Apple Adds Samsung Galaxy SIII To Its Ban List

After its big win against Samsung, Apple named 8 Samsung products it wanted an injunction to ban from sale in the U.S. Apple wasn't content with that, though; USA Today reports on the state of the expanded list: "The new list of 21 products includes Samsung's flagship smartphone Galaxy S III as well as the Galaxy Note, another popular Android phone. If the court finds those devices are infringing Apple's patents and irreparably harming the U.S. company, it could temporarily halt sales in the U.S. market even before the trial begins."

Comments

Do it yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

Add all Apple devices to you own ban list today !

Re:Do it yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah I'm sure having all of slashdot avoid apple products will be a totally effective boycott.

Re:Do it yourself

[TemperedAlchemist]

I'd be more interested in how you know that statistic, frankly.

Re:Do it yourself

[Nerdfest]

I keep saying this; it does have an effect. It's not just those of us that keep up to date about all of the bad corporate behaviour of Apple, Sony, etc, it's all the other people that come to us for opinions. It matters. The world is a much smaller place than it used to be as well.

Re:Do it yourself

[Ice Station Zebra]

Already done. Will NEVER buy an apple product and actively work to undermine their market share.

Re:Do it yourself

[betterunixthanunix]

Having all Slashdot tell everyone they know to avoid Apple products might have more of an impact than you expect. People often come to me (and I suspect most other Slashdot readers) asking for advice about computers. If I say, "Stay away from Apple," at least a large fraction of those people will do so.

The real question is, how many Slashdot readers actually will stay away from Apple? A pretty large number of IT, CS, and other technically-minded folks seem to like Apple's products (and they are generally apathetic when it comes to Apple's tactics, licenses, or how Apple is pushing for the destruction of PCs), and quite a few Slashdot readers are big supporters of Apple. If the world's technical communities were united on this issue, there would be no problem -- Apple would be facing mass resistance (see e.g. SOPA/PIPA). Unfortunately, we are not united; a lot of people in these communities like Apple's products and are going to deride people who boycott Apple.

Re:Do it yourself

[NatasRevol]

Social groups share things?

Seems odd that I'd have to say that, but this is slashdot.

Re:Do it yourself

[Man On Pink Corner]

That's fine, as log as you add Samsung into the list of bad corporate behavior.

Any organization with two or more people will be guilty of "bad corporate behavior" in someone's opinion. It's necessary to decide what you consider acceptable versus what you consider unacceptable.

I don't recall Samsung doing anything that I, personally, consider unacceptable. I can't say the same for Apple. Your own point is an empty one unless you elaborate.

Re:Do it yourself

[flappinbooger]

Yep - I'm no fan of Samsung, I was misfortunate enough to have owned the "Rogue" cell phone. It was a total piece of useless crap.

That said, the S3 is really interesting and I'm (was) planning to look into it, assuming it's even available. The iphones are simply not even an option any more, their screens are just too small. Plus the idea of having to drink the coolaid is just not appealing to me. Ipad? Nope. Sorry. Asus has you nailed there. Ipod? Sandisk makes some nice products. Plus, my android phone with google music is pretty sweet.

This legal action is absolutely ridiculous. What, being the biggest company in the world, ever, isn't enough? Besides, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery....

Re:Do it yourself

[girlintraining]

Add all Apple devices to you own ban list today !

That solves nothing. Companies will continue to abuse intellectual property law and ideology to limit consumer choice. Every company has to -- that's how the game is played. Singling out Apple for being the most successful player doesn't change the fact that its the game that's fucking you, the consumer.

You can ban, cry, shout, scream, boycott -- but it's not the players that are the problem, it's the game. If you really want to make a difference, stop buying products designed or produced in the United States, and only buy from companies based in countries that do not buy into intellectual property (like China). It seems strange to advocate purchasing from a communist country with a long list of human rights issues and no labor rights to speak of -- but I'm of the opinion that supporting slave labor is superior to supporting intellectual property.

It's simple, really: We all learn by copying each other. This is neurological and hardwired. When you see someone performing an activity, you may be unaware of this but the same muscles they are using to do it will tense very slightly. These clusters of 'mirror' neurons, along with their connection to the limbic system, form the basis for learning. Intellectual property is a barrier interposed between ourselves and the environment which limits and manipulates that natural process so that industrialists can profit off of it.

It has to be stopped, or it'll stall out human progress for centuries to come -- our technological progress which up until now could be plotted exponentially upwards is rapidly flattening and we're going to have another Dark Ages on our hands if we don't stop this, and our children will live in some dystopic world where they are materially better off, but intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, and psychologically enslaved. Our bodies will be comfortable, but our souls won't.

Re:Do it yourself

[erroneus]

Women in Science and Engineering is, apparently, not an effective course of training. They all seem to gravitate to iPhone. We should already know, by now, the general demographic who uses iPhone and it's not necessarily the geek/hack crowd.

Re:Do it yourself

[andrewa]

Wait, so you bought an consumer electronics device from them well over a decade ago, it had a feature on it that didn't work very well for your purposes, and you want to throw them in the same category as crApple? I thought that I had a grudge about Apple through their recent behaviour, ever increasingly closed O/S, and hardware that is becoming more and more difficult (read impossible) to upgrade - but your grudge is slightly alarming... and you got your money back from Best Buy!
As a former Apple employee and dedicated user of their products (I may have bordered on fanboy at one point), I've become so sick of Apple's despicable practices and direction that I've given my iPad to my wife and replaced it with a Google Nexus, replaced my iPhone (goodbye unlimited data!) with a Samsung S3, and my shiny late-2011 MBP has been relegated to a secondary laptop with a nice new Dell running Linux Mint 10... However, were Apple to change their business practices/policies I would again consider using their products as they are of exceptional quality.

Re:Do it yourself

[AvitarX]

Aren't DVD captions images, not text?

Re:Do it yourself

[EdIII]

Yes, it is very interesting. He should provide the location of his daughters dormitory for peer review. Don't worry sir, it's for science.

Re:Do it yourself

[shutdown -p now]

I do avoid Apple products. However, if someone comes to me and asks for advice, I cannot in good conscience tell them to say away from Apple without also explaining why I feel that way; and, let's face it, these kinds of ethical issues are far from universally agreed upon. It's something that everyone must decide for themselves. Sure, you can provide them with context, but making the choice for them would be immoral.

Re:Do it yourself

[shutdown -p now]

Just because the rules of the game allow you to play in a certain way, does not mean that everyone must actually do so. IRL we have laws, and then we have conventions. When people don't follow those conventions, we call them assholes and shun them, but we don't lock them up and don't rewrite the laws.

Similarly here. Not saying that patent reform isn't needed, but hey: of all the companies on the mobile device market today, Apple is the only one engaging in blanket bans on their competitor products and refusing to license some of their patents outright, forcing others to remove features from their phones (including even those already sold, as was the case with S3 and Nexus). So, as far as limiting my choice as a customer goes, they are the worst offender by a large margin. Of course I'm going to bash them more.

Re:Do it yourself

[danomac]

They can have subtitles as a bitmap overlay. However, the DVD player could be trying to OCR them or something to manipulate them before showing on the TV.

Re:Do it yourself

[andydread]

I too have recently started to advise against purchasing Apple products since their litigious behaviour and will continue to do so until they end this anti-competitive behaviour in the marketplace. I simply explain that Apple is Anti-Free market and anti-consumer-choice, Purchasing Apple IOS products is like purchasing a 5 bedroom house with only access to 3 rooms. The bulder of course has access to all 5 rooms. They get it then.

Re:Do it yourself

[hherb]

A pretty large number of IT, CS, and other technically-minded folks seem to like Apple's products (and they are generally apathetic when it comes to Apple's tactics, licenses, or how Apple is pushing for the destruction of PCs), and quite a few Slashdot readers are big supporters of Apple.

It is changing. In our clinic we were in the process of transitioning towards an "all Apple" environment (iphones, ipads, Macbooks, imacs and mac minis). However, witnessing with great concern Apple's customer hostile approach worsening rapidly over the last couple of years we decided to reverse the process. In phones it was easy - the Galaxy S3 is a vastly better device. In laptops it is not easy, we still find Macbooks unrivaled in build quality and features, and there is nothing on the market we could find that would come close to the desirable specs of a mac mini.

As a result, we are now transitioning to a mix of generic PC hardware and Mac hardware mostly running Linux (some desktops still running OSX), and Galaxy S3 phones and soon the new Galaxy note tablet too. While it is a slow transition, I can see many like minded people in my area making a similar transition - the walled garden walls have become far too high for many, the sun is not coming through any more.

Only two years ago I probably would have still praised the advantages of the OSX ecosystem. Nowadays, they have become as disgusting as Microsoft had 10 years ago - and that was the last time I used any Microsoft products. The writing is on the wall for Apple too - instead of keeping innovating they merely try to maximize their profit through litigating any competition and locking their existing customers completely in. When corporates become intolerably arrogant it is only a matter of time before people turn their back.

Re:Do it yourself

[shutdown -p now]

Are you sure they really understand the issue at hand fully?

Problem is, it takes a relatively involved discussion to explain the situation fully. And most people coming for an advice don't want such a discussion. They just want you to tell which phone is "better" without preaching to them. And there certainly are people for whom, purely from the use case perspective, iPhone makes more sense - so, when giving advice in good conscience, I have to tell them as much. And they don't really want to hear the lengthy "but" afterwards.

Re:Do it yourself

[makomk]

The font was small and had no background box, making it unreadable in many scenes and useless for my then fiance.

That's in large part the fault of your DVDs rather than the player. DVD subtitles are bitmap overlays which don't generally have any kind of background box. Whilst some DVDs do support old-fashioned closed captions, a lot of DVD players don't handle outputting them because they use a really old and quirky and US-specific data format in the vertical blanking interval that's really hard to support (and apparently can't be supported at all on high-definition outputs).

Re:Do it yourself

[atlasdropperofworlds]

Did MS seek injunctions against products from being sold? No.
Do they get some money from Android units sold? Yes.
MS is certainly bad. Apple is far worse.

Re:Do it yourself

[jedidiah]

Yes. Blatant copying is OK with me.

Otherwise nothing will ever get done because EVERYTHING builds on something else. If you think otherwise then you are just a pathological narcisist.

Although I don't accept your premise.

BOTH devices are blatant copies of any number of other devices that came before them. This is how progress occurs.

Ownership is not supposed to be assigned to "what" but to HOW. That HOW needs to be non-trivial. It needs to be something that can't be replicated by some student.

Patents need to be real inventions, not college homework assignments.

Re:Do it yourself

[jedidiah]

Yet the iPod went nowhere until those related criticisms were addressed.

Re:Do it yourself

[Pseudonym]

I don't know you, so I don't know if you're an arsehole or not. Assuming you're not, I'd be happy for you to get any promotion, raise or bonus that I do.

Why would I not want you to succeed? Sour grapes? The more the merrier, I say.

Re:Do it yourself

[Tough Love]

I've been responsible for converting more than a dozen people from Apple to Android now, and Apple's bad acting is all the encouragement I need to redouble my efforts. Not that it takes much convincing. Basically, demonstrate the Google connectivity, show the hardware features (standard usb is a big deal for just about everybody) compare the free and open Android app scene to Apple and it's a done deal. Oh and the price of course, especially the Nexus 7.The bottom line is, a Google logo is just a lot more sought after these days than a half eaten apple.

Another way to seal the deal, bring along a couple of Nexus tablets and demo a video chat using Google Talk, which is based on free-and-open Jabber/XMPP. A pair of magic videochat devices for $200 each, how can you beat that?

Re:Do it yourself

[Tough Love]

Any organization with two or more people will be guilty of "bad corporate behavior" in someone's opinion.

Most try to steer clear of the "actively destructive" perception that Apple is building for itself.

Re:Do it yourself

[Sabriel]

If you really want to make a difference, stop buying products designed or produced in the United States, and only buy from companies based in countries that do not buy into intellectual property (like China). It seems strange to advocate purchasing from a communist country with a long list of human rights issues and no labor rights to speak of -- but I'm of the opinion that supporting slave labor is superior to supporting intellectual property.

Er, what? I'm all for patent reform/phaseout, but your suggested solution seems to me a case of destroying the village to save it.

Furthermore, it seems to me that developing countries will cheerfully ignore international IP laws as much as they can get away with - until they begin to dominate technologically, at which point they will begin cracking down. China is definitely in the "developing countries" camp and is trying to advance as rapidly as possible. A dominant superpower equipped with true 21st-century technology and a "long list of human rights issues and no labor rights to speak of" does not bode well for those in its shadow.

Re:Do it yourself

[Yahma]

Well said. Apple is under no obligation to act evil and behave the way they do. It only hurts us, the consumer. We shouldn't support their behavior. I hope the hipsters are getting the message.

Re:Do it yourself

[StripedCow]

Perhaps Slashdot can start by changing the Apple icon, just like we had the Borg icon for Microsoft.
For Apple, I'd say something with a snake will do.

Re:Do it yourself

[girlintraining]

Just because the rules of the game allow you to play in a certain way, does not mean that everyone must actually do so.

True, but most people play a game with the goal of winning it.

Re:Do it yourself

[JDG1980]

The problem is, all corporations behave badly. If you boycott every corporation that does bad things, you'll essentially cut yourself off from modern society. There are a handful of companies I try to stay away from (Wal-Mart especially), but attempting to police corporate behavior on an individual, ad-hoc basis is a fool's game.

Don't blame the players, blame the game. Vote for politicians who will curb corporate power. Yes, they're hard to find and don't always do what they say they will – that's what primaries are for. "Voting with your wallet" seldom works, because the people with the biggest wallets aren't on your side. Only real democracy – one person, one vote – is the solution. History shows us that the only way to stop bad corporate behavior is for the government to crack down on it. (In this particular case, all that would be necessary would be for the government, through the courts, to stop specifically enabling it).

Re:Do it yourself

[atlasdropperofworlds]

I've been doing this as well. It has been working. I've convinced no less than 5 people in the last 3 months to seek anything that is non-apple.

Apple's prices on their notebooks does the rest.

Re:Do it yourself

[Tough Love]

Are you sure they really understand the issue at hand fully?

Most don't fully get it or see the importance, but that doesn't matter either because they will easily get the fact that Android devices deliver a lot more value for the dollar and have a lot more good quality free stuff.

But let's face it, say "Google" and the average person is already basically sold.

Re:Do it yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

You have maintained a boycott of a company for well over a decade because they implemented a feature in a way you found unacceptable (with brushoff no doubt meaning that inarticulately demanded that they change it to your liking)?

Given your sensitivity, do you buy anything at all anymore or is every company on that list due to some real or imagined wrong?

Re:Do it yourself

[rtb61]

Just an insane worms and a rotten core visible from the outside and your done. Everyone knows exactly what this is all about Apple use corruption of the court system and patents to squeeze out an inflated profit margins from a spoilt brat fashion product, for as long as psychopathically possible. Not that Google should be given free reign, those privacy invasive buggers also need to kept a very close watch on. Who would have thunk it, Apple worse than M$, even with Uncle Fester at the helm, makes you really want to take a much closer look at the Apple Board, they are worse than Uncle Fester and Co, crikey.

Re:Do it yourself

[Man On Pink Corner]

(Shrug) Sure. If life itself can be said to have a purpose, it's making copies. That's what we do.

Anyone who tries to interfere with that process will spend their lives in struggle against fundamental, inexorable forces that they don't even see, much less comprehend.

Re:Do it yourself

[atlasdropperofworlds]

Asking for money is one thing. Seeking to ban products is quite another. Most patent cases between active tech companies get settled out of court, usually in a cross-licensing deal. Google's lawsuit will probably be settled that way, and both companies will continue on - no products banned.

Apple, on the other hand, just doesn't believe in real competition. They obviously aren't secure enough in their own products and capabilities, so they seek to ban other, arguably better, products from the market.

Re:Do it yourself

[Sancho]

MS negotiated with the infringers and both parties came up with a deal to license the patents. Every. Single. Time.

Apple and Samsung couldn't come to an agreement. We can't know what Microsoft would have done at this point. Apple had three choices--ask for damages in the amount of the profits made by the infringing products, ask for an injunction, or drop the suit.

Re:Do it yourself

[LordKronos]

Aren't DVD captions images, not text?

Many DVDs have 2 types of captions. If you use handbrake, the image based captions are referred to as VOBSUB while the text based ones are referred to as CC.

https://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/Subtitles

Re:Do it yourself

[tsa]

And just what/how are you restricted on your OSX system?

I like OSX and feel in no way restricted by it. A month ago I bought an iPad however, and I am hugely disappointed about how primitive iOS is and at all the things it can't do. It feels like a 21st century device with the capabilities of a Commodore 64. On the iPhone I don't notice the constraints of iOS so much but I expected the iPad to be sort of a laptop without a keyboard. But it's completely unusable if you approach it like that.

Re:Do it yourself

[Sancho]

Most don't fully get it or see the importance, but that doesn't matter either because they will easily get the fact that Android devices deliver a lot more value for the dollar and have a lot more good quality free stuff.

That's a matter of opinion.

I went from Palm to Windows Mobile to Apple to PalmOS to Android. Apple absolutely delivers the best experience, followed by PalmOS, then Android.

I hated Android. Seriously, with a passion. I loved the idea--a modern, open-source phone where I could install anything I wanted. In practice, I never found anything worth installing that wasn't in the market, the free apps were all ad-laden (taking up valuable screen real estate and slowing things down), the source was incomplete (drivers) and the phone vendor tried to lock the phone (and claimed that overriding it would void the warranty.) I couldn't even find paid versions of some classes of app that I wanted in order to avoid the ads because free apps are a race-to-the-bottom (on both platforms.) Paid apps seemingly have a hard time competing when there's any free version out there that isn't just a demo. The scrolling was horrible--I felt like I was using gestures to perform unrelated actions rather than directly controlling the on-screen elements. This probably sounds like a minor gripe, but UX is a rather important part of any design. I understand most of the UX is fixed in ICS. Maybe I'll give it a shot when my contract is up. Probably not, though--I'm practically locked into the ecosystem such that I the cost/benefit skews more in Apple's favor.

Regardless, due to the customizations, philosophical differences between vendors, and varying degrees of carrier influence, it's really not fair to compare Apples to Androids. You really need to compare specific phones (and specific OS versions). You might say Android is better, but I could show you phones being sold in stores today which offer a vastly worse experience and are as locked down as the phones being sold by Apple today. At the top end (best Android phone in all categories compared to best iPhone), things get tighter, but the price also get closer, if not exactly the same (16GB GS3 and the 16GB iPhone 4s cost the same.)

Re:Do it yourself

[sarysa]

As a slashdoter and iHater, I find this to be insightful. Slashdotters have the power to raise indie devices, but we can't take down behemoths that are perceived as cool.

Re:Do it yourself

[the_B0fh]

What has Microsoft done to Android? (that they don't do to anyone/anything else...)

Re:Do it yourself

[atlasdropperofworlds]

I'm not defending Google, so stop harping on this. Chewbacca defenses work on South Park.

Apple can't compete, so they seek injunctions. Now they are choosing something that is very much NOT like an iPhone to try and ban. If they succeed, consumers lose.

Re:Do it yourself

[Tweezak]

If you are curious google "samsung plasma cracked" and enjoy reading the hundreds of instances of Sammy plasma sets spontaneously cracking due to thermal management issues. This usually happens in warranty and Samsung used to replace the sets. But as time went by it was happening too often so suddenly Samsung policy changed and since then every case I have heard of has ended with them saying "user damage" and denying the claim. The only people I have read about getting their set replaced are those that filed suit in small claims court. Samsung does not want this to go to court!

In my own case my $2100 58" plasma popped and went black while my wife and I were watching a DVD from across the room. In the almost 3 years we have had it the screen has never been touched to my knowledge. Not even to clean it. We have been ridiculously careful and protective of it...to no avail. Closer inspection after the set stopped working revealed a crack about 2 feet long in the lower right corner of the screen. As expected..."user damage."

I'll never buy another Samsung product as long as there's an alternative after seeing how they fraudulently avoid their responsibilities.

Re:Do it yourself

[the_B0fh]

Err, this is about Microsoft and Google. Specifically, Google abusing FRAND patents to get the Xbox 360 banned. I would have thought all the cries of "patent abuse" would be deafening. Unfortunately, I'm deafened by the silence from all the hypocrisy.

And anyway, what has the Google/Microsoft/XBox 360 ban got to do with the Apple/Samsung fight?

Re:Do it yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

How about three different convictions or case settling of price fixing? Samsung has paid over a billion dollars in settlements or fines for price fixing in the DRAM, LCD display, and mobile phone markets.

But they've got a nice shiny halo over their heads around here for reasons passing understanding.

Re:Do it yourself

[atlasdropperofworlds]

I brought MS up, as a counter point to how to negotiate to get compensated. They didn't try to have an injunction because they didn't like competition.

You brought up FRAND, which is another example of patent abuse, but adds nothing to this discussion.

Re:Do it yourself

[gmhowell]

No problem with the DVDs. I've since had about six other DVD players, running in price from $19 to $300. All of them let the text based CC pass through to my NTSC tv just fine.

Re:Do it yourself

[fredprado]

Google gets nothing by banning XBoxes, simply because it does not sell video game consoles. Obviously they are not trying to ban anything, they want just a slice of the pie.

Microsoft patents troll Google for money. Google patents troll Microsoft for money. They make agreements and continue to be. That is basically a zero sum game. Obviously it helps no one but the lawyers but it does not harm the consumer.

Apple is trying to patents troll Samsung into oblivion so they don't need to compete anymore and can have a legal monopoly over smartphones and tablets, and US courts apparently are fine with monopolies and Crony Capitalism so they get away with this.

Re:Do it yourself

[fredprado]

Still the GS3 is the superior product by far, and that is what the GP said.

Sure, there is a lot of trash with Android installed, but they do not really compete with Apple products. Apple products compete for the high end market, and in this market, the Android devices that are competing have far more value for the money than the equivalent Apple's products.

Re:Do it yourself

[fredprado]

Winning on the short term may result in terrible loss at the long term. They are betting they can do it and get away with it indefinitely. Maybe they can, maybe they cannot, but if they come crashing and burning it will be because they chose to play by these rules.

Re:Do it yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

If by "went nowhere" you mean that it sold like hotcakes out of the gate and then later (years later with respect to wireless) those criticisms were addressed, you're absolutely right.

Re:Do it yourself

[Compaqt]

Well, then you could just avoid the ethical issues.

Just talk about stuff like: app market (if applicable to where you live), choice of carrier, USB connection, ability to copy files, need/lack of need for iTunes to do basic stuff, battery change, screen size, memory/storage expansion, etc.

Re:Do it yourself

[fredprado]

No patent abuses are never OK, but fair and reasonable are subjective terms. To me there is no patent that would fit in the "fair and reasonable" class. Not even a single one. To you there may be a higher threshold.

It doesn't matter though. Even if Google's abuse of patents is bad it is no different from what other big companies, as MS, Oracle, Intel, etc do. I will certainly defend a World where none of them can do it, you may rest assured, but what Apple does goes several levels beyond that. Abusing the system to try and generate monopolies is way worse than abusing the system to get a bigger slice of the profits than you would judge fair.

Re:Do it yourself

[toddestan]

It went nowhere until they addressed the biggest shortcoming of the original iPod: That you needed a Mac to use it.

Re:Do it yourself

[CodeBuster]

A bad recommendation might be enough to convince someone not to buy a Sony product, particularly when adequate substitutes are readily available as they are for most of the products that Sony markets. However, in the case of Apple products, which are fast approaching a state of mania in the consumer market, even that my not be effective. Even people who can barely use them or don't need them seem to have no problem forking over thousands of dollars on a mobile contract that includes data and service charges that can easily top $100 per month just so that they too can have the newest iPhone and for what essentially amounts to pleasure, not business. Clearly the value of a dollar, what's left of it anyway, is lost on many younger Americans today.

Re:Do it yourself

[Forty Two Tenfold]

I'll never buy another Samsung product as long as there's an alternative after seeing how they fraudulently avoid their responsibilities.

OK. Buy SONY.

Re:Do it yourself

[CodeBuster]

For Apple, I'd say something with a snake will do.

That's brilliant, but I wonder if even our fellow Slashdot users would fully appreciate the symbolism there.

Re:Do it yourself

[psiclops]

Apple updates iOS for phones up to 3 years old

yep and the hardware of the older phones cant handle the new os updates. the phones are then rendered near unusable. YAY!!!

Re:Do it yourself

[boorack]

Winning short term (and getting fat bonus for it) is propably everything Tim Crook is looking for. Or maybe not ? Look at all those high-end engineers who left Apple in recent months. My suspicion is that Apple management team quite conciously got off the innovation path - they don't want do this anymore because they don't want to, not because they can't. Getting a monopoly and sitting on it forever seems to be the way they chose. Get consumers into a forced consumption treadmill (with iToys breaking just after warranty expires and being impossible to repair) is propably everything their Tim Crook and his cronies are able to grasp these days.

I'm happy to see people rushed to buy Samsung gadgets as soon out of fear that these might be banned anytime. This means that real market mechanism (not rigged by corporate commercials & propaganda) is still working.

Re:Do it yourself

[beelsebob]

Actually, that shortcoming was addressed exactly because it was a huge success, and they realised they were onto something.

Re:Do it yourself

[Drathos]

"Google's FRAND patent abuses?"

a) That was not Google, that was pre-buyout Motorola.
b) The terms are supposedly the same terms that many other companies have already agreed to.
c) It doesn't matter if the patent is FRAND or not. If it's being used without license, it's infringement. Yet it seems like every time FRAND patents get asserted, people go apeshit. Meanwhile, Apple and MS are asserting patents that should have never been issued and people are jumping on their bandwagon.

Just to point out, I'm against the idea of patents in standards. Instead of FRAND agreements, I think that they should be required to assign the patent to the public domain.

Re:Do it yourself

[Aryden]

That's interesting, I have been buying samsung monitors for years now. I have a house and office full of them. Anytime there is any issue at all, we send the monitor back and we get a replacement within weeks. I mean dead pixels, faulty speakers, scratches on the front panel, anything at all.

Re:Do it yourself

[rat_herder]

You are doing them a disservice. Apple makes great laptops. Quality build with a killer OS.

Re:Do it yourself

[Teknikal69]

Might not be effective but count me in anyway.

Re:Do it yourself

[the_B0fh]

a) That XBox ban was just requested *POST* buyout, if I remember correctly. Besides, Google can just stop it. They didn't.
b) $4B for 50 patents vs $6.5M for 3,229 patents is considered reasonable?
c) Have you actually read the patents?
d) I'm with your stance on standards.

Re:Do it yourself

[Ginger Unicorn]

Why on earth would a digital playback device invoke an archaic analogue overlay mechanism? Surely the player could just alter the frame digitally, rather than fudging around with the output signal?

Re:Do it yourself

[Ginger Unicorn]

Publicly objecting to something (or "whining" as you dismissively term it) contributes towards building mindshare against the problem in question, and is a necessary step in bringing about a solution.

Re:Do it yourself

[sl4shd0rk]

For Apple, I'd say something with a snake will do.

I was thinking more along the lines of a certain feminine hygiene product.

Re:Do it yourself

[poofmeisterp]

Although I don't accept your premise.

BOTH devices are blatant copies of any number of other devices that came before them. This is how progress occurs.

Amen.
 
I agree with you so much that I must add a backing snark comment:

In other news, tomorrow will have a news piece about the patent suit "Species of Homo Erectus -vs- Species of Homo Erectus" over the wheel. Without it, we would not have made progress as we did, and someone sure wants a large chuck of money from their corporate team (read: ancestors) coming up with that idea.

Re:Do it yourself

[fredprado]

You live in a strange World. A World where Apple "invented" anything. Apple just copies. It was always like this.

Re:Do it yourself

[aurispector]

Apple didn't even come close to "inventing the smart phone" as if it were a complete thing unto itself. They didn't invent the touchscreen, the computer processor, they didn't invent operating systems, they didn't invent wireless data transfer or cellular communications.

What they did was take existing tech and combine it in a new way. Not to denigrate apple's achievements; they're phenomenal. But the things they're claiming to "own" aren't really the things that allowed the smartphone revolution to occur.

They're suing samsung because they can, and it's not the consumer's best interest they're worrying about. I like google and android in part because they aren't microsoft and they aren't apple. Competition is good for ME.

This whole thing makes me want to go buy and SIII ASAP.

Re:Do it yourself

[atlasdropperofworlds]

No, I'm saving them from a bad purchasing decision.

I can't in good conscience recommend a laptop that costs so much, with such an insecure OS. A nice unibody doesn't mean that the overall quality of the laptop is any better than say, Dell. In fact, there have been just as many problems both hardware wise and software wise with our company MBPs as there have been with any other laptop.

Re:Do it yourself

[soundguy4film]

Here's the problem I'm an audio engineer. Apps that I use regularly and make money from the abilities they give me are not available on android. Cl-wifi and v-control pro and the lectrosonics remote app are irreplaceable and pro audio is invested in OSX and iOS.

Re:Do it yourself

[Silas is back]

I simply explain that Apple is Anti-Free market and anti-consumer-choice.

While I do not want to defend Apple's latest tactics (I think we all agree on those), it's a little harsh to say that "Apple is anti-free market" when Apple gave us the type of phones that we have today. Yes, maybe some other company would have done it by now, but it was still Apple starting it, and it was them who fucked with the carriers to get a decent phone out.

Just saying this battle is fought overly emotional these days.

Re:Do it yourself

[lsatenstein]

Wait, so you bought an consumer electronics device from them well over a decade ago, it had a feature on it that didn't work very well for your purposes, and you want to throw them in the same category as crApple? I thought that I had a grudge about Apple through their recent behaviour, ever increasingly closed O/S, and hardware that is becoming more and more difficult (read impossible) to upgrade - but your grudge is slightly alarming... and you got your money back from Best Buy!
As a former Apple employee and dedicated user of their products (I may have bordered on fanboy at one point), I've become so sick of Apple's despicable practices and direction that I've given my iPad to my wife and replaced it with a Google Nexus, replaced my iPhone (goodbye unlimited data!) with a Samsung S3, and my shiny late-2011 MBP has been relegated to a secondary laptop with a nice new Dell running Linux Mint 10... However, were Apple to change their business practices/policies I would again consider using their products as they are of exceptional quality.

I have Samsung laptops, washing machine and dryers, vacuums, etc. All top top quality products. I had other samsung products (cell phones and TVs). All top quality. The one time some small electronics failed, I got an RMA after I quoted the date of purchase and the serial number on the device. They sent me a new one.

If it was for a TV or washer, they have certified repair organizations. Can't beat that.

Now for the major factor. Their products performs better than the average. Like all manufacturers, from car to home appliances, etc. they buy a few of the competing products, figure out how they can do it better and sell a better product. It also happens to them, as you can bet a thousand dollars that Apple did that same thing with Samsung and their other competitors.

Samsung Galaxy performs better than does Apples overly priced product. Price gouging, is price gouging, and using the courts in every possible way to harm competition (they learned from MS), is not what I consider acceptable.

Apple is temporarily on top. I think it will be a me too company within 5 years. And all the competitors with their patents will combine to make sure Apple dies a torturous death.

Re:Do it yourself

[Silas is back]

The logic of the internets, boom, in your face! xD

Re:Do it yourself

[lsatenstein]

Yes. Blatant copying is OK with me.

Otherwise nothing will ever get done because EVERYTHING builds on something else. If you think otherwise then you are just a pathological narcisist.

Although I don't accept your premise.

BOTH devices are blatant copies of any number of other devices that came before them. This is how progress occurs.

Ownership is not supposed to be assigned to "what" but to HOW. That HOW needs to be non-trivial. It needs to be something that can't be replicated by some student.

Patents need to be real inventions, not college homework assignments.

Yes, the local ceramics company is suing a mug manufacturer because the round tall mug violates the patent they have on the shape of the handle.
Reminds you of another company

Re:Do it yourself

[Nerdfest]

How's Microsoft doing in the server space? That ain't from Linux marketing campaigns.

Re:Do it yourself

[the_B0fh]

Changing the subject eh. Good debating technique.

Why don't you go get a Google tattoo while you're at it, fanboy.

Re:Do it yourself

[the_B0fh]

Again, how the fuck is that "Fair" and "Reasonable"? FRAND patents are *NOT* normal patents.

Patents gives the holder the right to *AND* not to license it to *ANYONE*

FRAND patent holders are *NOT* allowed to do that.

You get confused easily, don't you?

Re:Do it yourself

[laffer1]

I'm not going to boycott Apple or Samsung. Both of them have copied IP to get where they are. For apple, it was entering the cell phone market without licensing various things from Motorola or other companies. They waited to get sued too. Samsung copied Apple and various other companies. They're now a huge conglomerate because of this behavior. They're not any better (or worse) than Apple.

Yesterday, I bought a Samsung monitor. Next year, I'll buy a new Mac. I'm fueling the mutual destruction campaign that Apple and Samsung are in because it's entertaining. I'm hoping it will prove the patent system needs reform. Things will get worse before they get better. We all need to realize that. For every person on slashdot that won't buy Apple products because of this, there will be a guy who won't buy Samsung too. Samsung makes a LOT more stuff.

As a side note, I was going to put the Samsung monitor on my Mac for humor's sake, but the bastards don't include DVI ports on their displays anymore. HDMI + VGA only. It's not Mac compatible without an adapter. :)

Re:Do it yourself

[lonecrow]

Wow our experiences vary greatly. I have a Samsung Note and love the hell out of it. Not only is it fast with a large battery, the software I use is amazing and written well. I can RDP, manage EC2 instances, FTP to and from my phone, access Trello, I have a crap load of nature field guides, watch Netflix, man the list goes on.

I looks and feels nothing like an iPhone, how they can include it in the ban is beyond me.

Re:Do it yourself

[Sancho]

I know that some of the devices on that list infringed based on design, but others were based on software patents. For example, the spring-back (the way a document or page behaves when you try to drag past the end of the data) is patented.

Re:Do it yourself

[andrewa]

Wish I had mod points. Well said.

Re:Do it yourself

[lonecrow]

Ok but the Samsung note doesn't do that bouncy thing whatever that is. I just loaded settings and scrolled to the bottom...no bounce.
Note to self, patent white letters on black background.

Re:Do it yourself

[B33RM17]

You need to try out stock Jellybean. Makes ios feel antiquated.

Re:Do it yourself

[aurispector]

Corporations aren't even close to being the heart of the problem. Corporations behave in a rational and predictable manner in order to maximize profits. The operate under rules and regulations set by CONGRESS. We need the legal fiction of corporations in order to create the institutions that can accomplish things. Anyone who hates corporations doesn't understand their necessity in the real world.

Sure, there are abuses. That's another predictable element of corporate behavior. Free market competition is what keeps this sort of thing in check. Don't like how one corporation operates? Use the goods/services of another. If enough people agree with you and do the same the problems fix themselves. THAT is economic freedom, which is just as important as the freedom of speech.

Re:Do it yourself

[Glock27]

How about three different convictions or case settling of price fixing? Samsung has paid over a billion dollars in settlements or fines for price fixing in the DRAM, LCD display, and mobile phone markets.

But they've got a nice shiny halo over their heads around here for reasons passing understanding.

Agreed, except the reasons aren't "passing understanding". To wit, there is a large contingent here to which Linux and FOSS are holy, and Apple is evil for actually making money with its products. They can't seem to understand that the reason that Apple's products are so nice, is because the company has a lot of R&D dollars to throw at its products because it's profitable.

Evidently they also can't understand that Samsung (and the rest of the Android crowd) are profiting by blatantly copying iOS and Apple hardware - which also happens to be blatantly illegal.

Sorry Samsung - time to fork over big money in penalties and licensing arrangements. There are probably a few other companies (Google!) that'll get the same treatment.

Re:Do it yourself

[Rakarra]

As I pointed out - why not go against those with the most design patents? Because they are not Apple? Fanboy alert.

I don't believe in them in general, but I push back against the most public offenders at the time. Right now, no one comes close to Apple in their abuse of 'design patents.' A year ago at this time, I rather liked Apple, despite my dislike for the walled garden approach. Tomorrow it may be someone else.

I appreciated Apple for role they played with the iPod, iPad, and iPhone. When they started using the legal system to try to shut out competitors with bullshit patents, I lost my interest.

Re:Do it yourself

[the_B0fh]

You may want to start off with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing

And understand what the fuck the F and R as well as ND means.

Re:Do it yourself

[Stratus311]

I know very few in IT that "like" Apple products. We have about 50% Android and 50% Apple and I deal with the Apple users daily. Android users maybe a couple times a month. And that's typically to hand them a new battery. While Apple software quality speaks in logic, real world is a different story. For the record, I own 2 MacBook Pros, a MacPro, and 2 iMacs as their hardware is decent. All run Windows/Linux almost exclusively.

Re:Do it yourself

[Tweezak]

I've not personally seen issues with Samsung LCD displays. I was speaking of their plasmas which seem to be poorly engineered compared to their competition. I base this on the fact that no other manufacturer has this issue (spontaneous cracking) and also from the feedback I have received from people who service them.

This is a particularly expensive failure as it requires replacement of televisions costing $1500 or more retail. Like i said they used to pony up and honor their warranty but they did an about face around 2 years ago and have denied everything (so far as I can tell) since then claiming that the customer is essentially lying. I find this attitude particularly offensive so I will take my business and my money elsewhere.

Re:Do it yourself

[damonlab]

I am the "IT person" at my job. During the past year, I have told everybody asking advice for a new phone to purchase to get an Android based 4G device as all Apple products are still stuck on 3G. I have found that Apple's marketing department has done a good job as many people think that iPhone 4G is a 4G device, even though it is not. When Apple releases a true 4G device, Samsung is going to sue the shit out of them.

Re:Do it yourself

[Billlagr]

This whole thing makes me want to go buy and SIII

I did, yesterday, and it's freakin' awesome. I'll also be getting the other half one next week, and a Galaxy Tab 2 10.1. Apple has lost 3 sales right there.

Re:Do it yourself

[Aryden]

I can't blame you for that, all I can say is that I have yet to experience this issue with samsung's service.

Re:Do it yourself

[Fr33z0r]

Another way to seal the deal, bring along a couple of Nexus tablets and demo a video chat using Google Talk, which is based on free-and-open Jabber/XMPP. A pair of magic videochat devices for $200 each, how can you beat that?

Show iMovie running on iOS.

Re:Do it yourself

[Tweezak]

I suspect it has to do mostly with quantity. If they pulled that with hundreds of thousands of customers with defective computer monitors the effect on their reputation would be catastrophic. The plasma market is microscopic by comparison so they probably feel it's worth the gamble. Particularly when the replacement cost is so high.

Re:Do it yourself

[Kyusaku Natsume]

I can't comment about Android because the phone was bricked and the last time I used an Android phone was 3 years ago; my opinion about that phone is irrelevant now.

At least I post under my name and stand by my word. You can mod or you can post, but modding and then posting like an AC is childish. This history really happened. She took of from her phone the SIM, the memory card and the battery, cleaned the battery contacts in case they were dirty by humid clog. I did the same things again and the phone still didn't worked. Their house was attacked by burglars recently, I hope that the burglars didn't take away or destroyed the receipt of their phone because then they will end buying a new phone again instead of getting their current phone fixed under warranty.

I have a Samsung HD CRT tv that I swear by. I have also a Samsung laser printer, a CLP-510 that sadly was the last of their kind and was EOL too soon because Samsung developed a much better laser color printing technology and put it on the market at the same year I bought that printer. The printer feels cheap compared to the offers of Canon or HP at the time, but it have double side printing and supports a more wide range of printing media than every printer in their price range at the time, in this aspect is even better than most current offers. So I know first hand that Samsung can develop and build very nice equipment, but at least in that particular phone model, they choose to sell a cheap knock off.

I also have built 2 BOINC nodes using AMD processors and Gigabyte middle to top range motherboards, that up to a month ago were the fastest machines in all Mexico running BOINC. One of them is liquid cooled, with dual video cards. I know how to assemble my own PC's, not that it is particularly difficult now, and use AIX6 and 7, Solaris 9 and 10 and RHEL 5 at the datacenter were I work, but for my personal use I buy Apple gear because even for Windows they work better than other brands, ok?

Re:Do it yourself

[NapoleonTheGreat]

I got a MB 13inch 3 years ago on the premise of great quality. When I got it, there was a dent on the optical slot. Within ONE year the track pad had to be changed twice. It was still under manufacturer warranty, so no problem fixing it. Within the following year the logic board failed, costing me few hundred dollars. After it came back from the shop, when you close the laptop shut, the lid was not flush with the base. A screw was not tightened properly. Another trip to the shop. For my first Apple product, I was quite disappointed.

Re:Do it yourself

[hazydave]

Yup... that's correct. It isn't that there are so many Slashdotters buying products themselves. But really, when you're a well known "computer nerd", people do ask you about computers and related technology. I'd be surprised if recommending Apple were a common thing for most folks here anyway, particularly when you can at least get some satisfaction that the leading smartphone platform is Linux-based, and consumers are actually happy to use it. Google has walked a fairly clean road between keeping the OS FOSS and still allowing developers to have the workable development and distribution model they largely can't get out of the mainstream Linux community.

Re:Do it yourself

[hazydave]

Actually, it's been obvious to Apple followers (not fanbois, but those actually watching closely) that they'd have been a whole lot more evil than Microsoft. Part of that's Apple's desire to really run everything... Microsoft had largely been happy just doing software. Apple was usually better at things than Microsoft, too -- MS tried very hard to be evil, and there did ok here and there, but they weren't always very good at it (though I think they'll redeem themselves with Windows 8, that's a work of profound evil). It's only now, that Apple's been really successful, rather than just on the fringe of things, that it's clear that they're capable of being so much worse than Microsoft.

Re:Do it yourself

[hazydave]

I don't know all the rules surrounding design patents (the patents Apple had on their rounded-square icons, and separate patents for the "black" and "white" iPhones), but yes, I agree, patents should be very specific. I have written many utility patents, analyzed probably hundreds over the years. Some are well written and really do describe an "oh, that's pretty cool" invention. Others get me angry, patenting things I had figured out, on my own, in High School (which, if nothing else, should automatically fail the "test of obviousness" on that patent).

On the other hand, Samsung's not entirely blameless, and some of their hacks to Android really did make it look more like iPhone OS. For example, the rows of icons has been around since the Palm and the Newton, but Android doesn't force icons into rounded squares. Though I think some early releases of SymbianOS did, so there's probably prior art enough to invalidate this as a patent. The also did the skeuomorphic "scroll bounce back" thing in their home screen shell, which is also not part of Android stock, but has been a very well known Apple patent. Samsung was at the least ignoring Apple's patents, maybe even baiting them. Even if the patents themselves all get struck down, Samsung might still be guilty of imitating the "trade dress" of the iPhone, which is really copying the gestalt of the whole thing, not any single individual element (eg, it stands as a thing aside from copyrights, trademarks, and patents).

Re:Do it yourself

[hazydave]

Taking other ideas, and adding to them, improving them, using them in different ways, etc. is progress. Making something as exactly like someone else's thing without any improvement (and in this case, basically uglifying Android to make it look more like iOS) is not advancing things.

Re:Do it yourself

[hazydave]

There were three software utility patents and three design patents judged to be infringed by some of the original Samsung devices in question. Apple's '381 "bounce-back" patent was one of these -- that's in Samsung's TouchWiz home shell, but not part of normal Android. So it's certainly not an issue on the Galaxy Nexus, not sure if the SIII's version of TouchWiz still does this. And like most of these, it's questionable anyway (http://www.talkandroid.com/127447-technology-expert-claims-apples-bounce-back-patent-is-invalid/).

There was also an issue of pinch-to-zoom as described in their '915 patent. This is definitely not the way pinch-to-zoom works in Android JellyBean, not sure if Google addressed this earlier or not. Apple's patent might well fail against the mountain of prior art on multitouch, but the '915 patent counts on multi-touch operations that use one anchor finger and one moving finger. So if it's done differently on the newer devices, there's not even an issue. '915 isn't specifically about pinch-to-zoom, either, and like the others, is being looked at heavily now (http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/30/3279628/apple-pinch-to-zoom-patent-myth).

The last software utility patent is Apple's '163 tap-to-zoom patent. But that's not simply [double]tap-to-zoom, it deals with specifics about where the zoom is centered. This, maybe some of the others, may be too subtle in detail for the jury, or maybe they just weren't presented well.

Some of the older Samsung phones pretty much did look like iPhones. Two design patents covered the White ('D087) and Black ('D677) iPhones. It's true that some of the Samsung phones did mysteriously have the one big button on the front, rather than the four-or-five that the G1 and others ripped off from Palm :-)

The final design patent ('D305) is about the look of the rounded boxy icons on the iPhone home screen. Samsung went out of their way to change Android into this look -- Android from the early days had more "normal" icons, no bounding box displays, transparency, etc... going well back into the 80s if not earlier. Now, I think there have been others to use that look -- some of the early SymbianOS UIs did. And given this is a design patent, it's for the look, not any mechanism in the OS that enforces this or not, just what you get out of the box. So that ought to have been shown as prior art. Again, I'm not used to design patents, and they really don't say much about what's important in the design, just, "here's thing, give patent".

Clearly, the new devices don't look like iPhones. The Galaxy Nexus doesn't have any front-button, and it's got a curved screen, not the flat screen of the iPhone. Backside is contoured and pebbly, not flat and smooth (designed to slip out of your hands, but that's another Apple patent not asserted here, since GN's don't usually attempt to eject themselves from your grip, as do iOS devices). And the SIII is even more different... kind of the opposite. The iPhone is all 1960s Deiter Rams industrial looking, the SIII is kind of organic looking, smooth and pebbly, closer if anything to a gigantic Palm Pre than a slightly less gigantic iPhone 4. And one would hope Samsung's fixed their issues with TouchWiz, maybe just stayed with stock Android, to avoid trouble with Apple in these other areas.

Re:Do it yourself

[Tough Love]

Thanks for the reality distortion. Nobody trusts Apple to keep providing Google services. Facetime is proprietary shit. Requiring a dongle for USB is bogus, and everybody understands that. If you don't then you are lying.

But hey you don't need to listen to me, just notice that way more people buy Android these days than Apple's dumbed down, expensive, proprietary, walled garden crap. Because they have a choice.

Re:Do it yourself

[Tough Love]

Another way to seal the deal, bring along a couple of Nexus tablets and demo a video chat using Google Talk, which is based on free-and-open Jabber/XMPP. A pair of magic videochat devices for $200 each, how can you beat that?

Show iMovie running on iOS.

OK, show me the $200 ios device that runs imovie and I will retract the claim that you are an idiot.

Re:Do it yourself

[Sancho]

Not a troll, but thanks for contributing to the conversation. I know it must be impossible to believe that someone could have found Android to be unenjoyable, but it does happen.

Re:Do it yourself

[Fr33z0r]

The iPod Touch is sub-$200 and runs iMovie.

Re:Do it yourself

[Tough Love]

You further need to show that the device doesn't suck compared to an Android phone before your idiot status is retracted.

What?

[Anonymous Coward]

This summary doesn't make grammatical or syntactical sense.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

This summary doesn't make grammatical or syntactical sense.

So you're not contect?

Re:What?

[cervesaebraciator]

Allow me to summarize the above comment:

Sense these don't grammar summary or to make syntactically.

Thanks Apple

[zerodl]

For limiting my choices on (good or bad) products. I could rant endlessly about this but I'd be preaching to the choir. But wow, I don't like Apple at all now because of this.

Re:Thanks Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes its important to step back and look at the big picture. Most patents on their own look obvious, especially in hindsight. The reality is that smartphones in 2006 sucked. Once the iphone came out, we had a wealth of amazing smartphones. So you can argue about whether a patent is obvious or significant till you are blue in the face, but its pretty clear that Samsung would not have been selling anything even close to the Galaxy phones if they had not studied the iPhone.

Re:Thanks Apple

[jacks0n]

What you just described - making a new product by slightly altering an existing one - happens in the food world all the time with no legal issues at all.
What you didn't describe but probably intended to - copying a bread recipe - also happens all the time with no legal issues at all. When either of these things happen, the baker is thrilled. Some of them actually publish books helping you infringe on their own products!
In short, your metaphor fails to map to the primary event in every way possible. Please stick to car metaphors in the future. It's traditional.

Re:Thanks Apple

[jaymz666]

. If I steal some brad from a baker

Isn't slavery involved here somewhere?

Re:Thanks Apple

[king neckbeard]

Most patents on their own look obvious, especially in hindsight.

Something being obvious in hindsight doesn't mean it wasn't also obvious beforehand.

The reality is that smartphones in 2006 sucked. Once the iphone came out, we had a wealth of amazing smartphones.

And if you aren't a complete and total moron, you'd realize that by far the most important innovation that the iPhone brought to the table was targeting general consumers instead of just nerds and businessmen.

Re:Thanks Apple

[andrewa]

Absolute bullshit. Can you imagine the state of the automobile industry today if there had been a patent on the 'look and feel' of the original automobile, and Ford had aggressively sued other automobile manufacturers? Apple are probably the richest company in the world and they are using their excessive funds to cripple any competition with frivolous patent trolling. It will become less important to Apple to innovate if there is no competition, is that what you really want?

Re:Thanks Apple

[epine]

its pretty clear that Samsung would not have been selling anything even close to the Galaxy phones if they had not studied the iPhone

Never heard of enabling technology (such as high-quality low power displays)? Never heard of convergent evolution? Never noticed that many technical product categories come into existence almost overnight due to economy of scale effects?

Apple clearly benefited from work at Xerox. Without Xerox, we'd still be using text consoles. I'm not so sure Samsung benefited from work done at Apple. What Apple established was credibility of consumer demand for a new class of expensive toy.

Do they own that? Or is it just the nature of business that everyone piles on to a hot new product category?

Re:Thanks Apple

[DMUTPeregrine]

A brad is a type of tack/nail. Stealing fastening hardware from bakers is probably less efficient than stealing it from building suppliers.

Re:Thanks Apple

[jedidiah]

Most patents look obvious because THEY ARE.

The patent office is not doing it's job. They are allowing things through that aren't at all inventive. It doesn't matter if the IDEA of using pinch to zoom is new. You don't get a 20 year monopoly on "new". You are supposed to get a 20 year monpoly on inventive.

That means HOW something is done. The "what" is pretty irrelevant. The fact that I can "re-invent" pinch to zoom just by hearing it described is what should make it unpatentable.

This is the problem laymen making judgements about the state of the art. The legal standard is not supposed to be "what impresses morons".

Re:Thanks Apple

[flimflammer]

Your analogy makes no sense. You can't copyright/trademark/patent the end result of a recipe, or a recipe for that matter. The baker could not do anything if "his" bread was used. Not only that, if the baker sold the bread to someone and they put flax seeds on the baker's very own bread and resold it, there would be no legal recourse for the baker in that circumstance either.

I've seen some terrible analogies before, but this was was probably one of the worst. Stick to car analogies.

Re:Thanks Apple

[Kjella]

Can you imagine the state of the automobile industry today if there had been a patent on the 'look and feel' of the original automobile, and Ford had aggressively sued other automobile manufacturers?

Actually Ford would be the one being sued to hell and back by Daimler-Benz. His mass production on an assembly line was revolutionary but he did not in any way invent the automobile.

Re:Thanks Apple

[phantomfive]

Absolute bullshit. Can you imagine the state of the automobile industry today if there had been a patent on the 'look and feel' of the original automobile, and Ford had aggressively sued other automobile manufacturers?

You can always tell the people who don't know what they are talking about because they come with examples like this one. Next time, do some basic research, and you'll find out that patent fights have been going on for a long time, much longer than computers. And they probably will for a long time into the future.

Re:Thanks Apple

[Silas is back]

What you just described - making a new product by slightly altering an existing one - happens in the food world all the time with no legal issues at all.

Exactly. Take Cocoa Cola and Pepsi for example. They also... oh wait. Nevermind.

Re:Thanks Apple

[Nemyst]

So just like Apple didn't invent the smartphone?

Re:Thanks Apple

[Compaqt]

I think one of the reasons it was able to target general consumers is because it gets free marketing from the press, who fawn over every new Apple release.

Re:Thanks Apple

[skine]

There are hundreds of companies making colas.

Do you have evidence that any of them has been sued by Coke or Pepsi?

Re:Thanks Apple

[andrewa]

That's fair enough, and thanks for the info. I know bugger all about the automotive industry, but just used it as an analogy. And as Nemyst mentions below, it probably is a good example after all :-)

Re:Thanks Apple

[andrewa]

@phantomfive: Didn't you just say that I'm wrong and right at the same time??

Re:Thanks Apple

[coraxo]

amen !

Re:Thanks Apple

[poofmeisterp]

For limiting my choices on (good or bad) products. I could rant endlessly about this but I'd be preaching to the choir. But wow, I don't like Apple at all now because of this.

You're intelligent. You're not a threat to their market dominance.

Now if you were a dumb teenager, in school, going through the struggle of fitting in with your peers and looking cool...... But that's a separate post. :)

Re:Thanks Apple

[poofmeisterp]

its pretty clear that Samsung would not have been selling anything even close to the Galaxy phones if they had not studied the iPhone

Never heard of enabling technology (such as high-quality low power displays)? Never heard of convergent evolution? Never noticed that many technical product categories come into existence almost overnight due to economy of scale effects?

Apple clearly benefited from work at Xerox. Without Xerox, we'd still be using text consoles. I'm not so sure Samsung benefited from work done at Apple. What Apple established was credibility of consumer demand for a new class of expensive toy.

Do they own that? Or is it just the nature of business that everyone piles on to a hot new product category?

Am I reading this wrong, or is it suggesting that I should ask large companies out there (side: in today's market with such secrecy and control), to see all of their ideas and products that didn't go anywhere for them?

Oh, then offer to buy one of those ideas for $500... Then develop a product that uses a component or two of that idea, patent it, and try to sell and make it the thing that is completely revolutionary?

Oh, while other companies are selling similar things, but mine eventually becomes so huge that my company has so much money for lawyers that there aren't enough on this continent to hire? Their purpose is to sue every other company out there that made a product that looked a little like mine because I SPENT 500 FUCKING DOLLARS ON THIS AND IT RUINED ME FOR THREE MONTHS, TEN YEARS AGO, DAMNIT!
 
...or is that completely different from what happened and not even on the same planet?

Apple is just the next company to play the "me, me, me" game until some completely new and unrelated technology destroys the value of tablets, phones, and standard GUI computers.

Re:Thanks Apple

[poofmeisterp]

Absolute bullshit. Can you imagine the state of the automobile industry today if there had been a patent on the 'look and feel' of the original automobile, and Ford had aggressively sued other automobile manufacturers? Apple are probably the richest company in the world and they are using their excessive funds to cripple any competition with frivolous patent trolling. It will become less important to Apple to innovate if there is no competition, is that what you really want?

Well, he didn't patent the idea before it hit assembly lines. Back in those days you could actually focus on developing a product that consumers would want to buy and, well, that's it.

I wonder what would have happened had Ford patented that nifty new device called the automobile? Hmm... I wonder what the Ford corporation would be doing today. Just curious.
 
;)

Re:Thanks Apple

[poofmeisterp]

Can you imagine the state of the automobile industry today if there had been a patent on the 'look and feel' of the original automobile, and Ford had aggressively sued other automobile manufacturers?

Actually Ford would be the one being sued to hell and back by Daimler-Benz. His mass production on an assembly line was revolutionary but he did not in any way invent the automobile.

Oooh, burn!

Re:Thanks Apple

[Compaqt]

Even granting the fairy tale that Apple invented smartphones, isn't it enough for Apple to be the largest company in the world, with a hundred billion in cash, far better than the position of the US government?

Or do they also need to ban all other players in whatever category they happen to sell products in?

Re:Thanks Apple

[Clueless Nick]

Apple was the first company to put a serious effort in the category 'full touch screen smartphone with a 500+ Mhz processor'. There were smartphones before the iPhone and there were full touchscreen phones before the iPhone. Many of these phones had copy+paste and (hold for) context menu functionalities. The world was going crazy after Blackberry phones then, and Apple changed the trend, but a large part of this had to do with the app ecosystem, because till then, you had to rely on either paltry offerings from the manufacturers' websites, or on dubious software (that worked well on one phone and horribly on another) from third parties.

So really, a larger and multitouch screen, a 3D GPU, an accelerometer, and a very good app store - these were the 'revolutionary new' things it introduced. Good, it set a trend and showed others how to create a really extensible smartphone.

Re:Thanks Apple

[bhiestand]

There are hundreds of companies making colas.

Do you have evidence that any of them has been sued by Coke or Pepsi?

There are some huge legal differences. Recipes aren't protected. They may be trade secrets, but patent and copyright do not apply. If Coke's recipe was leaked, anyone would be allowed to make it.

However, if a soda manufacturer produced a soda called "Coke", we can all be confident that Coke would sue. I'm sure they have numerous design patents and trademarks, and a similar-looking can would also be in danger. Hence, while competitors could use Coke's recipe if they could legally get their hands on it, they could not legally apply Coke's designs to confuse consumers into thinking they were selling Coke.

Re:Thanks Apple

[elistan]

It's very easy to imagine what they state of the automobile industry would be today if there were patent wars, because that's actually what happened from what I can tell. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_B._SeldenGeorge Selden had a patent on four wheeled motorized vehicles, and sued Ford and an array of nascent automobile manufacturers. This went on for nearly a decade, Selden initially won, but eventually lost on appeal a case against Ford. Whatever argument you have against Apple is not bolstered by references to automobile history - what's happening now seems to have happened back then too.

A small thought

[jareth-0205]

In the long term, would the best outcome here be for Apple to *succeed*? I mean, if they manage to get their main competitor banned in the States, they look like a unbridled predator competing not with quality, but lawyers. (I know generally /. thinks that already, but general public perception is more important) If the reaction for those wanting a Galaxy III is going to be something along the lines of "why can't I have the shiney thing?" and turn their ire on Apple / lawmakers.

Apple might want to be careful what they wish for... the rest of the world will steam ahead unrestricted, and the case for software patents being harmful will get stronger.

Re:A small thought

[gl4ss]

well.. it would still only ban them for one generation. this is just following petty orders to cause misfortune for a competitor... classic tech a-holism.

but what would be a good law would be that if you start suing somebody over patents and blocking their products that you would have to at least tell them all the patents you intend to use for blocking their sales, so you can't just drag the shit on and on and on and try every stupid patent you have that everyones sw is bound to infringe upon one after another.. and the "infringer" would at least know just wtf he should do different to not infringe.

patent office should also have just thrown away every fucking patent that include "on a mobile device" -as if it matters for the patentability if it runs on fucking batteries, since batteries were invented as a concept ages ago, right with electricity..

Re:A small thought

[dotHectate]

I've a friend that's flip-flopped from telling me I needed an iPhone (when I got a Galaxy SII) to telling me how wonderful his wife's Galaxy SIII is. He's not even a tech-type guy and he's talked about the Apple vs. Samsung trial specifically because he wants to get a Galaxy SIII for himself soon.
Customers are fickle (outside of the the fanboy spectrum) and will jump on whatever is "hot" at the time. That's the whole purpose of the "walled garden" that Apple - and yes, Google "Play Store" also - encourages. It's an attempt to lock people into a specific set of devices (ones that you profit from) by discouraging change. Who wants to lose music, games, etc just because there's a new device out that is a little better? The better they can convince people to stay, the more money they can extract.

So yes, outside of the walling of the gardens, I suspect people want those choices. I would find it really interesting to see people genuinely upset that they're getting taken away from them.

Re:A small thought

[Misagon]

Precisely. In the past week, I have seen a lot of Apple hate on Internet forums, not just in those forums that have lots of tech-savvy geeks, and not just in such forums where the majority of users are US:ians. People are pissed off everywhere.

The lawsuit is biting Apple in the ass. The question is if this is going to be limited only to the short term, or if it will have long-term implications.

Re:A small thought

[Doctor_Jest]

If the Galaxy SIII is on everyone's list (looks like it's a popular phone right now), and somehow the ban goes into effect, there will be tons of pissed people who will remember that Apple told them they couldn't buy a phone they wanted. (Regardless of who implements the ban, the courts, etc... it's Apple's wish, so it's Apple's fault.)

Telling a customer "Apple banned the sales of that phone here in the US" will piss them off for a long time. It's not good to tell someone they can't buy something. :) Apple should realize this by now... but they're just trying to kill off competition (this isn't about patents... it's about market share...) The top dog (now Apple) is taking a page from every other top dog's playbook and litigating their competition now that they're #1 (or perceived as such....) It's not exclusive to Apple, of course... lots of companies do it. Steve Jobs thought Android copied his iPhone, so this is a natural extension of his nerd-rage. Trouble is, Steve's dead... the RDF is fading... people aren't going to be pleased... and Apple may reap the benefits sooner rather than later of the old phrase "don't shit where you eat."

Re:A small thought

[VortexCortex]

That's the whole purpose of the "walled garden" that Apple - and yes, Google "Play Store" also - encourages. It's an attempt to lock people into a specific set of devices (ones that you profit from) by discouraging change. Who wants to lose music, games, etc just because there's a new device out that is a little better?

Uhm, no. There's nothing stopping Apple from installing Android on the iPhone 5. Hell, Apple could have a dual boot phone and offer some real choice. Google Play Store doesn't prevent you from buying or installing software from other sources. However, Apple will not let anyone install iOS on a Non Apple device, and actively works to prevent others from selling software to people who own iPhones.

I get what you're trying to say, but maybe you've never used Linux? I can add multiple "App Stores" (PPA's) to my OS, then get all the benefit of having trusted sources of software, and the choice of deciding who to trust for that software... There is a way to do "Walled Gardens" that allow you to unlock the gate, and visit other gardens, and even make your own garden. Android .APKs are cross platform bytecode, you can take the .APK from the repository, and install it on multiple devices... even a new one you just got. I do fault Google with not giving us easier file system access to the Android devices to make such software migration issues simple. One of the issues is that Davlik VM modifies the bytecode on installation to fix byte order, and static linking on a per machine basis, and you don't really want to keep an extra installation .APK on the system for every program you install. Side loaded apps don't have this problem, but it's not a failure of the "walled garden" / Software Repository System itself -- I frequently mirror my package cache to multiple machines on Linux so public facing bandwidth for updates is only consumed once.

DRM and 3rd party Streaming are what creates the planned obsolescence and vendor locking you're speaking of with songs and software no longer being available. However, My own DRM system is merely PKI that allows the User to accept or deny game mods made from others -- That type of DRM that puts the User in control is Good. I use a streaming system on my desktop machines that lets me stream all my media to any device -- That type of streaming where the user is in control is Good.

It's when the User is not in control of the systems they personally use and rely on that you have problems. I encourage you to read up about Free Software: RMS may be fucking weird but he's damn right.

TL;DR: You just need more control over your software -- Can you access the location where the files are and copy them to another device? If not then that's Treacherous Computing, not a "Walled Garden".

Re:A small thought

[Cederic]

Uhm, no. There's nothing stopping Apple from installing Android on the iPhone 5.

Are you a fucking imbecile? dotHecates point is that the walled garden is Apple's way of trying to reduce churn by making it harder for customers to switch to another manufacturer.

So Apple installing Android on their next device would defeat that point entirely, including alienating all of the people that bought into the existing walled garden.

While ostensibly you're correct in that the technology exists for Apple to choose to install Android on the next telephone they produce, you're demonstrating a level of naivety that leaves me aghast. They don't want to. They perceive no advantage in doing so. They've adopted this closed and abusive model explicitly to fuck over their customers.

It's nice that you've taken a more reasonable approach and focussed on providing value rather than lock-in, but don't assume Apple (or Google) have any intention of being equally considerate.

Re:A small thought

[ohnocitizen]

They won't even see the shiny thing. When I get a new phone, I just log onto verizon's website and see what's available. If I looked on amazon.com, or headed to a local store (either a verizon outlet or a staples), I'd just see what's available. I wouldn't see what was banned.

Re:A small thought

[LordLucless]

Customers are fickle (outside of the the fanboy spectrum) and will jump on whatever is "hot" at the time. That's the whole purpose of the "walled garden" that Apple - and yes, Google "Play Store" also - encourages. It's an attempt to lock people into a specific set of devices (ones that you profit from) by discouraging change. Who wants to lose music, games, etc just because there's a new device out that is a little better?

That might be the function of Apple's app store, but Google's is a little different. Restricting yourself to Android's garden is entirely voluntary - it takes a single checkbox in an easy-to-find settings screen to allow loading any app you like. Android's garden doesn't have a wall. It also doesn't lock out other app stores from the device - the fact that Google's Play Store is the primary access point for Android apps is for two reasons - it's installed by default, and none of the other stores are sufficiently superior to warrant changing. In contrast, Apple's App Store is the primary access point because it's the only one available.

Also, I don't know where you get the losing music and games bit from - you can use two different marketplaces concurrently on Android. Using another marketplace doesn't stop the stuff you got from the old one from working.

Re:A small thought

[shutdown -p now]

The problem is that all those users who picked S3 over the "default choice" of an iPhone have likely already looked into both and understand how they're different - and that difference is precisely why they went for Samsung. So they won't have much empathy for the 'copied too close' argument.

Re:A small thought

[jrumney]

Except the courts didn't decide that Samsung copied Apple too closely to make the Galaxy S3. Apple carefully kept that phone away from the jury so as not to harm their case, now they expect to suddenly extend the case to cover it, after the case is over? If they pull this one off, my faith in the US legal system will be completely gone.

Re:A small thought

[poofmeisterp]

I've a friend that's flip-flopped from telling me I needed an iPhone (when I got a Galaxy SII) to telling me how wonderful his wife's Galaxy SIII is. He's not even a tech-type guy and he's talked about the Apple vs. Samsung trial specifically because he wants to get a Galaxy SIII for himself soon.

Customers are fickle (outside of the the fanboy spectrum) and will jump on whatever is "hot" at the time. That's the whole purpose of the "walled garden" that Apple - and yes, Google "Play Store" also - encourages. It's an attempt to lock people into a specific set of devices (ones that you profit from) by discouraging change. Who wants to lose music, games, etc just because there's a new device out that is a little better? The better they can convince people to stay, the more money they can extract.

So yes, outside of the walling of the gardens, I suspect people want those choices. I would find it really interesting to see people genuinely upset that they're getting taken away from them.

Amen.

And it's sad that developing a new groundbreaking technology (or other product) today isn't stressful from only money and time in developing and marketing it...
 
Man, the fear of lawsuits is nearly enough to kill a developing company's heads. I'm not joking.

Re:A small thought

[poofmeisterp]

Uhm, no. There's nothing stopping Apple from installing Android on the iPhone 5.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but when approached by Apple for the purchase of licenses, could Google not say, "Uhm, no."?

Re:A small thought

[Doctor_Jest]

They're asking for a preliminary injunction BEFORE the trial starts to prevent sales of the S3 from continuing. What part of Preliminary injunction don't you get?

It means if it is granted, BEFORE the trial court and jury etc., there won't be a Galaxy S3 on American store shelves. Pretty simple logic, really.

Re:A small thought

[Doctor_Jest]

I never said Samsung WASN'T evil. But we can see PROOF that Apple is being an evil corporation trying to starve out competition that they consider to be a threat to their conquest of total marketshare dominance. (and since your evidence is anecdotal, it's simply anecdotal.... not proven... and since you're an AC, you could be an Apple employee filling the forums full of bullshit.)

So, I call bullshit on your post until you give proof, with citations and not just "I was in a Samsung plant." So cut the crap and stop defending Apple in this. Apple is JUST as evil as Samsung. I have no doubt of that. What concerns me is the ever-present "well Samsung kills babies to make LCDs!" crap that gets trotted out when this dust up is mentioned. Apple fucked the courts over (and the jury fucked Samsung) with their obvious patents based on common actions and prior art, which is funny, because a JAPANESE court said EXACTLY the opposite regarding this case. Funny how geography works. Do you think it's racist that Apple won, is American and white, and Samsung is Korean and well, not white? Go figure. I don't believe it is racist, but I do believe geography played a not-so subtle role in this verdict. Sorry, folks, Apple's just as Evil(tm) as Microsoft. They're showing how they really are in the courts and in their "walled garden." Pretty soon we'll have a Borg Steve Jobs for the Apple logo. I for one think it's past time for it.
 

Best advertising *ever*

[pla]

Just got mine - Thanks for giving me the push to beat your lawyers to market, Apple!

Re:Best advertising *ever*

[jareth-0205]

The OS nothing but an app launcher. Only people who have nothing better to do than endlessly tweak stupid shit focuses on the OS over the app.

In that measure, Android wins. iOS is much more restrictive than Android in what it will let apps do...

Re:Best advertising *ever*

[xaoslaad]

Amen, when my contract was up, I didn't even think twice to ditch Apple last month after their latest round of litigation. Nice new S3. I'm sorry I ever gave them money. I, along with everyone else, have created a monster, and I am immensely sorry for that.

Re:Best advertising *ever*

[shutdown -p now]

The OS also facilitates interaction between apps. Like, you know, being able to install a different/better browser, and having all other apps use it to open links.

Re:Best advertising *ever*

[andydread]

Yeah you omitted one important point. It was Apple that decided launch to "thermonuclear war" on Android and started suing world+dog over trivial software-patents. No one would be suing Apple had they not started this "thermonuclear war" against Android. But don't let facts get in the way there...carry on.

Re:Best advertising *ever*

[jrumney]

Microsoft owns essential patents on exFAT, which is mandated by the SD card consortium for SDXC cards. Microsoft has also been quietly reducing the size of FAT filesystems that can be supported on USB thumb drives with Windows 8, in order to force exFAT on the industry. Samsung really don't have much of a choice here - unless they go the Apple route of unexpandable devices that interface to PCs through proprietary software.

Re:Best advertising *ever*

[pla]

The problem being, let me reiterate yet again, is that the Iphone does what people need and want it to do.

I want to see a map of drone strikes in Pakistan. I want to tether my netbook to my cellular data plan. I want to run an NES emulator. I want to run a torrent client. I want to get music and apps but hate iTunes. I want to play games with violent and/or pornographic content.

The iGarden most certainly does not do what I need and want it to do, simple as that.

Dear Apple:

[Anonymous Coward]

Get fucked. Seriously. You got what you wanted thanks to an incompetent judge and a jury with conflicts of interest. You can't go about trying to use that as a cudgel to ban things that weren't even in the original case.

It's funny how Jobs once said Apple has always been "shameless in stealing great ideas." Yet when you think someone else has done the same thing to you (regardless of evidence or prior art), you clowns get your panties in a bunch and start stamping your feet, crying to the courts, and whining about "going thermonuclear" on Android. Well, guess what, idiots. You can't shamelessly copy ideas then cry foul when you believe you're the one being copied. It doesn't work that way.

To close, Jobs was a great businessman. But he was also a COLOSSAL douchebag with no sense of perspective or grip on reality. I thought when he died that rational heads would prevail in Cupertino. Apparently I was wrong. This fucker's cult of personality is so strong that even now people worship him like he was some sort of deity.

So yes, Apple. You can go fuck yourself with a rusty chainsaw, because you're pissing away whatever good-will you may have had left. One day, the drooling iZealots will wake up and get off of the trend-whore treadmill.

--Pretentious signature about what device I'm posting from. In this case, my Galaxy S3

Re:Dear Apple:

[TimFenn]

There is a fantastic TED talk by Kirby Ferguson that expands on this theme (loss aversion in behavioral economics) and discusses some of these exact quotes/points. In short: "great artists steal, but not from me."

Re:Dear Apple:

[Anonymous Coward]

> They have a legal obligation to maximize profits. They were just handed a victory, however ill-earned it may be, and now they have to press that advantage. If they don't, they can be sued by the shareholders, and the entire board of directors could be thrown out. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

Where the fuck does this bullshit misconception come from? The only duty they have is not to not to act in bad faith detrimentally to beneficiaries.

You should just stop and think for one fucking moment - if you follow this line of reasoning, companies could and should be sued by shareholders for any expenses not related to increasing profits. Spent money on charities? You're breaking your fiduciary duties, you failure of a capitalist! Spent a million on recreational facilities for employees and guests? You're sooo getting sued! Your employess aren't glued to their cubicles from 8:00 to 17:00? You failed to supervise and will be held responsible! Don't tell me this three examples are not obstructions in the way to the high goal of maximizing profits.

Or just stop for another fucking minute and think why isn't every CEO sued by shareholders right now - after all, most big companies sit on huge chests of patents and those bastard CEOs don't utilize their profit maximization opportunities by suing everyone in alphabet order. They don't even need to sue, they just have to have lawyers go over the list and send lots and lots of scary letters to make people settle. For some reason, contrary to your view, noble people who employ this tactic of blanket patent bombardment to fulfill their fiduciary duty are frowned upon by everyone and called "patent trolls".

So yeah, seeing all the CEOs not suing everyone in sight despite having patent portfolio and not getting sued by shareholders for that really undermines your "but they must!" rhetoric.

This is a choice made by players. Game can be played in many ways. It is perfectly alright to hate the players with cheapshot methods of playing.

Re:Dear Apple:

[subreality]

They can, they should, and they must. They have a legal obligation to maximize profits. ... If they don't, they can be sued by the shareholders, and the entire board of directors could be thrown out.

Bullshit. They have an obligation to represent the interests of the shareholders. I am a shareholder in several companies, and I am interested in ethical behavior over profits.

That aside, I don't even think it's a good strategy to maximize profits: it may work short term, but turning the patent cold war into a shooting war is going to hurt everyone in the arena long term, Apple included.

Re:Dear Apple:

[Anonymous Coward]

> They have a legal obligation to maximize profits.

Actually, they don't. There's even at least one court decision to back up the assertion that the company's fiduciary duty to its shareholders does NOT require that the company's management do everything legally possible to wring every last possible cent of profit. The court's rationale was that shareholders hired the management, and shareholders are free to sell their shares at any time if they disagree with the current direction management is taking a company. The court didn't abolish fiduciary duty, but it set the bar for establishing it so high that little short of outright fraudulent malice could actually breach it in real life.

Re:Dear Apple:

[girlintraining]

Bullshit. They have an obligation to represent the interests of the shareholders. I am a shareholder in several companies, and I am interested in ethical behavior over profits.

And you speak for all the shareholders?

That aside, I don't even think it's a good strategy to maximize profits: it may work short term, but turning the patent cold war into a shooting war is going to hurt everyone in the arena long term, Apple included.

That's nice. But you're one guy, with a few extra dollars, saying it's a bad idea. There are tens of thousands of lawyers who say it's a good idea. There's hundreds of thousands of pages from various court decisions, legislative works, and contracts, that support that notion. There's millions of workers that go to work every day to make sure that notion keeps right on ticking. And there's hundreds of billions of dollars backing that notion.

While I admire your devotion to ideals, few will respect the choices of a man who stands outside while the hurricane makes landfall and shout "I forbid this!" It's folly to think everyone is like you -- most people are not so idealistic. Most people like money first, and ideals, perhaps, as long as they're fashionable.

Re:Dear Apple:

[Pulzar]

They can, they should, and they must. They have a legal obligation to maximize profits.

That statement sounds like it came from somebody who learned about business laws from reading Cryptonomicon.

If only "maximizing profits" was such a simple formula, we wouldn't need all these expensive boards of directors and CEOs to run companies. Unfortunately, it's rarely clear what actions lead to increasing profits, and it's even less clear what "maximum" profits are. It's not even clear how far in the future are we need to look for our estimates!

A board can look at opinion polls, and determine that trying to ban a competing product will destroy enough of the consumer goodwill that it's not worth it in the long run, especially since the next-gen Samsung product would come out shortly after. That same board might decide that trying to ban a competing product will create short-term spike in that product's sales, hurting their at the time when they are about to launch a new product of their own. Considering that such an attempt might even fail to produce the ban, the overall result might be quite detrimental to their profits.

It's really not clear at all, in my opinion, that attempting to ban Galaxy SIII is in the best interest of Apple shareholders. So, to respond to your statement -- "they can" -- yes, "they should" -- matter of opinon, "they must" -- certainly untrue.

Re:Dear Apple:

[subreality]

And you speak for all the shareholders?

Certainly not! I'm just illustrating that there's a disconnect there - maximizing profits by grabbing every possible dime is not what's mandated by law. If the shareholders don't like the course of things, they can either sell their shares or vote out the board. They don't have a case to sue just because a company doesn't take the maximally-profitable course.

Cite: "No, shareholders do not own the corporation. Rather, they own (or in some cases, temporarily hold) a type of security commonly called stock. Both corporate law and economic reasoning support the limited nature of this ownership, and also undermine the claim that directors should always strive to maximize shareholder value." -- http://www.directorship.com/stout-shareholders-as-owners/

That's nice. But you're one guy, with a few extra dollars, saying it's a bad idea. There are tens of thousands of lawyers who say it's a good idea. There's hundreds of thousands of pages from various court decisions, legislative works, and contracts, that support that notion. There's millions of workers that go to work every day to make sure that notion keeps right on ticking. And there's hundreds of billions of dollars backing that notion.

The entire rest of the arena settled on FRAND, generally cross-licensing everything, and focused on out-competing each other with ever better products for quite a while. There were some tiffs, but the complete mess of lawsuits didn't start until Steve decided that Android had to die. So no, it's not just me. It was the entire industry for a long time. Apple is the outlier, not the status quo.

Re:Dear Apple:

[girlintraining]

The entire rest of the arena settled on FRAND, generally cross-licensing everything, and focused on out-competing each other with ever better products for quite a while. There were some tiffs, but the complete mess of lawsuits didn't start until Steve decided that Android had to die. So no, it's not just me. It was the entire industry for a long time. Apple is the outlier, not the status quo.

Apple is the largest company on Earth by market capitalization, and they continue to gain market share. I think that's a compelling argument for Steve being right, and everyone else being wrong. Mind you, I despite intellectual property; But you're trying to minimize and marginalize what has obviously been a runaway success. Apple is not the problem here -- it's intellectual property as a whole, and whether the rest of the industry follows Apple or not doesn't matter. The market is rewarding Apple right now, not the people who are choosing not to litigate.

Re:Dear Apple:

[subreality]

I don't dispute that Apple has gotten many things right. They made quite a few brilliant moves that have put them in their current position, but that doesn't mean they get everything right.

The patent war is more recent than the things that made them successful. I think they're going to shoot themselves in the foot on this one, but that's just my opinion. We won't know for sure for some years.

Re:Dear Apple:

[RocketRabbit]

"They have a legal obligation to maximize profits. They were just handed a victory, however ill-earned it may be, and now they have to press that advantage. If they don't, they can be sued by the shareholders, and the entire board of directors could be thrown out."

This sounds good but can you think of any example of a huge, multi-billion dollar tech firm being sued by minority shareholders and then doing an about-face? I can't.

Yeah, I know it figured big into Cryptonomicon but it just doesn't seem to happen in real life.

Re:Dear Apple:

[skine]

Do they have a legal obligation to maximize profits in the short-term, or do they have a legal obligation to maximize profits in the long-term?

I mean, I could go out and rob a bank tomorrow. I would have a lot of money tomorrow.

However, that doesn't mean that I'll be rich the next day.

Good?

[taxman_10m]

This is partly because of Samsung's stuff they stuck on top of vanilla android, right? I have an HTC phone and hate the Sense stuff. It would be great if this prompts phone manufacturer's to ditch their own UI "enhancements" for vanilla android, thus leaving any UI patent problems on Google's lap.

Re:Good?

[gl4ss]

This is partly because of Samsung's stuff they stuck on top of vanilla android, right? I have an HTC phone and hate the Sense stuff. It would be great if this prompts phone manufacturer's to ditch their own UI "enhancements" for vanilla android, thus leaving any UI patent problems on Google's lap.

partly.. but mostly it's because samsung has an actual well profitable business selling android phones, unlike most other people. that business being profitable also directly affects the pricing of components apple uses.

(the patent stuff has affected galaxy nexus too, though).

Samsung should argue that it's not a screenlock getting unlocked though, that it's actually already unlocked and running an application when the screen is awoken - because that's what it does, the screen is already awake after being awoken with a keypress of a hw key.

Re:Good?

[Frosty Piss]

Samsung should argue that it's not a screenlock getting unlocked though, that it's actually already unlocked and running an application when the screen is awoken - because that's what it does, the screen is already awake after being awoken with a keypress of a hw key.

Perhaps you have just described a component of Apple's patent?

Re:Good?

[stephanruby]

Actually except for Jellybeans (which doesn't have an HTC Sense equivalent yet), I'd choose HTC Sense over vanilla android in most cases (which is not to say that I like Samsungs' TouchWiz or Motorolas' MotoBlur, I think those tend to hurt vanilla android more they help). Even when I select a custom ROM, I tend to gravitate toward the ROMs based on Sense (which may not be entirely legal, but thus far they haven't pursued anybody).

With HTC, I've never had my gps google maps voice navigation get laggy, or force close on me. Plus HTC usually has the best looking clock widgets, a decent selection of attractive wallpapers, and the smoothest phone contacts scrolling interaction. Those little details make a huge difference in my opinion.

Really, the only Samsung/TouchWiz device I'd really salivate over would be the Samsung Galaxy Note (not its HTC Flyer equivalent), but even there, the low sound volume that Samsung phones usually have could be a showstopper for me (so I'd have to double-check that before I ever go that route).

Re:Good?

[Kalriath]

Google outright refuses to indemnify OEMs against patent lawsuits, so even stock Android could land the manufacturers in Apple lawsuits.

Re:Good?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's probably because they cake shit like TouchWiz, SVoice, etc on top of it.

What I want to know is

[Progman3K]

What happens when the level of ridiculous goes above 100% ?

Do smartphone lawsuits instantly get replaced by something even funnier?

Re:What I want to know is

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish they'd be replaced by Thunderdome. Two CEOs enter, and then we implode the building.

Fixed for idealism.

Re:What I want to know is

[Progman3K]

I wish they'd be replaced by Thunderdome. Two CEOs enter, one CEO leaves!

I'd buy tickets to that

Re:Apple will not stop until they have 100% monopo

[gl4ss]

They seek nothing less than a complete monopoly on the smart phone market.

"Good artists copy, great artists steal" - Steve Jobs, 1994

well... they want the parts cheaper, it's no good if they have to compete for cpu production capacity with samsung. but in the end apple by this way is going to end up the same way as many calculator assembly companies did.. when chip manufacturers like ti&others started making their own calculators - apple has been trying to avoid that a bit, but just a bit(don't quote bullshit how they have their own chip, pls). if they could really force everyone else with their "oh boy we've patented it(but don't ask exactly what!)" to stop producing phones.

the next iphone better do blowjobs and come with a 20g bag of coke for people to buy it - if they're now injunction happy because they don't have anything new than a new screen size then it doesn't really bode that well for apple(not that I care, they're closed garden snobby shithole platform with super short self life for their platforms).

I just wish nokia would have taken them to injunction city instead of ceding into the unholy 3 way circle jerk party-truce in exchange of some cash(from apple) with ms and apple(that's the plan - ms+apple duopoly in desktops, tablets and phones, because android started crashing their party like nothing before on computer-like consumer devices).

but complete monopoly is no good for either of them, they learnt that big way in the '90s.. fake competition whilst blocking everyone else from the market is much better.

Fuck you Apple your phone sucks!

[modmans2ndcoming]

Seriously.... The iPhone sucks....yes it is popular but it is a pain in the ass to use for people who are not super computer literate. I told my mother-in-law that she needs to get an android phone. She will have all her games but she will never need to connect it to her PC and worry about a bunch of weird pop-ups asking her to import her pictures or back up her apps, etc.

Fuck Apple.

Re:Fuck you Apple your phone sucks!

[jd2112]

Seriously.... The iPhone sucks....yes it is popular but it is a pain in the ass to use for people who are not super computer literate.

I see a marketing opportunity here: "Blackberry: So easy a CEO can use it!"

Re:Fuck you Apple your phone sucks!

[nurb432]

Odd, i find it the exact opposite. People who are confused with android and windows pick up how to use a idevice rather quickly, on their own.

Re:Fuck you Apple your phone sucks!

[Yahma]

Samsung should sue Apple when the iPhone 5 comes out with a 4" screen. Now who's copying who?

Re:Fuck you Apple your phone sucks!

[modmans2ndcoming]

you really think that the device management of an iPhone is easier than an android or windows phone?

Re:Fuck you Apple your phone sucks!

[nurb432]

For me, none are difficult, im talking about what i have seen with dealing with 'non techies'. The do much better with itunes. ( which now is pretty much irrelevant now that they do OTA updates and can back up to icloud.. )

Re:Fuck you Apple your phone sucks!

[modmans2ndcoming]

when iCloud works.

this is bad

[aahpandasrun]

I'm not liking that Apple is using the courts to try and take out their #1 competitor in the smartphone market. It's VERY anti-competitive.

Re:Apple will not stop until they have 100% monopo

[Howitzer86]

Correct. Microsoft will be let in on the game to give it the air of legitimacy. If Samsung wants to continue, they will have to make more Windows phones. Apple wins, Microsoft wins, and even Samsung comes out of this OK.

Re:A more fitting punishment

[mickwd]

I'd rather Samsung be allowed to sell its products in the US.

No AND.

toddler tantrums

[houghi]

I have seen toddler behave more adults then these two.
Boo-fucking-hoo what you feel. Now kiss and make up already and let the grownups buy your products.

I really don't care

[Pop69]

I live in Europe and it's slightly more sane over here

This...

[LodCrappo]

This, quite literally if Apple succeeds, is why we can't have nice things.

US Patents lead to technological backwater

[SpankyDaMonkey]

I've been following this on Groklaw for a while, and it's obvious yet again how badly the US patent system is broken when Apple can patent a rectangle with rounded corners and succeed in banning devices of the same shape, and yet refuse to licence the basic technology that is needed for the phone to actually behave like a phone and make calls.

In real terms if this judgement stands then the US will end up with technology that lags the rest of the world by whole generations as why should companies like Samsung, HTC, etc etc actually bother releasing their products in the US when Apple will use the courts to ban them?

It's amazing how many of the self proclaimed 'freedoms' and 'ethics' have been quietly swept under the carpet in the name of capitalism and the next quarters profit margin.

Re:US Patents lead to technological backwater

[Anonymous Cowled]

why should companies like Samsung, HTC, etc etc actually bother releasing their products in the US when Apple will use the courts to ban them?

The US is one of the largest (the largest?) market in the world. Why would companies not try to cash in on that?

It's amazing how many of the self proclaimed 'freedoms' and 'ethics' have been quietly swept under the carpet in the name of capitalism and the next quarters profit margin.

"The land of the free" has been a joke to everyone outside of the US for decades.

Re:US Patents lead to technological backwater

[Yahma]

Correct. US Patent laws suck; however, Apple's behavior, while perhaps technically within the bounds of the law, will not win them any friends or goodwill. Their evil behavior is not only targeted at Samsung, but targeted any any US consumer who does not choose an Apple product. This is because Android, is really the only real competitor to iOS. Apple is trying to destroy the competition with patent abuse and lawsuits, rather than on the technical merits of their phone (which has already lost to the Galaxy SIII).

Re:US Patents lead to technological backwater

[flyingfsck]

"The land of the free" has been a joke to everyone outside of the US for decades. -- Hundreds of years actually. The underground railroad has always run from the USA to Canada, and not the other way around.

Re:US Patents lead to technological backwater

[Silas is back]

I've been following this on Groklaw for a while, and it's obvious yet again how badly the US patent system is broken when Apple can patent a rectangle with rounded corners and succeed in banning devices of the same shape, and yet refuse to licence the basic technology that is needed for the phone to actually behave like a phone and make calls.

You may be glad to hear that the "rounded rectangle" patent, design patent 504,889, was actually NOT found to be infringed, meaning Apple can NOT patent a rectangle with rounded corners.

It sucks monkey balls to live in the US!

[blind biker]

You got Apple dictating what is and what isn't acceptable to be sold in the US. Now you'll have to smuggle the goods from the rest of the world.

Fucking pathetic!

Re:It sucks monkey balls to live in the US!

[aliquis]

You have your courts do that.

But yeah, still suck living in the US on that occasion.

Not everything is bad with living in the US though.

Re:It sucks monkey balls to live in the US!

[Yahma]

Apple SUCKS! I don't care what the fanbois say. I hate that they are able to dictate what is acceptable to be sold in the US. This ridiculous decision (based upon patenting a square brick with rounded edges) only hurts consumer choice.

Irreparably harming Apple?

[amRadioHed]

It seems it would be a hard argument to make that anything was doing irreparable harm to Apple when they are currently the largest publicly traded company in the world.

Re:Irreparably harming Apple?

[jareth-0205]

How many employees, what is the gross and net profit and so on is what is really important, and Apple is NOT in the lead in that regard.

Fine, but they're not exactly struggling, are they?

Re:Irreparably harming Apple?

[Tough Love]

You know who's irreparably harming Apple? Apple.

Re:Irreparably harming Apple?

[Hognoxious]

You could have a 5 employee company with 10 trillion shares going for $1 each

No you couldn't.

Re:Irreparably harming Apple?

[poofmeisterp]

It seems it would be a hard argument to make that anything was doing irreparable harm to Apple when they are currently the largest publicly traded company in the world.

In a press release today (that didn't make it to paper, net, or air), Apple stated that they wanted to clarify "irreparable harm" as meaning "irreparable harm to our company's complete control of the mind market."
 
;)

Re:Steve Jobs is rolling in his grave

[shentino]

That rolling might well be rotating on a spit in hell for all I know.

Re:Apple will not stop until they have 100% monopo

[symbolset]

Samsung gives Windows Phone token support. In return they get better license cost on Windows. But instead of being mass produced in a Chinese sweatshop these token Windows Phones are lovingly handcrafted in Whittier California by a wizened old former TV repairman named Hank. Hank is semi-retired and only works 15 hours a week, but he has no trouble keeping up with the global demand.

Banning them will make them more fashionable

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Flaunting something not available for sale in the US definitely has a lot of "bling" value. Just like banning songs from radio broadcast in the UK would increase the sales of records. Hollywood stars, rappers and such will flash them around.

So it might be illegal in the US to sell them. Will it also be illegal to posses one? Will the folks smuggling drugs in a tunnel under the kids on my front lawn, switch to smuggling banned phones?

If I was a South Korean diplomat in the US, I would smugly hand Samsung phones out as diplomatic gifts.

Ban the 'phone designed by lawyers'?

[knarf]

Remember what the press was saying when Samsung debuted the SIII?

The Samsung Galaxy S III: The First Smartphone Designed Entirely By Lawyers

And now Fruit wants to ban this lawyer-designed phone? Well smoke me a kipper, either the reality distortion field seems to cause lasting damage or they are communicating with St. Steve through an Ouija board. In any case it does not make sense. And they think they can gain what by doing this? Respect? Money? Time? What, exactly?

As far as I can see all they earn by going on a sueing spree is ridicule, contempt and hatred. For some reason many people seem to get almost religiously attached to their mobile gadgets, and Fruit now acts as if they are the Church of Scientology. Bad fruit. Soon anonymous will start staking out their sales churches.

Re:Ban the 'phone designed by lawyers'?

[StripedCow]

imagine it being flattened and you will get the SGS3

Similarly, if you stretch out a typical smartphone in two directions, you get an iPad.

Re:Clarification

[SIR_Taco]

yes

Before the trial begin?

[symbolset]

The trial is almost over. The evidence was presented, the lawyers rested their case. The jury deliberated and returned a verdict. And they found that the Galaxy Tab did not infringe Apple's patents. The judge hasn't completed post-verdict processes and issued a final judgment, but it's late in the day for Apple to be adding devices to this case. Maybe we're talking about another case?

Re:Before the trial begin?

[symbolset]

Ah, there it is. This is a different case first filed in February this year.

Not about hate, not a choir

[fm6]

Why is Apple the bad guy?

Because they're basically out to force Android phones off the market.

And being critical of Apple doesn't make you an Apple hater, any more than pointing out all the problems with Android (version fragmentation, lousy development tools) makes you an Android hater. Some of us simply want to have a serious alternative to iOS devices that only run what Apple says they can run,

Re:Not about hate, not a choir

[ThePeices]

Some of us simply want to have a serious alternative to iOS devices that only run what Apple says they can run,

I would rather the serious iOS alternative not have Apple dictate what apps it can run.

Re:Not about hate, not a choir

[fm6]

Oh come on, the subordinate clause was directly after "iOS devices".

Re:Not about hate, not a choir

[fm6]

You can use a Blackberry, Windows Phone, even Samsung's own Bada OS.

Oh great, I can switch to an outdated platform that nobody's writing applications for, or I can try to forget my previous bad experiences and hope that MS has finally figured out how to do a mobile OS. Thanks a lot.

I'm not going to cheer for a for-profit company over another, no matter how less "evil" they look.

As I think I've already made clear, this isn't about hating Apple or loving Google. This is about Apple using bad IP laws to obtain market dominance. This is a bad thing.

Which is not to say that other companies (including Google) don't also do bad things. It's just that this bad thing is the one a lot of us really care about right now.

Re:Not about hate, not a choir

[shutdown -p now]

You can use a Blackberry, Windows Phone, even Samsung's own Bada OS. The only thing they lack is the apps

They also lack some important features like letting the user be fully in control of his phone.

Re:Not about hate, not a choir

[Clsid]

Oh great, I can switch to an outdated platform that nobody's writing applications for

Well my friend, you do have a point there. I was just saying that just because Android fails you are not forced to use iOS, but in a way you are, so I guess you are right.

Re:Not about hate, not a choir

[fm6]

What, you're admitting you're wrong? Begone! There's no place for you on Slashdot!

Re:Not about hate, not a choir

[kenorland]

Android is becoming a defacto monopoly by a company

Android isn't a "monopoly" because anybody can distribute and sell it.

If it isn't open source

Well, it is.

Re:Not about hate, not a choir

[Clsid]

Haha, nice :)

Re:Not about hate, not a choir

[Clsid]

Open source + non-profit :)

Re:Not about hate, not a choir

[kenorland]

Good! Because Apple's profits come out of the pockets of its customers. In an efficient market, companies should have small profit margins.

Re:Misattributed quote.

[speederaser]

"Good artists copy, great artists steal" - Steve Jobs, 1994

This is a misattributed quote. It should more correctly be attributed to either Pablo Picasso (an overrated artist) or Igor Stravinsky (an excellent composer).

Both of you are correct, pretty much. Pablo Picasso said "Good artists borrow, great artists steal" in 1934. And here is a link of Steve Jobs saying "Good artists copy, great artists steal" in 1996.

Funny how the profit motive so strongly affects the moral belief system.

Re:Misattributed quote.

[Nerdfest]

Yes, he even stole that quote.

Re:Snore. I really don't get the Apple Hater Choir

[Nerdfest]

The LG Prada, the Palm Treo, and The BlackBerry are all lined up outside and would like a word with you about copying others.

This makes me glad that I don't live in the USA

[Gonoff]

Apple feels that some things will threaten their high profits. To compete by making products as good as the S3 would lower them.
The alternative is to practice legal scammery (a nice word). Lawyers cost less than having to improve your products and keep improving them. Lawyers can be dispensed with once they have convinced the courts that they invented everything.

I have a GS2 and will not consider an Apple product when the contract expires. This is not because they make rubbish. Their product is pretty average even if their current offering is inferior to what I have. Maybe the next one will be better than everything else. I will not pay money towards destroying the competitive market and nobody with knowledge of technology or economics should either.

Re:This makes me glad that I don't live in the USA

[xs650]

I have a GS2 and will not consider an Apple product when the contract expires. This is not because they make rubbish. .....

To paraphrase Pogo...

Apple has met the enemy and he is Apple

different case

[YesIAmAScript]

http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/31/apple-samsung-galaxy-s-iii-galaxy-note-patent-lawsuit/

'Just to help you keep things straight, remember this is a separate case from the one that ended exactly a week ago with a decision in Apple's favor to the tune of more than $1 billion in damages.'

The 'it could temporarily halt sales in the U.S. market even before the trial begin [sic]' in the summary should have been a tipoff.

And when you start getting angry over people's siglines, you really make yourself look petty and foolish. You also make yourself look like a person who doesn't have enough objectivity for your judgment of whether 'you're [Apple] pissing away whatever good-will you may have had left' to mean anything at all.

Re:Misattributed quote.

[king neckbeard]

He did say that, so it isn't exactly misattributed, although he mistakenly claimed it came from Pablo Picasso. However, Picasso didn't say that, at least not in those words. Those particular words did come from Jobs, and T.S. Eliot is the first conclusively known source I'm aware of for this sentiment. However, it almost certainly didn't originate with him, either.

Re:Apple will not stop until they have 100% monopo

[ThePeices]

Apple already has a 100% monopoly in the iOS market.

Re:A more fitting punishment

[betterunixthanunix]

Yeah but that would benefit society at the expense of corporations, so you will never see it happen. Maybe our grandchildren will live to see such a world, but I would not get my hopes up...

There was a study recently...

[taharvey]

That said the a huge part of the traffic at sites like slashdot are actually marketing firm paid posters. From the type of comentary at slashdot, it seems Google hires a lot more of them than Apple.

Universities and Apple Products

[betterunixthanunix]

The prevalence of Apple products at universities is no accident; Apple is pushing hard, and universities are basically bending over and promoting Apple products. Windows is sticking around because a few programs are training students to use Windows software (especially MS Office), but a typical college classroom looks like this:

http://potpiedeluxe.com/files/2011/02/apple-think-different.jpg

Suggesting that universities promote a free/libre OS is met with all sorts of derision and skepticism, usually of the form, "Yeah but nobody has any familiarity with that, and it is hard to use, and this is a university so students do not have the time to learn something unfamiliar!"

Re:Universities and Apple Products

[AmiMoJo]

Universities have unusually high concentrations of hipsters.

Re:Universities and Apple Products

[aliquis]

A fat 404?

Re:Universities and Apple Products

[erroneus]

Note the absense of Apple in business and government. They aren't interested in meeting anyone's standards but their own.

Re:Universities and Apple Products

[BancBoy]

Note the absense of Apple in (...) government. They aren't interested in meeting anyone's standards but their own.

You've not spent much time working in National Science Labs, I take it.

Re:Universities and Apple Products

[StripedCow]

It is not considered hip to buy locked down and dumbed down products. Especially not at universities.

Re:Universities and Apple Products

[Tough Love]

Apple is pushing hard, and universities are basically bending over and promoting Apple products.

The best I can say about that is, at least it's Unix. And then it's only a matter of time before they discover that Android/Linux is "better Unix", and they already know something about it.

Re:Universities and Apple Products

[betterunixthanunix]

What difference does that make? Free operating systems are not Unix-like because Unix is some great OS design (it is good, but there are better things out there), they are Unix-like because that was the most expedient choice in 1984. If the FSF had been founded today, GNU would be Windows-like and we would be saying things like, "Well at least its Windows!"

Not only that, but using Mac OS X is nothing like GNU/Linux or even the BSD on which Mac OS X is based. When last I checked, X11 was not even installed by default these days, and the terminal is not immediately available from the base install (yes, I am sure it is not terribly hard to find; it is also not hard to find in Windows, but when I install something like RHEL, the out-of-the-box DE has a terminal icon right there, ready for me to explore or to use). It is absurd to think that any but a small minority of Mac OS X users will discover a "better Unix," because only a small minority of Mac OS X users will ever see anything even remotely Unix-like when they use their computer.

Universities are no exception to what I said. It is not as though they are encouraging students to use Mac OS X, then teaching them how to write shell scripts as part of some "basic computer usage" class. When a student is having a problem, they just bring their computer to the help desk and have someone else fix it for them. If a student cannot find the program they are looking for, they just go to the computer center to find out what shrink-wrapped off-the-shelf software they should buy, assuming their teacher did not tell them already. We are not raising a generation of Unix hackers when we encourage our college students to use Macs.

Yes, your CS department is different; there, the students are learning to program, so they will find their way to a terminal one way or another, and there are hackers in every CS department who will show people how to install a free OS. Even within CS departments, you see an awful lot of Apple customers these days...

Re:Universities and Apple Products

[betterunixthanunix]

Tell me where you are, so I can move there and see this fantastic place where it is not hip to use your iPad for everything. Around me, the hipsters are all loyal Apple customers, who love to use their iPads for everything and who eagerly await the next generation of Apple products.

Re:Universities and Apple Products

[tsa]

Even at universities most people just want to get their job done and don't give a damn about 'open' or 'free' software.

Re:Universities and Apple Products

[kenorland]

If the FSF had been founded today, GNU would be Windows-like and we would be saying things like, "Well at least its Windows!"

I seriously doubt it. There were plenty of other operating system designs around at the time, including VMS, developed by the same people who brought you Windows NT. The FSF considered and rejected those other systems, and for good reason.

Not only that, but using Mac OS X is nothing like GNU/Linux or even the BSD on which Mac OS X is based.

And that's why OS X is going to be superseded by systems like Android, ChromeOS and iOS, because the current OS X user community just wants to launch some simple end-user apps and doesn't care about the technical details. OS X never managed to make serious inroads into actual UNIX or Linux usage.

Even within CS departments, you see an awful lot of Apple customers these days...

True, but they mostly use OS X like an iPad: to run consumer apps and as a thin client. Very few computer scientists or engineers actually develop for OS X.

Re:Universities and Apple Products

[StripedCow]

You probably also put your money in a bank that invests in arms, saying: hey I don't care, this bank gives me the highest interest.

If you are a computing professional you should not buy Apple. Apple is the troll of our field.

You may disagree on the last point, but if you don't then please stop using that "but it's the only thing that works" argument, because it is simply flawed, there are plenty of alternatives.

Re:Universities and Apple Products

[Silas is back]

You probably also put your money in a bank that invests in arms, saying: hey I don't care, this bank gives me the highest interest.

I don't. But I like how you compare creating and distributing arms with a lawsuit over a frickin telephone.

If you are a computing professional you should not buy Apple. Apple is the troll of our field.

I am. I do.

You may disagree on the last point, but if you don't then please stop using that "but it's the only thing that works" argument, because it is simply flawed, there are plenty of alternatives.

I never said it's the only thing that works, I said I use it because it works very well for me. I don't agree with Apple's tactics as obviously nobody here does, but just because Apple is being mean to Samsung (that's about the scope of it) I'm not going to switch to more "open" software just for the sake of it.

Re:Universities and Apple Products

[Silas is back]

Note the absense of Apple in business and government. They aren't interested in meeting anyone's standards but their own.

You mean standards like DOC or PPT? And Exchange, almost forgot that standard. Is there some other standard people use when working for businesses and governments?

Re:Universities and Apple Products

[Silas is back]

Even within CS departments, you see an awful lot of Apple customers these days...

True, but they mostly use OS X like an iPad: to run consumer apps and as a thin client. Very few computer scientists or engineers actually develop for OS X.

You are right in that few native OS X apps are being developed, but the amount of webapps and open-source scripts and high-performance tools being developed on OS X is huge - at least at the departments that I interact with and work (biomedical). Those tools compile just fine on Linux and OS X, and with Fink, MacPorts and Homebrew there are three *nix package managers available, with A LOT of Linux packages available.

The choice to use OS X is currently a choice that makes much sense, from a very pragmatic viewpoint. OS X may be replaced by other OS'es as you say, but it's not like this is going to happen overnight.

Re:Universities and Apple Products

[erroneus]

I hope you are not limited to an understanding of standards being limited to file formats. There are other standards such as "to be eligible for government procurement, there must be more than one supplier of any given component so that there may be competition and the government can be assured of getting the best possible price." That particular standard resulted in the creation of AMD as we know it and because of it, the public benefitted from increased technological development and a nearly steady increase in performance. (Until lately... I haven't heard much from either Intel or AMD in terms of earth shattering developments)

Also, there are other standards such as service and support such as next business day and six-hour response and the like. Apple's stance is "you bring it to us and we'll look at it when we get the chance. But if you want, you can buy something that gives you "first in line" privileges but that only goes for waiting at the counter... whatever goes on behind the closed door is a matter best left to descriptions like the one we saw recently with the confessions of two Apple store employees who did everything short of taking a huge dump in every computer and iphone they touched.

Apple is anything but what I would consider "consumer grade." Sometimes "pro-sumer" but in terms of service and support? Screw it. You can't depend on them even to honor their own warranties when they no longer wish to support it. (See the story of the guy who took Apple to court and won... this scenario had been happening over and over and over again where Apple simply refused and most people took it all up the butt and didn't defend themselves.)

Apple WILL sell to large institutions, government and businesses any time they are willing to buy. But do not expect to get special treatment. As IT manager at a small architectural firm, we experimented with Apple gear. It was extremely popular until something went wrong. Then it fell on me to drive to the nearest Apple store to resolve issues. That means the IT guy spent several hours away from the office (something I didn't mind actually) not there to handle emergencies should one occur. (A business of about 50 people doesn't need more than one IT guy in my opinion.) And there were no business warranties or plans available. None. No accidental damage. None. So when bad things happen (and they simply do) Apple's position is "buy a new one."

Apple makes brilliant and wonderful consumer devices. Consumer devices are limited use devices intended for specific tasks and purposes. General purpose does not describe Apple. And industrial grade or military spec definitely does not describe Apple.

Re:Universities and Apple Products

[Douglas Goodall]

"Not only that, but using Mac OS X is nothing like GNU/Linux or even the BSD on which Mac OS X is based" I have to disagree. Apart from issues of corporate ethics and marketing tactics, Mac OS X provides a GUI on top of Unix and what is underneath is definitely Unix. The terminal app is in the Applications folder and it can be dragged to the dock in seconds, after which it has an icon on the screen for obtaining a terminal session. Most of the GNU languages and utilities I use are shipped with, and if not can be ported in easily. I use the GUI for pushing files around, but when it is time to develop portable C and C++ applications, I am fine with the command line. In every respect the Mac OS X machine is the workstation I waited decades to buy. Until recently the OS was incredibly responsive, unlike Windows (which always makes you wait). I am revising my fanboi status regarding Apple, but for the last 8 years Mac OS X has done n admirable job for me. As long as my 8-core 3.0GHz Xeon Mac Pro keeps running I will be happy with it. (even if it was one version too early and has the 32-bit boot rom and cannot be upgraded). After that I will probably build the most powerful PC I can and run Linux after that.

Re:Universities and Apple Products

[Silas is back]

Nicely defended. There is the Apple Care program which I have seen work out for several people at my department, but ok, I can see how this could be improved. Still, the "[Apple isn't] interested in meeting anyone's standards but their own" is a generalization that's way over the top.

Re:Universities and Apple Products

[betterunixthanunix]

Apart from issues of corporate ethics and marketing tactics, Mac OS X provides a GUI on top of Unix and what is underneath is definitely Unix

Yeah, and underneath TiVO, you have Busybox/Linux, but clearly TiVO presents an abstraction to the user that is not even remotely "Unix like." The same applies to Mac OS X, unless you take the time to get past the abstraction that comes out of the box. Yes, some of the abstraction that you see is derived from Unix (e.g. files are streams of bytes, programs are stored as files) but how you interact with the system is very different. The terminal is not integral to using Mac OS X; when you see answers to problems involving Mac OS X, you see instructions to click on things in configuration dialogs, not to enter a command in a terminal.

From what you said, I am going to guess that you are a highly technical user who really likes to work in a Unix environment; for you, Mac OS X is Unix that departs from X11. The person I replied to claimed that Mac OS X users will eventually discover a "better Unix," which I think both you and I disagree with you, just for different reasons. My point was that most Mac OS X users are seeing so little of the Unix abstraction that they would have trouble appreciating or judging any other Unix. Someone who uses Aqua 100% of the time -- and that is what most Mac OS X users are doing -- will just get confused if you sit them down in front of a TTY.

Re:Universities and Apple Products

[Psyborgue]

It's no longer bundled but if you try to run an X11 app, the OS will point you in the right direction to download X11.

Re:Universities and Apple Products

[StripedCow]

But I like how you compare creating and distributing arms with a lawsuit over a frickin telephone.

That was a little extreme perhaps, granted. But still nothing compared to "going thermonuclear", the phrasing of Steve Jobs :)

Re:Universities and Apple Products

[kenorland]

People in the biomedical field use Macs more than other scientific and engineering disciplines, which means OS X works a bit better there.

I don't think OS X makes "much sense" for any professional user: it's still overpriced and limiting, there is little hardware available that runs it, and even with MacPorts and Fink, it's a pain to maintain.

Re:Universities and Apple Products

[Silas is back]

That was a little extreme perhaps, granted. But still nothing compared to "going thermonuclear", the phrasing of Steve Jobs :)

Haha, indeed. So we complete the circle and we're back at weapons.

Re:Universities and Apple Products

[Silas is back]

I don't think OS X makes "much sense" for any professional user: it's still overpriced and limiting, there is little hardware available that runs it, and even with MacPorts and Fink, it's a pain to maintain.

This is a very subjective area, but "overpriced" depends very much. The price of the OS is negligible (20$) and yes, you can get a cheaper machine than an iMac with about the same specs, but ultrabooks comparable to the MacBook Air only now start to roll out at the same or even lower prices. The Retina MBP currently has no comparable counterpart and is expensive, but honestly, if all you do is stare at a machine as your job you better pick a machine that pleases you as much as possible (...). For me it's not just a bag of components, it's my daily companion, I give a damn how douchey this sounds. It's for the same reason that I haven't bought my desk at Ikea - I sit at the damn thing most of my day, I better feel good when touching the wood.

I don't understand what you mean by "limiting".

And "a pain to maintain", I don't feel this way at all, but again, this probably depends on which modules you need. In virtually all cases I can use the Ubuntu install instructions and substitute "brew" for "apt-get" and be done.

Re:Universities and Apple Products

[kenorland]

This is a very subjective area, but "overpriced" depends very much. The price of the OS is negligible (20$) and yes, you can get a cheaper machine than an iMac with about the same specs, but ultrabooks comparable to the MacBook Air only now start to roll out at the same or even lower prices

But that's the wrong question to ask. The right question to ask is how much money you need to pay to get the job done. If Apple forces you to buy premium features you don't actually need, you are paying too much.

It's for the same reason that I haven't bought my desk at Ikea - I sit at the damn thing most of my day, I better feel good when touching the wood.

For professional users, it's return on investment that matters, not what makes you feel good. And Ikea desks are a good value and work very well. Many businesses and professionals use them. Many of them also look pretty good.

And "a pain to maintain", I don't feel this way at all, but again, this probably depends on which modules you need. In virtually all cases I can use the Ubuntu install instructions and substitute "brew" for "apt-get" and be done.

Brew doesn't seem to have much in the way of integration testing or dependency tracking. In addition, you are up to four package managers (native plus MacPorts, Homebrew, and Fink) all doing their thing on your system, installing multiple versions, and none of them actually doing things quite right. That's not easy, it's a bloody mess. That's the main reason I eventually gave up on OS X.

Re:Universities and Apple Products

[Silas is back]

But that's the wrong question to ask. The right question to ask is how much money you need to pay to get the job done. If Apple forces you to buy premium features you don't actually need, you are paying too much.

Which kinds of premium features I don't actually need do you mean?

For professional users, it's return on investment that matters, not what makes you feel good. And Ikea desks are a good value and work very well. Many businesses and professionals use them. Many of them also look pretty good.

Good thing I'm an independent researcher then, I care very much whether my job makes me feel good or I'm just working for ROI. I'm sure an Ikea desk works very well, all it needs to do is prevent your stuff from falling to the floor. I still prefer the feel of the walnut wood of my desk to the plastified surface of the average desk out there. Yes, it cost me a grand. I see the thing 12 hours a day, I want something that I like, not what has the best ROI.

Brew doesn't seem to have much in the way of integration testing or dependency tracking. In addition, you are up to four package managers (native plus MacPorts, Homebrew, and Fink) all doing their thing on your system, installing multiple versions, and none of them actually doing things quite right. That's not easy, it's a bloody mess. That's the main reason I eventually gave up on OS X.

That's the problem talking about stuff you don't actually use. I ditched Fink and MacPorts for Brew, so it's one manager. Brew installs into its own place but symlinks it all into /usr/local (by default, configurable) and respects all the "native" stuff. Brew does manage all dependencies of its packages, even different versions. It also executes the tests if the package manager added them. It's about as clean as it gets for the inherently messy *nix packages IMHO.

Re:Universities and Apple Products

[kenorland]

Brew installs into its own place but symlinks it all into /usr/local (by default, configurable) and respects all the "native" stuff. Brew does manage all dependencies of its packages, even different versions. It also executes the tests if the package manager added them. It's about as clean as it gets for the inherently messy *nix packages IMHO.

HomeBrew doesn't even come close to solving OS X's package management mess; it's inherently impossible to do consistent package and dependency management on OS X as an add-on to the system. Your problem is that you don't even know what packages or dependency management are (otherwise you wouldn't talk about such nonsense as "*nix packages").

If HomeBrew works for you that's nice. It's not a solution or replacement for real package management.

Re:Universities and Apple Products

[Silas is back]

Your problem is that you don't even know what packages or dependency management are (otherwise you wouldn't talk about such nonsense as "*nix packages").

I think you know what I meant, but ok, since you don't bother explaining what exactly the problem seems to be we should leave it at that.

Re:Universities and Apple Products

[kenorland]

BTW, here's the ridiculous gyrations you have to go through to get SciPy:

http://www.thisisthegreenroom.com/2011/installing-python-numpy-scipy-matplotlib-and-ipython-on-lion/

And when you're done, this is sure to break sooner or later as brew or OS X get updates. Many other scientific packages are missing entirely. Brew is the same kind of disaster as previous attempts at OS X package management.

On Ubuntu? You say "apt-get install python-scipy", and from then on it works, reliably, through upgrade after upgrade.

Re:Universities and Apple Products

[kenorland]

No, I don't know what you meant. "*nix" doesn't have packages. You seem to think of tar files of sources as "packages" and of pulling them down and installing them as "package management".

In any case, the SciPy install instructions using brew I referred to in my other post show that package management on OS X is still a complete trainwreck.

Re:Universities and Apple Products

[Silas is back]

No, I don't know what you meant. "*nix" doesn't have packages.

I meant cross-platform packages, just like SciPy or redland or maybe even Django, as opposed to OS X-native (or even Windows) stuff.

You seem to think of tar files of sources as "packages" and of pulling them down and installing them as "package management".

Not quite.

In any case, the SciPy install instructions using brew I referred to in my other post show that package management on OS X is still a complete trainwreck.

Just saw that, you posted it after my last comment. Granted, SciPy is not (yet?) available as a brew package. But the post you refer to installs quite a bunch of other things and sets up the environment, SciPy alone is two commands. Agreed, this is easier on Ubuntu.

Why you keep condemning HomeBrew without knowing how it works is beyond me though.

Re:Universities and Apple Products

[kenorland]

I meant cross-platform packages, just like SciPy or redland or maybe even Django, as opposed to OS X-native (or even Windows) stuff.

SciPy isn't a "package" in the sense of "package management", it's merely a "software package" in the colloquial sense.

Why you keep condemning HomeBrew without knowing how it works is beyond me though.

I do know what it does: I looked at the documentation and the scripts. It lacks anything close to Ubuntu's dependency management, integration testing, or upgrades. I'm "condemning it" because claiming that it is an alternative to Linux package management is a lie, and it's a lie that might cost people a lot of time and money, just like the false claims about Fink and MacPorts caused me to waste years and a lot of money on OS X.

question for a lawyer?

[arbiter1]

Being SIII wasn't part of the lawsuit (even though that verdict we know won't stand cause complete F up by the jury), so its not labeled as infringing on any those patents (if they are even valid patents) ?

Re:asians never innovate

[Anonymous Coward]

Just off the top of my head:
OLED screens?
Blue diodes?
White LEDs?

And just before you start replying, the US doesn't actually invent anything any more, that gets outsourced. Companies like IBM and Intel do most of their research in Israel. Most chip fab process development happens in the same countries where the fabs actually are. The best medical research is done in Europe. What does the US do still? Shiny consumer products that have absolutely no fucking value other than spaw lawsuits over their rough shape and size. While the Dutch are inventing new contact lens materials, the US is inventing rounded corners.

Puh fucking leez.

Not Contect

[Apocryphon]

"Apple named 8 Samsung products it wanted an injunction to ban from sale in the U.S. Apple wasn't contect."

WTF???

Is it just me or did this "summary" make anyone else actually angry?

Re:asians never innovate

[arbiter1]

no you are thinking of China, they are ones that steal everything and claim as their own.

Thermonuclear

[Clsid]

thermonuclear adj .\thr-m-nü-kl-r, -nyü-, ÷-n(y)ü-ky-lr\

: of, utilizing, or relating to a thermonuclear bomb

I guess they truly meant it, even if it causes harm to their company.

Re:Thermonuclear

[Miamicanes]

No, "thermonuclear" would be Google mustering all of its available resources to get Android ported to the iPhone 5 within a month of its release, complete with "Nexus A" boot animation featuring an Android eating an Apple and pooping out a phone whose display expands to fill the whole screen at the end of the animation.

Apple would still be selling hardware, of course... a lot of it, in fact... but Google would be skimming 100% of the "Market" revenue and "Maps ads" revenue from any iPhone 5 reflashed to Android. Apple is probably selling iPhones at a small loss, with the expectation of making back the difference from other fees. Imagine if they found themselves in the position of Sony -- selling devices at a small loss like hotcakes, knowing they'd never see another cent from those same devices once they left their hands.

The goal, of course, wouldn't be to just make iPhones a first-rate Android hardware platform -- it would be to goad Apple into locking down new iPhones against jailbreaking and reflashing really, REALLY HARD. As in, "Motorola hard". Instantly, Apple would alienate their most influential and enthusiastic group of hardcore users, and drive them away from the platform. Consumers would scramble to buy new old stock iPhones that weren't locked down, and angrily return the ones that ended up being locked down anyway. More consumer ire.

Keep in mind, Google would lose nothing from this. A phone running Android is a phone running Android, insofar as Google revenue is concerned. It would be a bit of a gamble, because it would obviously horrify Samsung and HTC (who might, or might not, buy into the logic of using the move to force Apple's hand and goad them into totally locking down IOS devices against reflashing unapproved firmware). Ultimately, though, this isn't about money for Apple -- it's about control. If it were just about money, Apple would shake down Samsung for royalties and move along to HTC & LG. I can't think of any single act of guerrilla terrorism Google could do to Apple that would more effectively undermine the control Apple is determined to exercise than porting Android to Apple's newest and best hardware.

Re:Thermonuclear

[RocketRabbit]

But people buy an Apple phone for the slick OS. Android doesn't have that. If Google made an Android distro for the iPhone it probably wouldn't even get installed on more than a few thousand devices, tops.

Re:Thermonuclear

[subreality]

locking down new iPhones against jailbreaking and reflashing really, REALLY HARD. ... Apple would alienate their most influential and enthusiastic group of hardcore users, and drive them away from the platform.

This has already happened. I was very happy with the original iPhone. Then I got a 3GS... Seriously locked down, boot signatures, the whole thing. I went from being able to trivially able to run whatever software I wanted to having to wait after each software release for someone to crack it (which didn't always happen), make sure that I wasn't going to end up in a dead-end upgrade path (can't downgrade it), and having to use ever increasingly flaky and slow tools. All just to keep my jailbreak.

With the 2G it was just hard enough to keep total noobs from tinkering with things they shouldn't. The 3GS was obnoxiously hard, and was a very clear message from Apple that they didn't want ANYONE tinkering with their toy under any circumstances.

I was QUITE alienated, and within a year I had sworn off Apple. I love the hardware, and iOS is much more polished than Android in many ways, but I insist on being able to open the hood. I now have a Galaxy Nexus and I'm not looking back. This whole patent war has just solidified my convictions.

Re:Thermonuclear

[Clsid]

Apple already does this with their computers and they don't seem to care to the point where they provide Boot camp and the tools to run the other OS effectively.

The main problem with your argument is that Apple doesn't sell hardware at a loss, they have made that very clear over and over. In fact, if anything Apple's hardware is way overpriced because they truly still make money from all the devices they design, as opposed to the small marging that PC hardware manufacturers or even Foxconn makes with each iPhone.

I said thermonuclear is because Apple is doing it, not that Google is doing anything. I think they unwillingly did more harm to Apple than they ever thought it could be possible, by rallying an unlikely alliance between a bunch of hardware manufactures and a company that was just starting on the operating system business.

The major thing Google can do to disrupt Apple is just keep what they are doing. Keeping Apple at bay while the rest of the manufacturers continue to erode their market share. I think the story is going to repeat itself on the iPad but with Windows 8 devices.

Re:Thermonuclear

[Clsid]

Why would you get mad with something that they clearly told you would void their warranty. The company is under no obligation to provide you with updates if you change the way that they expect the device to be. I mean, I might not like it but I get it. If you are a tinkerer, an iPhone or most Apple products for that matter are definitely not for you. They are for your regular consumers out there or power users that buy into their simplicity mantra. In my case, I have both an iPhone and a Samsung phone with Cyanogenmod from two different carriers since in that way I get complete coverage. As with the whole debate of Linux vs Windows or vs OSX, I decided that instead of choosing one over the other, it's easier to make up some use cases for each device and try to have it all if possible :). On the computing side I have a Macbook as a laptop with Windows and OSX, and a custom-built desktop with Linux and Windows. Windows is used for .NET and games, OSX for web browsing, mail, etc and Linux for web programming, development servers, etc. Adopt all platforms whenever possible or alternate between them, and I assure you, in the end, you will see them for what they really are. Just tools to get the work done :).

Re:Thermonuclear

[subreality]

There's a difference between them not supporting what I'm doing (which was how it worked on the 2G), and their taking active steps to make it as hard as possible. I expected the former, and was happy to take responsibility for my own support (as I now do on my Nexus); it was a change from their former policy when they changed to the latter with their completely obnoxious DRM on the 3GS and later.

Re:Thermonuclear

[tooyoung]

Apple is probably selling iPhones at a small loss, with the expectation of making back the difference from other fees. Imagine if they found themselves in the position of Sony -- selling devices at a small loss like hotcakes, knowing they'd never see another cent from those same devices once they left their hands.

How did this get modded insightful? It's well known that Apple makes obscene profits on their hardware sales. Do you seriously think that they became the most profitable company in the world by selling the iPhone at a loss and then scraping some money off of AppStore transactions?

Re:contect ?

[bjwest]

If you can't read a sentence with a word or two misspelled, and figure out what it means, then you, along with all the other grammar nazis here on /., need to go back to fucking grade school.

FUCKING READ THE SENTENCE, FIGURE IT OUT AND SHUT THE FUCK UP!

Of course, there's punctuation errors in the above, so you won't be able to discern any meaning out of this either.

Re:Apple will not stop until they have 100% monopo

[Clsid]

The thing is, that Apple by the very definition of their business model, will never be able to reach a 100% monopoly. As a GNOME developer was pointing out, all the success that Apple is having only gave them about 7.5% market share on the desktop, they have been surpassed already by Android on smartphones and their only remaining bastion is the iPad which I think with Windows 8 devices, will truly have a run for its money.

Stop worrying so much, since at best, Apple can be like the Prada or Gucci of computers. Expensive, well designed items that fill a certain niche, but very unlikely to become mainstream but for the shortest periods of time.

Re:A more fitting punishment

[Threni]

Yeah, if Apple cares about this sort of thing I have no problem with all the lawsuits if the result was just the loser having to put a little note on their webpage saying `a bunch of idiots who were too stupid to get out of jury duty thinks this phone looks a little like that phone`, but still letting everyone else - who, frankly, don't give a shit - buy one.

I also earnestly hope that Google (Motorola), Samsung, HTC etc all stick together and use their patents against Apple at every opportunity. It would be delicious if the new iPhone got pulled form the market, or had 4G removed, etc.

Re:Misattributed quote.

[cynop]

Even if the original quote was not from him, he adopted it as if it was.

Re:Snore. I really don't get the Apple Hater Choir

[siddesu]

Don't forget the"retina displays" of Sharp and Toshiba in 06, as well as the app markets of the Japanese carriers. There is a lot of copying in every "revolutionary" design out there.

Re:So Apple is Evil now?!?

[erroneus]

Apple has been evil on Slashdot for a long time.

For some, it was what they did to Franklin. For others, it was how the screwed over Apple records where they allowed Apple to use their name with the agreement that they never go into the music business. (They are now big in the music business with iTunes.) There are lots of reasons Apple is evil. The Apple vs Samsung thing is only the most recent reason.

Trial date is in 2014

[TrueSpeed]

The trial start date is March, 2014. Too bad all of these devices will be at end of life. Suck it Apple, you MoFo's.

Re:Apple will not stop until they have 100% monopo

[nurb432]

That may or not be true, but the fact remains that someone may have violated another's patent. If you don't go after them, then you lose rights to said patent. Besides, if you are a company and feel someone is violating your IP, it would be silly not to do something about it.

Re:A more fitting punishment

[shutdown -p now]

If only the "originals" were anywhere near as good.

Re:So Apple is Evil now?!?

[dmesg0]

Apple is evil, period.
Not only on Slashdot, everywhere.
It's time to FSF to restart its Boycott Apple program from 199x. The things Apple does are far worse now than back then.

Re:Apple will not stop until they have 100% monopo

[dmesg0]

That may or not be true, but the fact remains that someone may have violated another's patent. If you don't go after them, then you lose rights to said patent. Besides, if you are a company and feel someone is violating your IP, it would be silly not to do something about it.

You are confusing patents and trademarks. Please get your facts straight before commenting.
And most of that IP is considered as such only because of the crappy US patent system.

Re:Apple will not stop until they have 100% monopo

[nurb432]

Regardless of why, its still IP that they must defend. Don't like it, change the laws, until then shut your pie hole.

True, you have to defend trademarks, but you must defend patents too.

Re:So Apple is Evil now?!?

[Yahma]

Agreed. Apple's heavy handed tactics and use of patents to stymie simple ideas that are no-brainers only hurts me (and other consumers). I've already been affected by Apple's behavior, in that my Google Nexus has had Local search feature removed (in the US), because Apple won an injunction against Samsung. C'mon, Local Search!? How different is that from "global" search? Google's been offering local search on its search engine for years now. Apple is EVIL period. I will never support them by purchasing their products, and will do everything I can to undermine their marketshare as well.

Re:Apple will not stop until they have 100% monopo

[dmesg0]

Regardless of why, its still IP that they must defend. Don't like it, change the laws, until then shut your pie hole.

True, you have to defend trademarks, but you must defend patents too.

That's total BS, no law says you have to defend your patents, especially the bogus ones for obvious ideas. Well, unless you are a patent troll, in that case I agree, you absolutely have to do that.

IBM is an example of company that never sues for patents unless being sued by others.
And I believe it's you, sir, who definitely must stuff all your shiny itoys into all of your iholes, and stop insulting others' intelligence with childish replies.

Re:So Apple is Evil now?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do your research on the Apple Corps vs Apple. Apple bought out the Apple Corps rights and name for $500M US and licensed back the record label back to them.
Don't think that Apple corps actually suffered any damage here. I;m sure they're all fine thanks.

And if you're old enough to remember the dispute against Franklin, you are delusional if you think Apple wasn't in the right here. The outright stole the ROMS. They admitted to it in court! They said it was too hard to copy Apple if they didn't. Well no shit!

Apple didn't get "evil" on slashdot until Android became a darling.. It's quite comical to me that the former evil empire (Microsoft ) hardly gets a nod from current slashdotters. One day many slashdotters will wake up and see they were on the wrong side of this battle.
Eric Schmidt is the reason all of this happened. He was on Apple's board for crying out loud. He knew absolutely what Google's plans were and he did not recuse himself. He was privy to a huge amount of Apple's plans. Pure 100% evil.

SIII != iphone

[sl4shd0rk]

The SIII is like twice the size of an iphone. Nobody would ever confuse the two, no matter how rectangular or rounded or rows of icons. Microsoft never even took douchebaggery to this level.

Apple's continuing douche-baggery

[Yahma]

Back in April 2011, Apple's trade dress infringement claims against Samsung went like this:

• a rectangular product shape with all four corners uniformly rounded;
• the front surface of the product dominated by a screen surface with black borders;
• as to the iPhone and iPod touch products, substantial black borders above and below the screen having roughly equal width and narrower black borders on either side of the screen having roughly equal width;
• as to the iPad product, substantial black borders on all sides being roughly equal in width;
• a metallic surround framing the perimeter of the top surface;
• a display of a grid of colorful square icons with uniformly rounded corners; and
• a bottom row of square icons (the "Springboard") set off from the other icons and that do not change as the other pages of the user interface are viewed.

• That is basically a list of things you aren't allowed to do. Now, individually, those traits aren't worthy of a lawsuit. It's the combination of those things that will send Apple Legal over to kick down your door. The Galaxy SIII was designed from the start to not infringe on any of the above; yet Apple, in their continuing douche-baggery, has now brought up more ridiculous patents to use against the SIII.

  Fuck You Apple!

Re:Timothy Cook is a cocksucking piece of shit

[Yahma]

Demand that Apple fire this motherfucker.

You incorrectly assume that Apple actually cares that Timothy Cook is a cocksucking piece of shit. It actually works out better for them (financially) that he is.

Re:Snore. I really don't get the Apple Hater Choir

[santax]

Eric didn't go to meetings about the Ipaid and Ihavebeenfucked-phones... A well known fact, you i-diot.

Re:Apple will not stop until they have 100% monopo

[Kjella]

The thing is, that Apple by the very definition of their business model, will never be able to reach a 100% monopoly. As a GNOME developer was pointing out, all the success that Apple is having only gave them about 7.5% market share on the desktop, they have been surpassed already by Android on smartphones and their only remaining bastion is the iPad which I think with Windows 8 devices, will truly have a run for its money.

Because they price themselves out of most of the market. My Norwegian price checker lists 703 laptop models for sale. Apple's cheapest laptop is the MacBook Air for 999 USD / 8290 NOK and it's the 239th most expensive. Basically Apple has models for the top third, nothing for the bottom two thirds. What's keeping Apple from making a $499 laptop? Nothing as far as I can tell, they just have to decide to do it. Their market share would skyrocket at the expense of their margins, but they might make it up on volume. So far it doesn't seem like a battle Apple is willing to take, but if they are to sustain their growth it can't all be new business areas, they have to expand in the markets they're already in too.

Re:Snore. I really don't get the Apple Hater Choir

[taharvey]

Any links? Couldn't find any reference in a google search.

as a former mac user

[issicus]

lets boycott apple

infringing features link:

[issicus]

http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/MK-BW708C_SAMAP_G_20120823183614.jpg if you were wondering, i was.

Re:Misattributed quote.

[flyingfsck]

Well, Picasso probaly said it in Spanish and it could be translated various ways...

Re:Snore. I really don't get the Apple Hater Choir

[Zorque]

Abusing a bad system to do bad things still makes you a bad guy.

Re:Apple will not stop until they have 100% monopo

[Silas is back]

What's keeping Apple from making a $499 laptop?

I'm sure Porsche could also make a 20,000$ car. Would it still be worthy to carry a "Porsche" logo, though?

Re:Misattributed quote.

[GerryGilmore]

What this really points to is that 90% - or more - of morality is ultimately based on convenience and/or expediency.

Re:Apple will not stop until they have 100% monopo

[toddestan]

I'm sure Porsche could also make a 20,000$ car. Would it still be worthy to carry a "Porsche" logo, though?

Of course not. They use the Volkswagen logo for that.

Re:So Apple is Evil now?!?

[kenorland]

Let's not forget the granddaddy of Apple's steal-and-sue approach, the look-and-feel lawsuits, where Apple tried the same sh*t:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Microsoft_Corporation

Note that Xerox also had to sue Apple to get a declaratory judgment because Apple was threatening Xerox's licensees:

http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=3538913398421433687&hl=en&as_sdt=2&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr

Re:Snore. I really don't get the Apple Hater Choir

[Bongo]

Yes design is a discipline and has its own way of thinking about problems. There is a lot of intuitive intelligence and that's just not expresible in words and logical argument. Your brain grasps the whole picture, often despite the details. So can a design be patented? Who knows, fashion designers and architects put up with constant blatant copying, and it is "oh I just saw a picture of it and I want to make mine look just like it" copying. Ie. the person did NOT got through the weeks of design and redesign and problem solving and toying with the impossible to try to make it work, they just saw, "oh look, it is possible to do it THAT way, and it is selling really well, LET'S MAKE ONE JUST THE SAME". Or try anyway. From a consumer point of view, it is great because you can go to Zara and buy cheap knock-offs of every recent design.

High street clothes stores will go out, buy a bunch of clothes from high end designers, and literally take the garment apart, measure it, and duplicate the pattern, perhaps adding a button or a belt. It is blatant copying, as in, they did not have to bother doing the design work themselves or trying to hire the most creative designers. (And if the designs are just overpriced rubbish with a label, why bother copying it anyway? Your copy doesn't carry the label. People are buying the design because they like it.) Now to any designer, that copying is going to feel bad somewhere on a scale of "cheap" to "evil". But it is copying. And if some stories are to be believed, Google got the heads up on the iPhone via insider info, decided they liked it more than a Blackberry, and chose to copy much of it. But that's life. Maybe there should be no laws against it, and people can keep shopping at Zara. But let's not forget that new designs are RISKS and the iPhone could have flopped massively. It is easier to sit back and let other companies do your market research for you.

Re:Snore. I really don't get the Apple Hater Choir

[thesupraman]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_T220/T221_LCD_monitors

At normal viewing distances, these are higher resolution, back in 2001..

Of course apple did 'invent' the marketing name retina.. MUCH harder than all the actual work
of making new technology..

Re:So Apple is Evil now?!?

[rat_herder]

Lame troll. Reads like you had no response to his well reasoned post.

Apple = 1984

[DeltaQH]

I still remember that add. And today Apple has become closer to what it criticised in the Add.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYecfV3ubP8

The real reason for Android over iPhone

[Alain Williams]

Coincidentally today's dilbert

Re:A more fitting punishment

[Rockoon]

Sounds like a shitty world. Why does society need to better itself at anyone elses expense?

It doesn't. Your "us" vs "them" philosophy is based on the ignorant idea that there must be a loser.

Beginning of the end!

[notb666]

I don't know why but i feel like this is the beginning of the end for Apple "in the long run".

The world doesn't stop on innovation, design is the most rapidly changing aspect of the tech industry, somehow someday people will come up with completely different, fresh, better and generally more favorable designs and also regarding the utility patents someone will come up with a more efficient, different and easier way to do those things. Who will Apple sue then?...their own fanbois for jailbreaking?

And mind you fanbois, this time Microsoft is not going to save Apple's Ass!

Re:So Apple is Evil now?!?

[makomk]

Do your research on the Apple Corps vs Apple. Apple bought out the Apple Corps rights and name for $500M US and licensed back the record label back to them.

Apple only bought out the name after Apple Corps sued them for trademark infringement and breach of their settlement agreement in the previous trial, and this was well after Apple had gone into the music business having previously agreed not to.

All it will do is this:

[MtViewGuy]

Drive cellphone manufacturers into building Windows Phone 8.0 devices, especially now that Windows Phone 8.0 supports all the latest cellphone hardware features (multicore SoC's like the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 and Samsung Exynos, 3GPP LTE, NFC mobile payments and high-resolution touchscreens up to 1280x768 resolution) and the fact cellphone manufacturers don't want to get in the crossfire in the Apple versus Google legal fight over Android itself.

Legally, Windows Phone 8.0 has two major advantages over Android:

1. The overall interface itself does not violate critical Apple patents on iOS.
2. MIcrosoft and Apple have cross-license agreements so a small number of iOS features can be run under Windows Phone 7.x and 8.0.

Indeed, why do you think Samsung surprised everyone by unveiling the Ativ S cellphone (essentially a Galaxy SIII modified to run Windows Phone 8.0)? And Nokia will unveil in a few days the Lumia 820 and Lumia 920 PureView? I expect both HTC and LG to unveil their Windows Phone 8.0 devices before the end of this year.

Yes, the Galaxy SIII is a great cellphone, but the legal cloud over this model is why I have yet to get one, because the last thing I want is a few months from now I can't legally use this model in the USA....

Re:All it will do is this:

[MtViewGuy]

I think you need to look up the history of Android itself.

Before the iPhone was unveiled, Google had developed Android to be essentially an "improved" version of what was accomplished with the Danger Hiptop (aka. T-Mobile Sidekick) platform, complete with real physical keyboard. But once the iPhone came out, Google completely redesigned the interface for Android, and incorporated touchscreen functionality that was not originally part of Android itself. And from Android 1.6 on, the similarities to iOS became more and more obvious.

Re:Snore. I really don't get the Apple Hater Choir

[fustakrakich]

Maybe so, but in a system where nice guys finish last, what do you expect? How can a guy see himself as 'bad' when that behavior is not just encouraged, but demanded of him? I don't think it makes him bad. It makes him crazy.

Re:Apple will not stop until they have 100% monopo

[poofmeisterp]

....but complete monopoly is no good for either of them, they learnt that big way in the '90s.. fake competition whilst blocking everyone else from the market is much better.

I agree with your post completely.

This is just a nudge in the "we have the power [of grey skull]" direction.

They won't do it right away because it will establish too much negative press. Wait until their stock drops or their sales decline by more than 10%.

When this happens, it will be SUIT TIME! Every single thing that any of their products has was suddenly 'stolen by another company for use in the manufacture' of products. "We didn't bring it up until now because we were just being nice and fair players, but, you know...."

Oh, and I can't wait for the suit against them for developing Intel x64, x86 systems in a case, because, you know, that was someone else's idea first. (gag)

Ok, end of snark.

Re:Misattributed quote.

[poofmeisterp]

"Good artists copy, great artists steal" - Steve Jobs, 1994

This is a misattributed quote. It should more correctly be attributed to either Pablo Picasso (an overrated artist) or Igor Stravinsky (an excellent composer).

Both of you are correct, pretty much. Pablo Picasso said "Good artists borrow, great artists steal" in 1934. And here is a link of Steve Jobs saying "Good artists copy, great artists steal" in 1996.

Funny how the profit motive so strongly affects the moral belief system.

Every component in Apple products should have a "Mad props to [x] for the most basic, simple underlying product that enables your device to be the AWESOME APPLE IT IS!"

You know, I wonder who should sue them for making a handheld electronic computing device made from plastic.....
 
Oh, wait, their plastic is white. Never mind..
 
</snark>

Re:Misattributed quote.

[jrumney]

Well, Picasso probaly said it in Spanish

Or French, Catalan or Galician. Most likely French, as he spent most of his adult life in Paris.

Re:So Apple is Evil now?!?

[erroneus]

It never nearly put Apple out of business. People wanted a GUI for their personal and business use. Apple was too expensive and didn't cater to business needs. Apple can never and should never be the single source vendor of anything simply because they will not back up what they sell with any worthwhile support.

What Apple is doing is defending something many of us feel they have no right to defend.

Apple didn't invent multitouch displays. They applied the technology in an obvious fashion... in the way it was designed to be used. And it IS obvious. One finger can point and tap and move. Two fingers do gestures. And there's lots more, but it all becomes software patents after that. The only patents which are worth considering are hardware patents which seem to get the least value from claims, interestingly enough.

And design? I'm sorry, but adding frills and then calling it "trade dress" is fine with me. But making something elementally simple and calling it trade dress falls under functionality and you can't patent that. Clothing has always had an exemption from being protected under trademark/trade dress or copyright. The reason for this was simple and obvious and back in the earliest of days it was recognized how dangerous it could be to allow intellectual property protection for clothing. In technology, I hold the same general truths should apply and often do.

"Rounded corners" might even be considered a safety and comfort function and a requirement if one wishes to avoid being sued when an accident occurs after a sharp corner hurts someone. Round corners also helps to make a thing like a table more durable which is also function and not fashion. And 'Flat"? Seriously? For the moment, all displays and tablets are flat. As soon as flexible displays are mature enough, I expect to see Apple capitalizing on that and even patenting the rounded display... or the concave display. And heaven help us all when recently discussed technology regarding display panels with electronically controlled raised textures get used by Apple.

The point is they didn't invent it. No question they made it popular. They did. But that doesn't warrant protection... celebration, perhaps, but not legal protection.

Dont mess with the Chinese!

[NSN A392-99-964-5927]

Apple are idiots and they have just not thought about the ramifications.

The USA owes China over a Trillion in federal bonds which is $1,000,000,000,000 by USA standards or UK $1,000,000,000,000,000,000 to bail out the banking crisis and also fund the Iraq War. if you are stuck with getting your mind around the numbers this helps http://www.jimloy.com/math/billion.htm

If China calls in that debt and demands it in GOLD as they can do legally you will see a serious crisis and the currently economies around the world will seem like a Holiday (Vacation) and people will be fighting for food and you will not give a damn about your computer Apple/Mobile/Cellphone/Facebook/Twitter or /. (Tongue in cheek)

I think they should ask for maybe a quarter of it back just to get the ball rolling and see what happens as an experiment.

Re:Apple will not stop until they have 100% monopo

[JayAEU]

brilliantly put!

iPhone 5

[tsa]

The iPhone 5 is a sort of benchmark by which we can estimate the level of inventiveness and radical thinking Apple still possesses. It must be super duper amazingly good and unique if Apple wants to have a chance of reaching the same success with it as they had with the 4S. It will be amazing if they pull that off.

Re:So Apple is Evil now?!?

[Glock27]

I wish I had mod points. This is far from a simple case, Apple has many good points here.

If Android were based on Windows rather than Linux, I bet many /. folk would be singing a different tune. I remain bemused at their unquestioning love for Java in Android. ;-)

Re:So Apple is Evil now?!?

[FloydTheDroid]

Apple has been evil on Slashdot for a long time.

For some, it was what they did to Franklin.

What they did to Franklin... are you joking? The Apple II ROMS are not public domain so I don't see how you can say that Franklin should have been able to copy them. Franklin was free to create their own computer but they took the easy road of waiting for someone else to do it for them.

For others, it was how the screwed over Apple records where they allowed Apple to use their name with the agreement that they never go into the music business. (They are now big in the music business with iTunes.) There are lots of reasons Apple is evil. The Apple vs Samsung thing is only the most recent reason.

Make up your mind. If we're going to enforce trademarks then we should probably enforce patents while we're at it. Apple Inc. bought the Apple trademark and licenses it to Apple Corp. which isn't quite as sinister a story as you're implying.

Re:We are already messed up

[lpq]

They can't demand it in gold -- we went off a gold based currency during I think it was the Nixon era when France did exactly that -- came with a bunch of dollars and asked for the gold backing them.

After that the Fed went off the gold standard and was allowed to float.

Gold rose from $35 oz to well over 1000 and down into the 700-800's, now it's up over 1650. That's up from ~750 since 2008... So What --- about 140% inflation for the bank bailout?

And people wonder why hard disk prices are staying high....

Re:We are already messed up

[NSN A392-99-964-5927]

Good reply and I see you are quite well informed. We have to eventually go back to a gold or silver standard. Maybe you could submit a news story on this including going back to a barter system?

I barter all the time with friends and family even though I could pay for some work to be done; but the value of work I give in exchange is fair and you get a little bit more satisfaction from that instead of currency changing hands. just an idea!

Can you think of a better marketing?

[wiedzmin]

Hear that sound? That is the sound of every single person, myself including, who were on the fence or waiting to buy the SIII rushing to buy one, before it is "banned". And even if they don't... wait for 6 months, Samsung can just release the same SIII with a different shell, avoiding the dreaded "rectangle with rounded corners" patent, and be back in the game again.