4 iphone users in the family wanting to make the switch. Everybody in my family is sick of Apple telling us what to do and preventing us from doing what we want to do through their appstore monopoly abuse.

Re:History

[Gumbercules!!]

You're not getting better signal strength by rebooting, you're rejoining a tower by rebooting. Your signal strength is dropping off over time because your provider has over-subscribed your area in terms of users vs tower capacity. Getting an iPhone won't change this.

Re:History

[PRMan]

Since Galaxy S2 and S3 were both more highly rated than iPhone, isn't Samsung the one making the phone people want? And aren't the Bad Guys the ones trying to make you do what they want instead of what you want? Isn't that Apple? Or some patent troll who didn't invent anything but just dressed it up real pretty going around suing the actual inventors? Again, Apple. Not really understanding your logic there...

Re:History

[richpoore]

As one who gives random tech support to non-techies sometimes it is easier to talk a user through a reboot than talking them through menus to cycle the network. Sometimes when helping others, especially when you're not present, the easiest route is more desired than the quickest or more efficient route.

Getting tired of Apple lawsuits

[xs650]

I'm a user of MS, Apple and Android based products. I'm getting tired of Apple's sue happy policy and I will take that into serious consideration during any future purchases.

Apple is making MS look less douchebaggish by comparison.

Re:Getting tired of Apple lawsuits

[wild_quinine]

Apple is making MS look less douchebaggish by comparison.

Microsoft haven't looked douchebaggish for years. They've looked by turns incompetent and lost. If they had ever built up any goodwill with me, I'd feel sorry for them.

Apple are showing the world that competent evil is truly something else.

Re:Getting tired of Apple lawsuits

[edremy]

Nothing is more douchebaggish than "I won't buy XYZ any more because of blah blah emotional decision" posts on the Internet.

Why? Not buying from a company that engages in business practices you dislike is one of the very few powers ordinary consumers have. Don't like Apple's sue-happy policy? Don't buy, and let them know why.

Re:When Domination Isn't

[Anonymous Coward]

That's some ridiculous spin. Yes, that's true, but if you're an Apple shareholder, that sort of mindless fanboyism isn't going to change the reality: Apple is losing out to Android. It doesn't matter how much market share Apple has individually, it only matters that Apple is losing it. You can spin it 6 ways from Sunday but that shit aint gonna fly at the shareholders meeting.

Re:When Domination Isn't

[Anonymous Coward]

How many units are sold by all X makers in aggregate isn't really all that important here.

So the fact that Apple was on the ropes and facing the threat of bankruptcy and nonexistence back in the 90s and early 2000s thanks to that aggregate statistic that "isn't really all that important" means nothing in your little world?

People wanted "a PC". They didn't want "a Mac". "A Mac" didn't run the programs "a PC" did, and was more expensive. People didn't care that what they bought was a Dell, or an HP, or a Vaio, or whatever. And it turned out the market didn't care, either. The aggregate sales of PCs beat the pants off of Macs in sales. Period. Apple knows this. They are terrified of what this means, because Steve won't come back to save their asses this time around.

What does the entire "Apple sells the most of a single specific model of phone, and depends on that one single model of phone to promote their phone infrastructure, without which they're left with nothing" statistic MEAN, anyway? Um... good for Apple? Meanwhile, 68% of the smartphone market are using Android phones?

Re:Wrong %

[Nerdfest]

I always find it funny that people bring it up. It's nice if your an Apple shareholder, but not particularly meaningful as a buyer of their products. Personally, I'd feel I was being overcharged.

Re:When Domination Isn't

[symbolset]

Samsung's smartphones alone sold 2x Apples'.

These are some impressive numbers. Over the year ago quarter Android's market share increase is more than Apple's entire market share, and the market grew 42 percent overall as well. Uptake has been astounding. 104 million phones in a quarter. A normally slack quarter. Wow.

Apple is seeing decent growth in unit numbers also, even with a new iPhone on the way.

Between Apple and Android they have a full 85 percent, leaving just 15 percent for everybody else. Not one other player has 5 percent. It has become a two horse race.

I would dispute one part of the article: "Legal Challenges Are Effective". Obviously if that were true the numbers would be vastly different. Lots of lawyers are being annoying and making good money. They can get injunctions against individual versions of individual vendors' products in individual jurisdictions. What they cannot do is stop the horde of manufacturers, vendors and product versions that they haven't sued yet, or in other parts of the world. There are neither enough lawyers nor courts in the world to do that. A lawsuit is a point attack and like a sword it can be brutally effective against a point target, but against a swarm of bees it is completely useless.

Re:When Domination Isn't

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an Apple shareholder and it doesn't matter to me at all how much market share Apple has. What matters is what is supposed to matter to any company and it's shareholders--can it make money. And Apple is doing just fine at that.

Re:Repeat of SCO

[Nemyst]

Saw this the other day and found it rather amusing.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-s-q59Ddhask/T-7gqITVmTI/AAAAAAAACRQ/v1EjsKgB-bY/s973/the_apple_cycle.jpg

Re:Over 2/3 of industry profit

[symbolset]

Apple will not be able to demand these premiums much longer if their market share doesn't pick up. To now they have used the prospect of denying a carrier the iPhone to keep their subsidy up. Since the Android phones are more profitable and more plentiful to the carrier, carriers will eventually say "meh. Let the other guy take the less profitable phone."

Re:Sorry, you're wrong

[shugah]

I bought an iPad 2 last fall and have serious buyers remorse now. It served its purpose while we were travelling in Australia and China for 4 months, but when we got back, I found pretty quickly that it can't really be used for business purposes. I wanted to use it for business presentations to save lugging my laptop around. So I bought both an iPad -> HDMI adapter and a VGA adaptor. However I soon found out that no matter how I tried to transfer my powerpoint presentation to the iPad, I could only "present" it within the Safari browser with a browser frame around it. I tried converting it to a PDF, but it was too large for the iPad and would open within any PDF viewer. I uploaded it to Google Docs, but Google Docs for iPad, displays it as a PDF within the brower window. It won't go full screen. The root of the problem is that the iPad doesn't have a user accessible local file system. You can't upload a file and open it with an application. You have to have an application "associated" with the file. Presumably file systems rank up there with having 2 buttons on a mouse as being too techy and complicated for Apple users. I gave up in frustration. iPad is a toy. I eventually found Scatterslides for Android that allows me to do presentations from my Android phone.

... Because everyone is suing everyone ...

[hyphz]

Seriously -

Cheung Kung University of Taiwan are suing Apple [Patent infringement]
The US Department of Justice are suing Apple [iBooks Price Fixing]
Antione Pontbriand are suing Apple [iBooks Price Fixing]
Noise Free Wireless are suing Apple [Patent]
Trans Video Electronics are suing Apple [Patent]
Scott, Koffman, SIlversmith and Monroe are suing Apple [In-app purchase baiting]
Apple is suing Motorola [Patent]
Motorola were suing Apple [Patent]
Apple is suing Samsung [Patent]
Samsung are suing Apple [Patent]
Samsung are suing Apple again [Patent]
Samsung were suing Apple yet again [Advertising]
Apple is suing Kodak [Patent]
Kodak is suing Apple [Patent, constructive litigation]
Kodak is suing Samsung [Patent]
Varia Holdings are suing Samsung [Patent]
Varia Holdings are suing RIM [Patent]
Samsung is suing the Australian Patent Commission [Patent]
Apple is suing HTC [Patent]
HTC are suing Apple [Patents bought from Google]
Symantec/STEC IP are suing Apple [Patent]
Nokia was suing Apple [Patent]
Nokia is suing Google [patent]
Nokia is suing HTC [Patent]
Nokia is suing RIM [Patent]
Nokia is suing Viewsonic [Patent]
IPCom is suing HTC [Patent]
Interdigital is suing Nokia [Patent]
British Telecom is suing Google [Patent]
ProView were suing Apple [Trademark]
EMG Technology is suing Google [Patent]
Microsoft are suing Motorola [Patent]
Motorola are suing Microsoft [Paten]
Oracle were suing Google [API Copyright]
PayPal is suing Google [Patent]
Mount Hamilton Partners is suing Google [Patent]
The Authors Guild are suing Google [Google Books transcriptions]
The state of Texas is suing Google [Antitrust]
CamUp is suing Google [Patent]
Intellectual Ventures is suing Motorola [Patent]
Tivo are suing Motorola [Patent]
Fujifilm are suing Motorola [Patent]
Viacom is STILL suing Google [YouTube Copyright]
MTEL is suing RIM [Patent]
Openwave is suing Apple [Patent]
Openwave is suing RIM [Patent]
WiLAN is suing RIM [Patent]
NXP Semiconductors are suing RIM [Patent]
Dolby Laboratories were suing RIM [Patent]
Evelyn Paswall is suing Apple [walking into a door]

At that point, complaining about any one company refusing to innovate is unreasonable and it simply shows a major problem with the entire system of patents, especially in their interaction with international companies.

Re:Sorry, you're wrong

[noh8rz7]

why dont you transfer it to keynote? you know, the software that is designed for this specific purpose. also, you know, use the appropriate tool for the job? "my ipad is great for some things, but it sucks at changing my car's oil, so I'm going to hate on it."

Re:When Domination Isn't

[LaughingRadish]

Maybe Android users don't like video ads.

Re:Sorry, you're wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

"The root of the problem is that the iPad doesn't have a user accessible local file system."

No, the ROOT of the problem is that you have to have an application that will open the type of file you've created. :) The same could be said about any desktop application that doesn't have a tablet counterpart. You could have had full access to the file system and, without an app to open it, you're still stuck in the same position.

Just because I was curious, I searched "iOS PowerPoint" and found references to apps that would allow you to present from the iPad. Two of them, Keynote and SlideShark, only requires that you have the presentation on your device. No additional technology necessary aside from the iPad and the cable.

"I eventually found Scatterslides for Android that allows me to do presentations from my Android phone"

WHAAAAAAH?? You mean you had to download an app for Android that would allow you to show presentations? The Android file system didn't magically just allow you to open a powerpoint file? Gotta say.... I'm surprised! I did look into that application, though. It doesn't allow you to present from your phone directly (i.e., connect a cable from phone to projector and there you go!), you have to have a Windows device running Scattershow Player in order to present. And, well, if you HAVE a Windows device, why not present from that? Just sayin'.

There are a LOT of reasons to need a filesystem on an iOS device, I'm not saying that there aren't. BUT, this isn't one of them. You just needed the right tool for the job.