Apple Wants Another $707 Million From Samsung

angry tapir writes "A California jury may have awarded Apple more than US$1 billion in damages in late August when it triumphed over Samsung in a hard-fought case over smartphone and tablet patents, but the iPhone maker is coming back for more: late last week it asked for additional damages of $707 million. The request includes an enhanced award of $535 million for willful violation of Apple's designs and patents, as well as about $172 million in supplemental damages based on the fact that the original damages were calculated on Samsung's sales through June 30."

Comments

Squeezed for cash?

[Quakeulf]

I didn't think Apple was doing that badly that they have to litigate others for cash to stay relevant. Oh wait, maybe they are doing it to make the others strapped for cash! Or wait, maybe there isn't even a point in doing this. Maybe they should all hold hands and be happy instead. :3

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[Nerdfest]

This is what happens when you give into a terrorist's demands. You get more demands, closely followed by more terrorists. Blame it on the patent system all you want, it existed for a long time without companies behaving like Apple.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[Anonymous Coward]

Present something better that doesn't break down for a city-sized society, and/or breaks down less badly for a nation-size society, and we'll talk. Till then, I'll go with capitalism sans corporations.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[Anonymous Coward]

If not by law, I think they have an obligation to their shareholders to defend their copyrights and trademarks.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[greentshirt]

Very simple, actually. Capitalism with limits. You put a floating cap on profits, tied to measures such as the crime rate and the wealth gap; and put a cap on personal wealth. It doesn't have to be a low cap, say $20 million dollars. Or $50 million. Fuck, make it an even $100 million dollars and raise it every year with inflation. Then watch society transform.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[osmifra]

If mankind thought the same way you do we would still be banging rocks in each other's heads.

Although I don't agree with him he does have a point and is willing to discuss it, if you had an IQ bigger than 100 instead of shutting communication with irony and insult you would try to encourage it.

Close minded bafoon.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[jbolden]

Samsung in 2011 did $42b in sales and $4.7b in profits. They aren't going to be strapped for cash. On the other hand an award that large would destroy the profitability of their Android strategy. It would turn infringement from a money maker to a money loser.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[jbolden]

Bull. Infringement actions like this are typical there is nothing unusual here at all legally. Global scale and high degree of usage by consumers makes the numbers large. But really the only thing unusual about these particular infringement actions is you care about the products being disputed and are following the case.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[Anonymous Coward]

A cap on wealth? All this will do is turn the creative into criminals and increase nepotism.. I've reached my cap where do I put the money now? Oh my maybe its time for my nephew to open up a 10 million dollar company! Do you see how this works? And if they clamp down on this? Then our best and brightest will all be in jail or wasting time finding further loopholes, sounds like a productive thing for society?

Don't propose unnecessarty laws and restrictions for which you do not understand the consequences.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[aliquis]

Posting as myself since AC would be lame and I can stand for it:

So the brand of the tards can single handely destroy the worlds biggest mobile maker by ridicilous patent claims?

Awesome.

As if there wasn't reason enough to think bad about the people buying Apple products. Or the actual Apple products. Or Apple.

In all honesty though I assume they could raise their prices to afford paying for this or proper licenses, eventually losing part of their position on the market but if that's how it should be then fine. Maybe they had gained too much of the market by not paying for the "technologies" they used. I don't even know what patents and methods they have broken/used unlicensed.

For all I care we could drop patents completely. If that lead to no will to develop future technology in some field then I guess you'd just have to do it collectively and for the benefit of everyone through universities, research funds/prizes/taxes/...

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[Anne Thwacks]

I am still banging rocks together, you insensitive clod (Its called PHP development).

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it isn't fair to be born into poverty. Nobody was saying that a kid whose parents were born rich should be condemned to poverty.

In order to be "unfair," in this case, someone must be deprived. Why should they (the deprived) be enriched at the expense of another? Why is that "fair"?

What in the hell are you talking about? You can't seriously be incapable of understanding why it isn't fair that Suzy was born into a billionaire family and Jimmy into a poverty stricken family?

Fucking communists, holding back those with drive and ambition so that the fat and lazy can slither on.

We were talking about people born into wealth. These people do not require drive and ambition because they were born into wealth. Whether they have drive or ambition is irrelevant to the question of whether they will be wealthy. It's a very very very clear counterexample to the idea that they got there through drive and ambition.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[dna_(c)(tm)(r)]

You're a rockstar!

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[dargaud]

I thought about something similar a long time ago: in a company the highest salary (+bonuses+shares) cannot be over X times the lowest salary, X being a number best determined by economic models or trial and errors. And recently I have been surprised to hear politicians begin to use this or similar ideas. I recently heard Mélenchon, head of the french Front de Gauche which has 20% support, suggest this very idea, with X=5.

In a similar vein, if you redistribute the wealth in the US so that X=5 for the whole country, you get a lowest 'salary' (even for the unemployed or the retirees) of 50000$/year. Bill Gates would still get 250k$. I guess your political spectrum shows immediately upon deciding what to do with this method. Either "It's crazy, leeches would get almost as much as me and Bill Gates would have no incentive to work anymore", or "that would build an even and peaceful society at once".

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[blind biker]

Of course Apple doesn't _need_ that money. The money is a welcome side effect. What Apple wants is to stop Samsung from making phones that copy iPhone features by making it expensive for them. And there isn't only this patent case, there have been reports quite recently that Apple has moved some major orders for memory and for displays from Samsung to other manufacturers, which will also cost them money.

And the plan seems to be working. At least if you look at Samsung's Galaxy adverts that seem to become more and more desperate. I wonder what happens at Samsung internally. If I was the guy at Samsung responsible for producing and selling components to the whole world, I'd want to punch the guy responsible for selling smartphones right in the face.

What a flaming Apple fanboy.

Tone it down a notch, maybe?

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[HyperQuantum]

Interesting. Someone who has hit the wealth ceiling would have to spend his money in order to get more. But then, isn't what he buys with that money also counted as wealth? I see the following difficulties here: one would have to keep track of ALL possessions in order to see when someone has hit the ceiling or not, sounds like a lot of bookkeeping and much room for abuse (wealthy people trying to hide their possessions). And the ones most affected by this scheme would do everything in their power to prevent it from ever being put into use.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[jimbolauski]

So when a company or an individual hits your cap will they keep producing or will they stop. If they are as heartless as you make them out to be they will just stop and everyone working for them will have the rest of the year off.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[shentino]

Interestingly enough Samsung is alleging jury misconduct, and also perjury during voir dire.

Since it was the jury foreman I foresee that either samsung is going to get a mistrial or apple will have had to do some serious bribing.

And one particular jury foreman will hopefully

Though ironically, how do we get rid of shills without booting conscentious jurors who believe in jury nullification?

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bull. Infringement actions like this are typical there is nothing unusual here at all legally. Global scale and high degree of usage by consumers makes the numbers large. But really the only thing unusual about these particular infringement actions is you care about the products being disputed and are following the case.

And if Apple were smart about this, they would realize that fashion sells a hell of a lot more of their product than functionality. It sure as hell ain't price. There's a difference between setting a precedent vs. going back and acting like a greedy gold digging bitch about it.

If Apple keeps acting like an ass here and pisses off everyone else in the game (regardless if it's "typical" or not), they'll quickly realize just how much of their revenue is tied to fashion when they become about as relevant as Octomom to the very generation that is keeping them afloat.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[drinkypoo]

Blame it on the patent system all you want, it existed for a long time without companies behaving like Apple.

Bull. Infringement actions like this are typical there is nothing unusual here at all legally.

Uh, not bull, that's what he said. There's nothing unusual here at all, legally. That's the problem..

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[lbmouse]

Two words for you: Paris Hilton

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[shentino]

The idea isn't stupid, it's just one that will fail and at the same time expose the 1 percent for the greedy fuckers they really are when they stomp on it.

The rich should be taxed simply because they can afford it, and the worst a rich person could do is be brought down to be equal to the second richest person after him, and if that's not enough both of them only go down to tie with number 3, and so on. The worst that could happen is that they float down from heaven enough for us to see them, and all of us 99 percenters at the bottom will STILL be worse off than they. And we in the middle class are mostly doing ok, and there's no way that a tax on the rich could make the rich worse off than us.

So really, there is no downside to taxing the rich except that they could maybe be only 100 times as rich as us instead of 1000 times. When you're already at the top it's a long way down and you have PLENTY of wiggle room before you actually start hurting.

They're already getting the deck stacked in their favor anyway through bri^H^H^Hlobbying anyway, so they need to pay for the cake they're getting and eating too.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[Anonymous Coward]

They could, but why should they? The patents in question are ones that shouldn't have been granted due to them being obvious. The jury that considered the case ignored the prior art on the matter because it was bogging them down. Why should Samsung customers be asked to pay Apple when Apple has done crap to deserve the royalties?

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[JackieBrown]

That would just encourage more outsourcing. Any low paid jobs would be handled by company x. Possibly the executives will work for both companies and still make the same money so you don't even really end up screwing them just adding more bureaucracy.

We need to stop focusing on what other people as a means of justifying our lives or happiness. It doesn't make things better and it just makes everyone bitter (there is always someone unfairly/fairly doing better than you.)

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[Billly Gates]

That is Apple's strategy. If I were the CEO of Samsung I would leave the market to Apple. Not to sound corwardish, but it just plainly is not profitable to exist in the market where Apple 0wns the patent system. I would save my cash and patent the hell out of TVs to make sure Apple stays out of market instead.

Andriod is now a loss leader thanks to these frivilous lawsuits and it is about ego and emotion already invested in as rationally it is time to leave. Fucking Apple.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[Xest]

Why include possessions at all?

If the rich are spending money on things then that's good, it's productive money, going back into the economy, creating jobs, being passed onto others as wages and so forth. Bill Gates buys a $10bn mega-yacht with built on runway and plane included and that's thousands of staff who will be employed producing that yacht. Those people get a few years of well paid employment, Bill gets a mega-yacht at the end of it. It's win-win.

The problem isn't this sort of rich person, it's the hoarders who are the issue. They literally have hundreds of millions, sometimes even billions doing absolutely nothing other than generating more money for themselves. It's not productive, it doesn't create jobs, it makes society poorer - it literally drains money out of society and turns it into an arbitrary number with which said hoarder makes up for his small penis or whatever traumatic issue that made him that way does - that's the problem that needs to be dealt with.

Imagine you have a set of people living around a lake, living off of it for food and water. That's great, until one day one guy thinks you know what? I'm going to drain the lake and store it in my back garden in a massive sealed area no one can get to. That's great, he's taken all the water himself, well done, he wins, but everyone around him is then desperate for water, so their only option is to break in to his compound - commit crime, to get what they need to live. The point is the guy may have got an ego boost at having the most water around, but society itself has suffered greatly as a result.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[Billly Gates]

That is socialism! That will not be tollerated in the west!

In all seriousness corporate america and the top 2% will fight you tooth and nail and bribe any politician to get their way wether you like it or not. You just need to accept this and try to become rich yourself. Capitalism without regulation is the new rat race.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[confusedwiseman]

This would likely mean that salaries would largely go away. The lowest salary would be set by the highest salary. Only those making $250k + would be salaried. This lets the guy at the the top make 12.5M if X=5 is established by company. Rather than limiting wealth, why not scrutinize the governments effectiveness with the money it already gets? With the exception of those below the poverty line or those needing assistance, why isn't there less variance in the effective tax rate paid by all incomes? One could also make the argument that simply the consumption should be taxed to help balance things.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[PopeRatzo]

In this story alone we have posts claiming settlement money is needed to keep Apple afloat and Apple are terrorists.

That's just silly. Everyone knows that Apple's just trying to make sure they don't have to compete.

Competition is a pesky thing when you're on top. It's sort of the consumer electronics equivalent of the 1927 Yankees having the entire Philadelphia Athletics team killed on the way to the ball-park.

I mean, you're already 19 games ahead, but a little insurance is always good. And ultimately, it's not about winning, it's about humiliating the competition and making sure you win forever without having to try so hard.

It makes me understand why not everyone is comfortable having a businessman as president.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[Stele]

Winning!

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[jrumney]

Why global scale? The patents and design patents are only valid in the US. Courts elsewhere have mostly found against Apple.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[confusedwiseman]

This would likely mean that salaries would largely go away. The lowest salary would be set by the highest salary. Only those making $250k + would be salaried. This lets the guy at the the top make 12.5M if X=5 is established by company. Rather than limiting wealth, why not scrutinize the governments effectiveness with the money it already gets? With the exception of those below the poverty line or those needing assistance, why isn't there less variance in the effective tax rate paid by all incomes? One could also make the argument that simply the consumption should be taxed to help balance things.

Whoops, let's move the decimal place one to the left on that math.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[shentino]

Mind you, I'd rather government be this magical free thing that nobody has to pay for. But cops, judges, tax collectors, municipal plumbers, soldiers, mayors, senators, councilors, sheriffs, and even prison wardens have to eat too, and every hour they spend on the job of government that they then cannot spend in the private sector has to be compensated.

So the question is, who should pay for this burden?

I'd rather tax the rich simply because they can afford it. The worst that can happen to the number 1 rich man is that he gets down to number 2, and if the government needs more money they both go down to number 3, who joins them on the trip down to number 4, and so on until the government's "civilized society bill" gets paid. There is a LONG way down before a rich man starts truly suffering poverty, or even inconvenience. Until he actually comes up short on something he needs or wants BESIDES being richer than someone else, he's got more money than he can use.

And that's assuming a 100 percent tax on the top bracket, which doesn't even have to be the case.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[jbolden]

The only place the trial has gone the distance is in the USA.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[jrumney]

If I were the CEO of Samsung I would leave the market to Apple.

I think there might be a very good reason why you are not the CEO of Samsung, or any other company for that matter.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[jbolden]

They don't even have to do that. Jolla is creating a version of MeeGo which runs Android applications. Apple said in court that MeeGo was non infringing. Similarly BBOS10 Apple agrees is non infringing and again runs Android applications. Also Apple has indicated a willingness to license their patents. Apple pays about $8 per phone to Nokia for their patents; there is no reason the market couldn't exist with a $30 payment to Apple for design related patents and then Samsung could copy to its heart's content.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[HyperQuantum]

Not all money spent will 'create' jobs. What if the guy starts buying lots of land and hoards it? He can't profit from it (because of the income/profit cap) but he can start collecting it just in case he might need it later (converting it back to money if his fortune has dropped). All that land will be unavailable for others and the price for land in general will go up. Not a good thing for society.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[jbolden]

That's already happening. Apple is not seen as daring and innovative with todays iGen kids. Apple is moving up the age demographic on iOS quickly. Android is the phone of the young and has been since it started gaining share.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[shellster_dude]

So in a "perfect socialist (substitute communism or whatever other "planned economy" belief you hold)" all the dogs in your cage would starve because there isn't enough food for any of them when it gets equally portioned out? This assumes that capitalism has anything to do with crony capitalism which it doesn't (other than a similarity of name). It also assumes that capitalism is a zero-sum game, which it isn't and never has been. Putting aside all of these gross generalizations. Lets take your analogy at face value. You allege that it would be better for every dog to starve to death equally instead of half of the dogs to survive. How is that any more moral, or right, than the best and brightest dogs surviving while the slower and dumber dogs perish. I thought we believed in evolution and survival of the fittest, or doesn't that count in the social-economic world?

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[wienerschnizzel]

This is a very naive idea. You cannot realistically track every person's wealth as it jumps up and down with the time. People don't hold their wealth in cash - they have stocks and bonds and real-estate.

Suppose my stock would jump in value pushing my personal wealth over the limit - what should the government do? Take over a part of my portfolio? Which part of it? What should the government do with it? How would the government *know* I busted the limit in the first place?

If that seems to easy, how about a case of a successful start-up. Suppose I own a company that makes it big and Amazon (or whoever) offers $300 million to buy it. In market terms, I now personally own 300 million dollars worth of wealth even without selling it. What's the government to do with me?

And what if I sell the company for 'the cap' plus various lifetime services for me and my family?

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[Billly Gates]

If I were the CEO of Samsung I would leave the market to Apple.

I think there might be a very good reason why you are not the CEO of Samsung, or any other company for that matter.

Tell me how losing 1 billion plus more from not being able to sell in Germany and Australia? What about losing another 700 million?

Samsung only made $3 billion in profits last year! 1/3 of your potential profit is going to a competitor! However you netted in $35 billion in revenue. That is a terrible profit margin.

Hmmm ... seems to me the rational choice is let go of the loss leaders sucking your revenues away and cut costs. I have no idea how much Android is bringing in but I doubt it will even cover the damages to Apple nor pay off the lawyers? They would need to make billions in profits ... not revenues just to be break even.

I bet Apple would agree not to go after them for additional damages too if they signed an agreement for Samsung to leave the cell phone market. Apple owns too many patents and will just keep goign after you over and over again until you croak dead. It is expensive to fight from a business standpoint.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this bad? Cash is being spread around. The nephew can use the money now, and hire employees for his new company. This is much better than having money rot in a bank.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[Kartu]

Desperate, eh? With 20 million Galaxy III sold (and it was launched when, in May this year?)
Which is roughly twice as fast as VERY SUCCESSFULL Galaxy II sales?

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[the22rules]

Sounds a little like socialism for "everyone should start off with the same advantages". If I work my ass off and can retire with a sizable life savings, and instill that hard work attitude into my children and their children, why can't they have a better life than I had? And at the current rate, if I had more than 5 Million when I die, why would that have to be taxed again?

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[the22rules]

What happened to all the money he paid the original owners for the land? What do you think they did with the money? Did they hoard it all too, or did they go buy a house, or a new car or a boat or whatever. Spending money on most anything helps the economy by trickling down.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[mcgrew]

Indeed. I had a friend (actually my ex-wife's brother in law) who worked in a factory. His boss would bring him a widget their competitor had come up with and ask "can we make these?" The first time they asked that he said "sure, but they'll sue for patent infringement." His boss replied "that's why we have a legal department." He said that often, you could build the exact same device and get around the patents by making it out of a different material.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[Aryden]

When was the last time Ford sued Gm for infringement on "a vehicle with rounded corners, painted black with clear glass windscreen, 4 wheels and a motor"?

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[Aryden]

So it's better to pull your kid out of a school and put him somewhere else because a bully keeps taking his lunch money? You're an imbecile. Samsung needs to fight back and the case needs to be overturned. The jurors blatantly ignored prior art that could possibly invalidate Apple's patent case.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[jbolden]

Germany found the Galaxy tab met their definition "impression of similarity". And Apple has won a lot of the counter suits. I don't know how many of the foreign cases have even gone the distance. But there are something like 12 countries already involved.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[bill_mcgonigle]

They literally have hundreds of millions, sometimes even billions doing absolutely nothing other than generating more money for themselves

Where is that money? How is it generating more money?

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[shadowrat]

The problem isn't this sort of rich person, it's the hoarders who are the issue. They literally have hundreds of millions, sometimes even billions doing absolutely nothing other than generating more money for themselves. It's not productive, it doesn't create jobs, it makes society poorer - it literally drains money out of society and turns it into an arbitrary number with which said hoarder makes up for his small penis or whatever traumatic issue that made him that way does - that's the problem that needs to be dealt with.

Money doesn't just beget more money. If someone is getting more rich off of their mega millions, they must have that invested somewhere. Invested money is not outside of the economy, people use it for business loans, mortgages, all kinds of stuff. no bank or other institution pays interest just for the honor of storing your money. they pay interest because they are spending your money.

now, a romney keeping millions in offshore accounts is a different story.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would consider Apple domestic terrorists. They funnel American money into foreign cash havens. They pay no taxes. They are reliant on slave labor. They spend billions in bribing political officials the world around. They've polluted justice systems the world over with corporate money. I could keep going, but I've got to get to work.

Anyway... that's terrorism if you ask me.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[Billly Gates]

No Samsung needs to make money and raise its stock price. Doing anything else is unethical and illegal since it is a publicly traded company.

Business is business and is not about fighting Apple. Business case after business case of companies fighting back always loose and sometimes even go out of business. It is slimy what Apple is doing but they are trying to arm twist them to leave the market or loose more money fighting and having the courts take them out.

If it is no longer profitable it needs to leave. Apple will go after them with TVs next if they do not stop and if I were Samsung I would be worried about rounded corners and having Apple own the rights to HDTV due to their sleazy membership of h.264. Oops you didn't know Apple had that power? I would not put it past them and maybe leaving a non liability or suing agreement in this regards to their other products if they leave the mobile market is a wise business move.

Apple is not going apeshit on HTC yet. Just Samsung. I am not saying I agree with Apple here. Just saying the squeezing does work sadly and Apple has too much money and patents to fight. If they hit $1 trillion in 2015 as planned you wont be able to stop them.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[Xest]

So I live in the UK, the US dollar is trading at 2 USD to 1 GBP, and I buy £1million worth giving me $2million. The recession happens and the value of the pound drops to 1.4 USD to 1 GBP and I buy back pounds with my US dollars. I then end up with ~£1.4mill.

There are any number of ways to grow a pile of money without actually investing it into anything of value. Even in the investment market itself there are any number of schemes to grow income without the invested money actually acting as a usable loan as opposed to a way to fleece other people of their money.

Oftentimes the growth of said cash pile actually acts at the expense of taking money from others. You can claim it's their own fault for being stupid, but it doesn't change the fact that it's of zero benefit to society.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[shentino]

The flipside is that their customers will have lower taxes to compensate.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[Aryden]

Even by that logic, it's still profitable for them to be in the market. 3bil > 0bn

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[jbolden]

Yep. Except when your friend gets called to testify and indicates he used the competitors product as a prototype. Companies that invented it themselves can come forward with lots and lots of details about failed systems that led to what was the eventual successful version. Samsung's inability to do this during the crucial 07-08 period while they can do it fine before and after is one of the main reasons to suspect they are in fact guilty.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[drinkypoo]

That's not what he said. He's saying Apple is unique in their behavior.

Saying that patents existed for a long time without the kind of abuse characterized by Apple is not the same as saying that only Apple abuses patents. They might both be false statements for all I know...

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[nighthawk243]

Yeah, but if they lower or keep the tax rate stagnant, the business owners will not lower the price because it makes the profit margin's look so much better to the stockholders. Hell, some companies have been getting tax breaks and other incentives, pulling record profit margins and they still raise prices on consumers.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[yuje]

Read the original post. A cap on profits, not wealth. Profits can be reduced by reinvesting it in the company with hiring and capital spending, which is more useful than being paid out as dividends which get taxed at 15% rates to the rich and then sit in Cayman Island bank accounts.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[jbolden]

Understood but in context that's what he meant. And yes both are false statements. What Apple is doing, except in scope, public interest, amount of money.... is rather humdrum.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[mcgrew]

So really, there is no downside to taxing the rich except that they could maybe be only 100 times as rich as us instead of 1000 times.

When the income tax was first instituted when my grandpa was a young man, ONLY the rich paid tax.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[cyberchondriac]

Pbbthsstt! I just spit my coffee out..! Fuck my mod points, I had to respond.
Seriously, did you just type rot in a bank? Do you even have any idea how an economy functions? Money doesn't sit stagnate in a bank, locked up on a shelf for it's owner; it's used: loaned out, invested, recirculated... Where do you think the money that banks use to give people loans and mortgages comes from? It's the money it's account holders have deposited. They don't lock it all away just in case overnight, everyone suddenly decides to withdrawal their accounts in fulll..actually, that would be devastating to the economy. The only real difference is, the money is circulating at a higher level than the general retail sector, but it's plenty dynamic, and doing the economy good. It's when people decide to hoard it by stuffing it in a mattress, like they did during the depression, that's when it rots.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[Billly Gates]

No Samsung still pays the legal fees and just stay the status qou. In Business you never play to win in order to screw the next guy. It is prisoners delima and you only loose. CEOs get fired over this.

What is truly needed is patent reform before Apple buys off every country to prevent it. I mean if I had the design for the coolest cell phone ever I surely would not bring it to the market. No investor would dare fund me too as Apple will kill me. This is BS and things like grid icons should not be patented just because it is a phone and not desktop. I mean I can then double patent everything that already exists and call it "... on an android". I mean come on!

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[shutdown -p now]

Though ironically, how do we get rid of shills without booting conscentious jurors who believe in jury nullification?

You don't. Jury nullification doesn't mean that you get to ignore what the jury decides only if it goes against what you personally think appropriate. Either it's okay for the jury to "go with the conscience" and effectively ignore laws and court instructions, or it's not.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[shutdown -p now]

Banging rocks is Java development. PHP development is banging sticks and pretending that they're rocks, cargo cult style. ~

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[mjwx]

Where is that money?

In banks

How is it generating more money?

Generating interest

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[BasilBrush]

Of course Apple isn't strapped for cash, and neither is Samsung. The point is to make it clear that copying Apple's IP is uneconomic. And already it's working - Samsungs more recent designs are less of a copy then their earlier ones.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[BasilBrush]

As Apple are they realize that usability sells a hell of a lot more of their product than feature-lists.

Fixed that for you.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[BasilBrush]

I would consider Apple domestic terrorists. They pay no taxes.

Then you're a loon. On both points. Of course Apple like every other corporation does lots of things to reduce their tax burden. Yet they paid $3.3 billion in tax last year. That's not "no taxes".

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[shentino]

So is it magically ok to avoid taxing the rich just because they'll take their ball and go home if we try?

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[MachineShedFred]

And you would still have creative accountants and lawyers that manage to find ways to game the system. It's corporate assets, not personal assets. Corporation getting close to the cap? We're spinning off another company to handle a piece of the widget, with it's sole customer being another daughter company. Where there was once one company with one cap, we now have 10 companies with 10x the cap. Etc.

Nothing transforms except that the lawyers make more money. Or, put it into an LLC or 5 so they don't run afoul of the caps themselves. All you've accomplished is that you've created an immense amount of inefficiency and paperwork in the end.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[MachineShedFred]

And banks pay interest to let it just sit in a vault, like a Scrooge McDuck money bin?

No. They pay interest because they then put that money to work in the form of loans, or investments.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[shentino]

Tax cuts for the rich are a sacred cow too.

They'll stay that way though, since the 1 percent has already bought the government.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[toddestan]

While that may be true, everyone has bought into the whole supply-side economics thing now. If that money isn't being used by consumers to buy things (and preferably things that are either disposable or otherwise will be replaced soon like iProducts) then that money is not flowing through the economy. Or look at it another way, how does that money in a bank account and the interest earned reflected in the GDP?

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[MachineShedFred]

I don't give a fuck if a tax hike happens for "the 1 percent." However, there's a lot of people that seem to think that is the magic answer to the fiscal issues the US faces.

It's not. Not by a long shot. "The 1%" don't make enough money to carry "the 99%" even if they gave every fucking cent they make to the IRS. 2 + 2 doesn't equal 17.

The solution needs to be both revenue and reform - a better tax system that allows people to not dodge taxes on a quasi-criminal scale, AND cuts in spending money that doesn't need to be spent. Starting with getting out foreign wars, today. Stop building huge fucking artillery pieces that nobody, except Congress critters elected from the district where it's built, wants. Stop dictating to NASA how to engineer rockets, based on nothing but who's congressional district would lose the business that they knew was going away someday when they signed up as the contractor. Stop having multiple departments in the Federal government tasked with the same responsibilities, where none of them do the job effectively - several examples were given during an Obama State of the Union address. Stop stealing money from the highway trust fund to pay for transit projects that nobody rides, and are nothing but giveaways to real estate developers. Stop giving massive tax breaks to oil companies that are the most profitable corporations on the planet not named Apple. Stop bending over backwards to Wall Street investment banks that just got done fucking over the entire world without so much as a thank you.

The list goes on and on. This isn't a left thing. This isn't a right thing. It isn't a "red state" or a "blue state" thing. It's just a thing, and if this thing isn't dealt with, the last recession is going to look like a skinned knee in comparison to what's coming if Congress doesn't stop fucking around.

Hard to like Apple any longer

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry to all the Apple fanboys out there, but it becomes increasingly hard to feel any sympathies for Apple. Seems that Apple's fame is slowly declining...

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, I share your sentiment. Apple is increasingly becoming a downright scary company, Perhaps *all* their staff should watch those "think different" ads again. The company seems to be almost aiming for a Big Brother badge these days.

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[scottgfx]

It's too bad Steve Jobs didn't pass away earlier.

You must be on the Samsung board of directors.

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[Anonymous Coward]

It was already hard but now, i agree, it's impossible. It's going to be a cold day in hell the day i'll buy a Apple product and i'm only sure of one thing: my next phone it's going to be a Samsung. On the other hand the majority of people does not give a crap and *actually* believe Samsung stole...well, something.

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[Anonymous Coward]

i used to tell the army of people who ask nerds for advice on purchases to just buy apple because then i wouldnt have to rid them of spyware later. now that apple has taken the douche crown from microsoft, and microsoft has taken the oblivious crown from Sun, and oracle pulled an HP/Compaq/DEC on Sun, and ubuntu started bundling adware, and redhat is no longer relevant... and i intentionally have to break english grammatical protocol to emphasize each element in this never ending list in an annoying attempt to illuminate the lunacy....

now i tell people to buy an offbrand machine and install freebsd. im hoping theyll think im crazy and take their windows machines to geeksquad instead.

i never liked apple much, but they did loosely base their product on unix-like technology with a slick gui, so although ive never baught an apple product i did recommend them to others. no more. you just lost a couple hundred customers. self pwnage FTL.

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry to all the Apple fanboys out there, but it becomes increasingly hard to feel any sympathies for Apple. Seems that Apple's fame is slowly declining...

Right, because 2 million iPhone 5 pre orders in 24 hours is *clearly* an indication of declining fame.

I got news for you, the general public A) isn't aware of this litigation B) doesn't give a shit.

I'm not going to debate the right or wrong merits of the litigation itself, but if you think this lawsuit has hurt Apple in the court of public opinion, you're not capable of looking at the issue objectively.

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[Paradise Pete]

If you don't want to buy from Apple that's perfectly understandable. But Samsung is a dishonorable company. Buying a product from them out of some sort of moral stand is misguided.

And if you think all corporations are bad, then choose whatever device fits your needs and don't make it out to be "doing the right thing."

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[Drakonblayde]

Sorry to all the Apple fanboys out there, but it becomes increasingly hard to feel any sympathies for Apple. Seems that Apple's fame is slowly declining...

Right, because a stock price that's still over $700/share and 2 million pre orders for the iPhone 5 in 24 hours is clearly an indication of declining fame. Most people don't know about or care about this litigation. They just know Apple makes stuff they like. I don't like alot of the things Apple does as a company, but I like the products they make. I don't like the products that their competitors make, they don't fulfill my needs. So what am I going to do, refuse to buy Apple out of some sense of moral outrage? Sorry, not going to make myself less productive as a show of support for some other big mega-corp? Samsung is not some innocent bystander getting picked on by the big kid on the block. There's sin enough to go around for *all* players invovled in the smartphone market, so the moral reprehension is pretty much a wash for me. So in the end it boils down to who has the product I prefer to use. Those are the people who get my money.

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[fustakrakich]

Wall Street games... Drive the Samsung stock down, and buy it up...

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[Drakonblayde]

Right, because 2 million iPhone 5 pre orders in 24 hours is *clearly* an indication of declining fame.

Given 1.3 million Android registrations per day, Apple aren't even holding parity on launch events.

Ok, let's do some simple logic - #1 - That includes tablets #2 - That includes all Android suppliers, not just one manufacturer. If Samsung sells a brand new Android phone, HTC doesn't see a cent of that money. Apple gets a cut of *every* new iPhone sold. So not only do the Android manufacturers have to compete with Apple, they have to compete with each other... just like Apple. #3 - While people may be buying Android devices, the usage numbers show iOS well in the lead. To me, that says people are buying the product, and then electing not to use it. Which tells me that it's not a very good product. #4 - Google says 430 Million Android devices worldwide, at 1.3 million activations per day. The Samsung/Apple lawsuit revealed Apple's sales figures. 250 million iPhone sales worldwide (pre iPhone 5). 46.5 million iPod touch units (hey, if you get to total up all Android units, we get to total up all iOS units). 84 million iPads, which by my math puts Apple at about 380 million units world wide, So Apple has shipped 50 million less of their platform, stacked against, what, at least 10 other companies who develop on the same paltform. And at a much higher profit margin. I strongly suspect that if you could get the individual players to reveal their actual sales figures, that not a single one of them could individually beat Apple in sales. You have to aggregate all of Apple's competitors against them to get a figure that's appreciable. But yeah, I guess you're right, Apple is doing *horrible* in sales.

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[Swampash]

Seems that Apple's fame is slowly declining...

You say that in the week that Apple's share price tops USD700, making it not only the most valuable publicly-traded company in the world but worth comfortably more than number two and three combined?

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[fustakrakich]

...it becomes increasingly hard to feel any sympathies for Apple...

Sympathies? For what? They just want the Samsung stock to drop enough for them(Apple and/or 'friends') to buy. Should make a tidy sum when the dust clears.

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry to all the Apple fanboys out there, but it becomes increasingly hard to feel any sympathies for Apple. Seems that Apple's fame is slowly declining...

Right, because a stock price that's still over $700/share and 2 million pre orders for the iPhone 5 in 24 hours is clearly an indication of declining fame.

So you think mere sales figures are a good measure of fame? Sorry, wrong measure -- unless you also believe that Apple was a shitty, fameless company in the 80s and 90s and Microsoft the creme de la creme of software makers during that period...

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[MtViewGuy]

The thing is that Apple could get scrutinized like the United Shoe Machinery Company was during the 20th Century. (For those who don't know, United Shoe was sued by the US government starting in the 1940's for abusing patent rights on shoe making machines to eliminate competitors. This litigation eventually wiped out the company.)

I'm not sure if Apple wants to be in that position, given their enormous clout in the touchscreen computing device market with the iPhone and iPad.

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[Anonymous Coward]

This recent behavior by Apple is no different than they've always acted. They've always been scary, they just haven't had the resources to be particularly dangerous until recently.

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[aliquis]

Kinda cool if Apple did that:

"See, there's no profit to be made in the Android field and you can't do it without using our patents."

Stock down, Apple purchases.

"See, we're number one in Android. Take that Nokia! Bye everyone else."

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[Issarlk]

Give it 5 more years and Apple's fame will be gone. Steeve Jobs was intelligent at least but with his loss now Apple is just evil and stupid. Just look at the iOS6 maps fiasco, Jobs would never have let the iPhone5 ship with that junk in it.

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[Malc]

How is this any different to the way they behaved more than 20 years ago when they sued Microsoft over Windows?

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[Drakonblayde]

Sorry to all the Apple fanboys out there, but it becomes increasingly hard to feel any sympathies for Apple. Seems that Apple's fame is slowly declining...

Right, because a stock price that's still over $700/share and 2 million pre orders for the iPhone 5 in 24 hours is clearly an indication of declining fame.

So you think mere sales figures are a good measure of fame? Sorry, wrong measure -- unless you also believe that Apple was a shitty, fameless company in the 80s and 90s and Microsoft the creme de la creme of software makers during that period...

No, I think that 2 million people pre-ordering a product that hasn't shipped yet, as well as the inevitable lines (and the news coverage that will come from those lines) when it's released to the public for all the folks that didn't pre-order is a pretty good indication of fame. The general public does not pay attention to patent lawsuits, why the hell do you think patent reform isn't even on the radar for the presidential election? What the general public pays attention to is what's shiny, trendy, and cool, and Apple is still king in that arena. And yes, I imagine Apple is quite famous in the financial markets. Alot of people have made alot of money betting on Apple. The general public loves Apple. Wall Street loves Apple. The only people who don't love Apple are haters who bitch about anything trendy or cool, people who can't actually afford Apple products, and people who's business sense is inversely proportional to their moral outrage. Apple, as a company (note I did not say platform, as a company) owns the mobile market. Everyone else was playing catchup to RIM when they dropped the iPhone, and changed the game. Yeah, yeah, I understand that other folks did similar things first. I understand that other folks had similar stuff in development. They either failed to properly monetize, or they got beat to market. Apple was first to market with the modern smartphone, and they are ruthlessly protecting their interests. Everyone who tried to make a market for a tablet before failed miserably, but Apple drove the latest incarnation of their market with their product and showed that you can in fact make money with it, and once again, everyone else is playing catch up. And once again, they are ruthlessly defending their presence. Whether or not it's good for the consumer, and whether or not you like it, it *is* good business, and I can't blame them for it. If someone wants to dethrone them, they're going to have to implement their own game changer rather than trying to make a marginally better iteration of what we already have.

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[humanrev]

I don't like the products that their competitors make, they don't fulfill my needs.

Out of curiosity, what do you believe the iPhone can do that a similarly matched Android phone cannot? What do you, in your estimation, "need" that only an iPhone can satisfy? Is it functionality present in iOS or is it software which is exclusive to the iPhone?

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[Xest]

I think 17% marketshare for Apple vs. 4 times that for Android (68%) runs a steamroller over your argument that "most people" and "the public" believe what you think they believe.

Honestly. If you don't know the figures then stop perpetuating the myth that Apple is somehow the most popular mobile phone manufacturer/OS provider around. It's not, it's not even close.

Apple makes the most profit from smartphones and that's it, they certainly don't have the most support from the public or any such thing. Most people avoid them. Even if you discount the budget end of the Android market and focus on high end flagship products like Samsung's Galaxy Sx series, HTC One X, etc. and the equivalents for all the other manufacturers then even at the high end, that is, the expensive end, far more people are still buying Android and avoiding Apple so it's not even simply Android's budget phones that are driving Android's sales figures vs. Apples, most people just prefer Android devices, most people choose not to buy Apple, it's really that simple.

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[Billly Gates]

Sorry to all the Apple fanboys out there, but it becomes increasingly hard to feel any sympathies for Apple. Seems that Apple's fame is slowly declining...

Right, because 2 million iPhone 5 pre orders in 24 hours is *clearly* an indication of declining fame.

I got news for you, the general public A) isn't aware of this litigation B) doesn't give a shit.

I'm not going to debate the right or wrong merits of the litigation itself, but if you think this lawsuit has hurt Apple in the court of public opinion, you're not capable of looking at the issue objectively.

So IE 6 must have been the best browser in history! It had 90% of the marketshare in 2003! Windows 3.1 sold more copies than any gui driven platform to date 20 years ago. It must have been sooooo much better than the Mac and OS/2? McDonalds sold billions of cheeseburgers. It must be the best restuarant in the world!

People buy their crap. Doesn't mean they are fame. Andriod does have its issues too with the 2.x versions. I am tempted to replace my SamSung Galaxy 1 with a used IPhone 4s. It can't even sync with a pc and that is pretty primptive in my book. I heard others can, but AT&T probably loaded some shit where I can not even load up a picture I took with it. Anyway, stories like these remind me that perhaps I should look at a Windows 8 phone replacement rather than an Apple. I like the higher quality and detail but these guys are fucking a**holes.

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[Pieroxy]

Apple used to be quite famous for innovations, not for anti-competitive lawsuits.

What makes you think this has changed outside of slashdot?

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[should_be_linear]

Like most geeks, I couldn't care less about Apple and their single-button-mouse (obviously, it is not designed for me, but someone wants it), until they tried to prevent me from buying Android phones, that I REALLY want. Trying to prevent people from buying what they want, forcing them into "legal" products they don't want, is shortcut to become hated. It is how USSR ended - people wanted to own stuff they choose, but government told them it is illegal in USSR to own it (Honda car or Sony TV) because in USSR we have better products, and all legal !

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[__aaltlg1547]

Sales and stock price are the only kinds. of fame that matter to corporations.

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[Drakonblayde]

So IE 6 must have been the best browser in history! It had 90% of the marketshare in 2003! Windows 3.1 sold more copies than any gui driven platform to date 20 years ago. It must have been sooooo much better than the Mac and OS/2? McDonalds sold billions of cheeseburgers. It must be the best restuarant in the world!

People buy their crap. Doesn't mean they are fame. Andriod does have its issues too with the 2.x versions. I am tempted to replace my SamSung Galaxy 1 with a used IPhone 4s. It can't even sync with a pc and that is pretty primptive in my book. I heard others can, but AT&T probably loaded some shit where I can not even load up a picture I took with it. Anyway, stories like these remind me that perhaps I should look at a Windows 8 phone replacement rather than an Apple. I like the higher quality and detail but these guys are fucking a**holes.

You have an absolutely distorted view of fame. People know the products. People want the products. People pay for the products. The term iphone is synonymous with touchscreen telephone with apps. the term ipod is synonymous with music player. The term ipad is synonymous with touch screen tablet device. Go find a random normal user (that you don't know personally). Ask them what any of the above three products are, I'll bet they can answer. Then ask the same user which Samsung Galaxy they'd prefer, and see if they can differentiate between the phone and the tablet. Whether you like it or not, Apple has quite a bit of fame. They have a brand of good products, and they market *extremely* well. But please, feel free to continue your angry denial of facts.

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[GReaToaK_2000]

It took this long for people to realize that Apple has never been nothing more than a cut-throat Capitalist company?

Really? Steve Jobs was NEVER a Saint nor was he ever nothing more than Bill Gates (in his Microsoft days) with a "cool veneer".
I'm sorry to all you Apple distortion field loving fanboys and girls out there but Steve was ALWAYS a vicious business man.
The difference between Jobs and Gates (besides the obvious) is that Gates changed over time and became an amazing philanthropist. Even in Jobs’s dying days he was still cut throat, admirable if you’re a business person but that’s it.

I’m tired of the rhetoric. Apple is just another company that since it’s driving force (Steve) is gone has been reduced to pissing matches with patents.

I hope Samsung wins.

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[PRMan]

No. This is true. Many people at work that used to love Apple's products are very uncomfortable in supporting a bully that patented rounded rectangles.

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[Pecisk]

Exclusive phone, long delayed major release, huge crowd of fanbois? First 24 hours doesn't mean anything is such scenario. If they can keep up such order level - which I heavily doubt that, after iOS 6 fiasco - then maybe they deserve 700$/share, otherwise they are for very long long way down.

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[humanrev]

Cool, no worries then. Like I said, was just curious. Sounds like if you're already invested in the Apple ecosystem then the iPhone makes perfect sense. I've always been a Windows/Linux fellow mostly and so I'm more inclined to go Android, but again, your reasons are sound (as if you needed my approval anyway).

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[Billly Gates]

Apple as a company is dispised. Just because people didn't bother to download a better browser didn't mean they loved IE. It only means they use what they know. Same with mcDonalds.

Apple used to be known for high quality products where it was cool to be hip. Now it is a status symbol to show off how much money you have or debt you intake to look rich.

Most people know what a Samsung is and the current marketshare shows that Android has taken 65% of the market of new phones!

Maybe 2 years ago IPhones were all the rage but Apple is fighting tooth and nail to make sure people do not know about anything other than the shiny iPHone. Their maps suck and many apple loyalists are displeased about IOS 5 so far. Droids are gaining popularity fast even if Apple is selling so many phones the difference is all the drones buy at once while Android users buy things spread out. Trust me after the bump things will slow down for Apple.

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[Aryden]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/worldwide-market-share-smartphones-220747882--finance.html

— Android (Google Inc.) — 104.8 million units, 68.1 percent share (46.9 percent a year earlier) — iOS (Apple Inc.'s iPhone) — 26.0 million units, 16.9 percent share (18.8 percent a year earlier) — BlackBerry (Research in Motion Ltd.) — 7.4 million units, 4.8 percent share (11.5 percent a year earlier) — Symbian (mostly used by Nokia Corp.) — 6.8 million units, 4.4 percent share (16.9 percent a year earlier) — Windows (Microsoft Corp.) — 5.4 million units, 3.5 percent share (2.3 percent a year earlier) — Linux — 3.5 million units, 2.3 percent share (3.0 percent a year earlier) — Others — 0.1 million units, 0.1 percent share (0.5 percent a year earlier)

Yeah....

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[Aryden]

You also have to consider how many of those preorders are from existing customers and how many are actually new customers. If it is an existing customer heavy preorder, then you aren't really gaining in market share.

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[kencurry]

I don't like the products that their competitors make, they don't fulfill my needs.

Out of curiosity, what do you believe the iPhone can do that a similarly matched Android phone cannot?

Run iOS.

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[GbrDead]

> Jobs would never have let the iPhone5 ship with that junk in it.

Um, yeah, he would ship a phone that drops calls...

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[houghi]

Apple? Big Brother?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYecfV3ubP8&feature=related

And the Think Different! adds are very Monthy Python to me.
We are all different. I am not

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[ahabswhale]

Their market share and stock price seems to indicate otherwise.

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[swillden]

I prefer OS X as my main operating system, so having mobile devices with native and easy data sync to keep everything current is very important to me.

I'm also using OS X as my OS, but syncing is one of the reasons I prefer Android over iOS... because with iOS I have to muck about with syncing. With my Android phone and tablet everything syncs behind the scenes, wirelessly. It's much more convenient.

However, in the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I'm very annoyed with Apple's lawsuit crap, to the degree that I'm also dumping OS X. My next laptop will be a Thinkpad running Ubuntu. Also, I work for Google. Just so you know what my biases are. My wife is going to be switching from iOS to Android in the next couple of months (she currently has my old iPhone 4), so it will be interesting to see if she reaches the same conclusion I did with respect to syncing (the iPhone will be handed down to my son).

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[shutdown -p now]

The indication of declining fame lies elsewhere. I've got a bunch of non-techie friends on Facebook, and quite a few are Apple fans, chasing the logo basically. And they are some of the loudest complaining about iPhone 5 and Maps right now. And you know why? Because, to quote, "shit like that didn't happen under Jobs". The funny thing about it is that they may even be wrong and it actually did, but they perceived it differently. Now they are actively scrutinizing the company, actually, you know, comparing things... and they don't like what they see. Even if their blame is misplaced, it's still there.

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[mjwx]

#1 - That includes tablets

But wait, this means that Android tablets are selling, this means they're popular and useful which is not what the iFanboys have been telling us.

#2 - That includes all Android suppliers

This doesn't matter. We are counting activations and market share based on phone OS, not individual manufactures. This also only counts "With Google" phones, not every single Android device sold.

Apple gets a cut of *every* new iPhone sold.

Once again, this is about marketshare, not profit.

I've never understood why Apple Fanatics brag about overpaying for phones. I guess we should behead those who disrespect the profit.

250 million iPhone sales worldwide (pre iPhone 5). 46.5 million iPod touch units (hey, if you get to total up all Android units, we get to total up all iOS units). 84 million iPads, which by my math puts Apple at about 380 million units world wide,

Over 4 years, How many of these are repeat customers, not every phone sold is sold to a unique customer. I'd say 25% of customers bought an Apple phone to replace a previous Apple phone, When the Iphone 4S was released, this figure was around 77% plus all the phones that were returned under warranty.

If the rate of Android activations is not increasing (which is false, it's still increasing) I'll activate 380 million units in 317 days.

You have to aggregate all of Apple's competitors against them to get a figure that's appreciable

The figure is not simply appreciable, it' blows them out of the water completely. Apple's total sales of IOS devices does not account to a single year of Android sales.

Apple is doing *horrible* in sales.

Apple's market share is dropping. Despite sales increasing.

You think Apple had a good Q4 2011, you should see the Q4 Android had.

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[MachineShedFred]

Like most geeks, I couldn't care less about Apple and their single-button-mouse

2005 called, and wants it's tired old Apple-bashing insult back. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Mighty_Mouse

You call yourself a geek, yet you didn't know that Apple fixed that transgression over 7 years ago?

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[Rexdude]

You mean you actually liked Apple until you read this story?? They broke all records for evilness long ago, and make Microsoft look like a cuddly teddy bear by comparison. (Albeit one that will fling chairs at you if it's in a bad mood).

bad looser

[Anonymous Coward]

If a company has to make profit by law-suits there is something fundamentally wrong with it.

Re:bad looser

[Anonymous Coward]

They're not doing it to make money, they're doing it protect their desi...I mean, their right to claim a lack of notable features as something they've invented.

If I claimed a blank book as my design I'd get shafted hard right away, but Apple gets away with it because people are jizzing their pants and forking over cash for the same concept used on hardware.

I know that a patent-less future might not be the BEST solution, but it sure as hell is better than this.

Re:bad looser

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really, no.

Re:bad looser

[Tastecicles]

Why? What Apple are doing here is driving their share price *up* and Samsung's *down*. It's thinking in the short term: someone somewhere is going to do a run on Apple stock very soon and make a killing, then buy Samsung stock as it floors with half the money. If/when Samsung recover, short that stock and retire obscenely rich either way... only difference between whether Samsung recovers or not is how many lobster testicles you get in your morning mojito.

This is bigger than Apple Vs. Samsung and patent whores. This is an entity or entities manipulating the market with outside influences (in this case, with huge and vexatious litigation) in order to make as much money as possible for the least effort on their own part. It's like sealing two catholic priests in a room and throwing in a small boy, watching them fight to the death then pitting the winner against Michael Jackson. Maximum entertainment for minimum effort.

I am but a small cog

[Anonymous Coward]

But hope that my action of replacing my broken 2007 MacBook Pro (yes, the Nvidia chip and out of warranty) with a PC will help send a message to Apple.

No more Apple devices in my home.

Re:I am but a small cog

[JackAxe]

I'm in a similar boat. I've been buying Macintoshes since the nineties and working on them professionally longer, but when it comes time to upgrade to a new portable workstation, I'm moving to something like HP's beasts.

Since my current MacBook Pro 17" is still very capable, I'm cross-grading all of my pro-applications to Windows that don't have a multiplatform license and plan to be in Bootcamp fulltime before end of the year. This is easy for me, since I used PCs first back in the eighties and never abandoned them, even when I moved on to Macs fulltime -- I still build PCs for gaming and 3D work.

Another area I'm dropping, which is a bit harder to chew on, is IOS development. I'm not going to bother renewing with Apple come next March; but having said that, I deal mostly with enterprise and I noticed a trend towards Android tablets now, so this makes it easier.

This new Apple isn't a company I respect and care to support. It's going to be a bit tougher to get the wife off her Mac, but eventually it will happen.

Re:I am but a small cog

[drinkypoo]

I've been buying Macintoshes since the nineties and working on them professionally longer, but when it comes time to upgrade to a new portable workstation, I'm moving to something like HP's beasts.

Whatever you do, do not buy an HP. I could go into great detail as to why, but suffice to say that it took me over 24 hours on the phone to get a replacement for an EliteBook with a GPU with a known GPU die bonding problem. You'd be better off with almost anything else, except of course Sony, I hope you know better than that already.

Re:I am but a small cog

[Billly Gates]

Dell is equally bad.

It seems Asus and Samgsung sell the best products but sadly they are not corporate friendly.

Re:I am but a small cog

[ogdenk]

I'm in a similar boat. I've been buying Macintoshes since the nineties and working on them professionally longer, but when it comes time to upgrade to a new portable workstation, I'm moving to something like HP's beasts.

HP makes total pieces of crap now unless you spend big bucks. Then you get marginal crap.

Since my current MacBook Pro 17" is still very capable, I'm cross-grading all of my pro-applications to Windows that don't have a multiplatform license and plan to be in Bootcamp fulltime before end of the year. This is easy for me, since I used PCs first back in the eighties and never abandoned them, even when I moved on to Macs fulltime -- I still build PCs for gaming and 3D work.

Unfortunately I can't bring myself to stomach a less useful and productive environment by switching to Windows. If you use your mac "like a PC" then Windows might suffice for you. If you actually used the additional UI functionality and extreme object-oriented nature of the UI, you'd feel the same. You'd have to forget almost everything you learned on Windows machines to come to grips with some of it though.

My solution was to sell off the mac desktops and just build a hackintosh. I still have my Macbook but I'll end up selling it off eventually. The Macbook Pro will still likely be useful in 5 years. The HP almost certainly won't. Lenovo makes a better machine. Hell, I'd argue Toshiba made a better machine.

And I did warranty service for years for HP and Toshiba laptops. I've also done plenty of out-of-warranty repairs on Apple machines (ugh) and Lenovo. HP sucks. They make good laser printers and oscilloscopes, that's about it.

Believe me, I *HATE* Apple as a company but NeXTstep was a great environment. Apple's version of it is great too with some minor tweaks like getting rid of Mission Control and turning desktop icons for drives, shares, etc back on.... losing the 3D dock.... Oh and turning on hot corners for Desktop and Application windows with Expose. Expose works while dragging files BTW, not many realize that. Can be quite powerful. Drop images into a chat or word document with ease, etc.

I like UNIX. I like commercial software like Quark. I actually *like* MS Office. I'm not willing to run Windows to get access to these programs and I'm DAMN sure not going to deal with the hassle of trying to make them work in WINE under BSD or Linux just to have alien programs that don't integrate with my desktop properly. If I want a good desktop-ready UNIXy OS that gives me everything I want including pro-grade productivity/audio apps -AND- OSS *NIX apps, I have no choice but MacOS X.

I don't hate Apple enough to ditch a well-engineered OS. I *DO* hate them enough never to buy another piece of hardware from them again and sell off my iPhone.

Another area I'm dropping, which is a bit harder to chew on, is IOS development. I'm not going to bother renewing with Apple come next March; but having said that, I deal mostly with enterprise and I noticed a trend towards Android tablets now, so this makes it easier.

Don't blame you. iOS is a joke for serious tasks and I'm not going to kiss Apple's ass for the privilege of developing for their crippled environment.

Re:I am but a small cog

[ogdenk]

Toshiba and Lenovo get my vote for best Wintel laptops. Both offer decent support.

Dell offers great post-sale support but then again, you are likely to need it with their hardware.

Asus is hit or miss. Never worked on a Samsung laptop, can't comment there.

New positions?

[SiriusStarr]

They have to pay for the ex-Google Mappers somehow. It's either that or convince people to start renaming continents.

Re:New positions?

[mathfeel]

They have to pay for the ex-Google Mappers somehow. It's either that or convince people to start renaming continents.

It seems someone at Apple is reading xkcd: http://what-if.xkcd.com/10/
And all those distorted map image makes sense once you realized Apple is mapping our dreams, Inception style.

Re:New positions?

[cyborg666]

They have to pay for the ex-Google Mappers somehow. It's either that or convince people to start renaming continents.

Didn't Samsung recently sue LG for hiring their ex-OLED developers? Could Google do the same? After all, tech-theft is a legidimate thing to go to court over...

Well, who can claim them?

[Anonymous Coward]

The mastermind is gone, so they need to start doing stuff like this frequently since there won't be any new innovation and goodwill that came naturally with Jobs.

Re:Well, who can claim them?

[hardtofindanick]

goodwill

You mean "going thermonuclear" no doubt.

The real news is Samsung's motion

[robbak]

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120922171505170

The real news is Samsung's motion for JMOL or a new trial. This verdict is hopelessly inconsistent and compromised - the statements made by the jury foreman are hard to believe! - that there is no chance of it standing. If sane, Apple would admit that, argue that the verdict should be tossed in it's entirety, so the important points in Samsung's favor are lost as well, and keep it's powder dry for round 2. I'm not holding my breath for that, as they have shown a willingness to argue that the sky is green from day 1.

Re:The real news is Samsung's motion

[jbolden]

There is not going to be a new trial. I think Samsung was treated unfairly. On the other hand Samsung also engaged in serious misconduct during discovery.

There are lots of problems with this filing as well. For example Courts have repeatedly denied a monopoly in the copyright context over the GUI design concepts that Apple seeks to protect here. See Apple Computer, Inc. v. Microsoft Corp. In Apple v. Microsoft the court never ruled that GUI design concepts weren't protected. The ruled the exact opposite that the expression of functional elements were protected. However, they found that Apple lacked standing not having been the originator of those ideas. Samsung's lawyers constantly intermix BS with truth and the problem is the court is seeing this as dishonest not good lawyering.

Re:The real news is Samsung's motion

[Rogerborg]

Samsung also engaged in serious misconduct during discovery.

Such as?

Re:The real news is Samsung's motion

[jbolden]

Not preserving evidence that was likely to be needed at trial. Trying to game the system with the late drop of the F700. Those are the two I know of.

Apple may have a problem, Houston...

[Torinir]

Apple might have a hard time asking for more money from that judgment when Samsung has valid claims which could lead to a retrial.

http://www.groklaw.net/pdf4/ApplevSamsung-1990Samsung50and59motions.pdf

Of note: the table of references point to cases of jury misconduct, even though the arguments by Samsung were redacted. Bet on this judgment being tossed out fast.

Re:Apple may have a problem, Houston...

[jbolden]

I don't think so.

1) Samsung engaged in misconduct during discovery.
2) Samsung was unable to provide a sound basis for the drastic shifts in their design approach after the iPhone was released
3) Some of the elements of copying, like icon styling are rather clear and none have been conceded to, which is likely what led the jury to draw the conclusion of intent. This happens all the time, X lies about his minor part in the crime so the jury decides to believe he's lying because he was a primary.

That being said I agree with Samsung the punishments effectively allowed Apple to misrepresent the evidence in their presentation. I'd like to see those things tossed.

Re:Apple may have a problem, Houston...

[robbak]

I don't think so.

1) Samsung engaged in misconduct during discovery.

This has been dealt with. Samsung started preserving evidence before Apple did.

2) Samsung was unable to provide a sound basis for the drastic shifts in their design approach after the iPhone was released

When you include all the phones, not just Apple's selection Samsung's 'before' and 'after' ranges are all rather similar.

3) Some of the elements of copying, like icon styling are rather clear and none have been conceded to, which is likely what led the jury to draw the conclusion of intent. This happens all the time, X lies about his minor part in the crime so the jury decides to believe he's lying because he was a primary.

Well, the icon stylings are standard things that all existed before Apple 'stole' them from previous designs.

That being said I agree with Samsung the punishments effectively allowed Apple to misrepresent the evidence in their presentation. I'd like to see those things tossed.

No real arguments there.
Oh, look I've done the 'quote and deny' thing that generally tells me that a conversation is no longer worth reading Oh well.

Re:Apple may have a problem, Houston...

[jbolden]

This has been dealt with. Samsung started preserving evidence before Apple did.

Yes it was dealt with in the trial. I was actually more referring to the F700 evidence.

When you include all the phones, not just Apple's selection Samsung's 'before' and 'after' ranges are all rather similar.

I understand that's what Samsung claimed at trial. And no they weren't. If you look at the F700 it is rather clear that Samsung was chasing after Palm's theory of design, a PDA/phone mixture with calendaring being the central application. They weren't working on a web centric OS that made heavy use of animations.

If you mean the physical phone I'd agree the industry was headed in that direction. Samsung's hardware claims would have been a lot more plausible if they hasn't been making software claims.

Well, the icon stylings are standard things that all existed before Apple 'stole' them from previous designs.

Then Samsung should have been able to prove that at trial. That's how Microsoft beat Apple in their look and feel lawsuit. Where is the 2006 palette that looks like the iPhones in terms of:

a) drawn icon and size
b) color scheme
c) icon shape and behavior

It doesn't exist. This was really important and key evidence of copying.

Re:Apple may have a problem, Houston...

[bill_mcgonigle]

They weren't working on a web centric OS that made heavy use of animations.

The animations thing is an artifact of technology. Just as Apple was working on iPhone, I was working on an R&D project with similar animations. The limiting factor was entirely the degree to which OpenGL (ES or not) was available in hardware to make the animations smooth, cheap, and low-power.

Now, Apple got to market first (it's good to have a huge budget!) and did a nice job, but Apple also got to mass-market first with 24-bit ("Millions") color. Nobody argued at that time that PC's ought to be limited to 8-bit color. It was just the natural progression of available technology.

Re:Apple may have a problem, Houston...

[jbolden]

I get that. But that's precisely the sort of thing that Samsung didn't have to show when they were showing off prototypes. They never worked with animations in the GUI. There most certainly were other people like yourself working on this.

  Though I give Apple credit for the years of work on Quartz / Quartz Extreme. That's what allowed for Core Image and Core Video which .... Today in 2012 it is easy. Apple got their in 2007 because of all the ground work they'd done between OSX 10.2-10.4 on graphics improvements that Steve Jobs had lying around.

To my mind the real innovation of iPhone was seeing how to knit:

a) Animation based interactions
b) capacitive touchscreen
c) high speed web rendering

together. All the pieces existed but Apple saw how to use them in combination. And that's really the problem that this triple is now fundamental to smart phones while at the same time Apple got there first and deserves some credit / money for that.

Re:Apple may have a problem, Houston...

[Torinir]

When added to the other issues on the part of the judge and magistrate, it will make it much harder to deny a retrial. As for having it all on record, they have to put it all in the motion to make it available on appeal.

Obligatory Ice-T

[srussia]

"Don't hate the player, hate the game."

The game being IP.

Re:Obligatory Ice-T

[Anonymous Coward]

You are full of bullshit. Apple is abusing the system. I don't see Google suing over bing. I don't see Google trying to litigate competition out of the marketplace. And suing over gestures? And icons in a grid? And generally abusing software patents progressively making it impossible to write software without having to spend money on lawyers. The list goes on and on. So its notjust the game it the fucking player that is corrupt. Fuck apple. They won't see another recommendation from me until they stop this madness.

Re:Obligatory Ice-T

[Anonymous Coward]

Why shouldn't we hate the players? The players spend millions upon millions lobbying to change the rules of the game in their favor, often at the expensive of innovation.

I know it's fun to mindlessly spout clíchés, but they're not always true.

Re:Obligatory Ice-T

[ciderbrew]

And icons in a grid?

WHAT? No way. How about - Dungeon Master, 1987? That has Icons in a grid. A game of chess has bits you move about in a grid. I hope that patent wasn't given.

Re:Obligatory Ice-T

[Zero__Kelvin]

""Don't hate the player, hate the game."

This has always been a stupid statement based on a false dichotomy. There is absolutely no reason not to hate both.

Disclaimer: I am posting from a Macbook; while I am not a fan of parts of the Apple company, their engineering is quite excellent.

Re:Obligatory Ice-T

[fustakrakich]

The players are rats. Now go to the lab and run the tests to see how they react to certain stimuli. Then come back and tell me why I should hate the test subject when it responds exactly as expected.

Re:Obligatory Ice-T

[Tastecicles]

I think this might be the one.

Re:Obligatory Ice-T

[L4t3r4lu5]

You're quite clear from any accusation of moral contradiction if you bought it second hand.

You did buy it second hand, right?

Re:Obligatory Ice-T

[mAriuZ]

There is no spoon / IP

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html

Re:Obligatory Ice-T

[serviscope_minor]

No particular criticism of Xero__Kelvin here, but:

I am posting from a Macbook; while I am not a fan of parts of the Apple company, their engineering is quite excellent.

This is a prefect excmple of why light regulation of companies does not work. The market simply won't make companies behave ethically. It doesn't matter if the company is unethical and evil, people will still buy their stuff.

Re:Obligatory Ice-T

[ciderbrew]

Does prior art mean nothing? You could do that with the Amiga workbench by clicking on folders. Others will be able to predate that reference too.

Re:Obligatory Ice-T

[Billly Gates]

That wasn't a phone

Re:Obligatory Ice-T

[shentino]

I'll hate both, TYVM.

I'd bet that Apple lobbyists even helped make the system legal in the first place.

Re:Obligatory Ice-T

[Zero__Kelvin]

Nothing is as simple as it seems at first "glance". I bought it as a second laptop second hand to develop both for iOS and Android out of pragmatism, but found that it suited my needs far better than my original laptop since I can run Linux in a Virtualbox VM and use all the GNU command line tools as well, so I sold my initial Linux only laptop with significantly less battery life. I will buy a new Retina at some point most likely because I have never heard of any corporation that doesn't do something I don't like that makes hardware and/or proprietary Operating Systems and nobody else touches Apple for their hardware quality.

Re:Obligatory Ice-T

[MrSenile]

I bought it as a second laptop second hand to develop both for iOS and Android out of pragmatism, but found that it suited my needs far better than my original laptop since I can run Linux in a Virtualbox VM and use all the GNU command line tools as well, so I sold my initial Linux only laptop with significantly less battery life.

I can't doubt the battery life comment. While replacing the battery in the laptop is next to unreasonable, they do have long lasting batteries.

However, unless you're married to IOS and/or OSX, the VirtualBox solution would exist just as well on a Linux host or a Windows host.

I myself have a Sager laptop for work with 16G memory that I have multiple VM's on. The main distro is Red Hat 6, and I have a Win 7 VM for work, a Solaris I86 VM for Work-Testing, and a few Linux VM's for additional work testing. (Unix Engineer).

Just curious what the benefit of the Mac book is compared to a high-end Intel laptop (minus the afore mentioned battery life). Though with the extended battery in my Sager, it works pretty nicely. I can generally squeeze 5-8 hours out of it, depending on my load.

I'm not trying to argue your point of choosing Mac, I'm genuinely curious on what made you choose a Mac over a high-end Intel?

Re:Obligatory Ice-T

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Just curious what the benefit of the Mac book is compared to a high-end Intel laptop"

I spent $450.00 for this sucker used and it screams, as well as coming with Garageband, which isn't available on any other platform. I am a Linux guy and a Guitar guy. (I do Linux kernel development as well, so I don't just mean I'm a user.) I have used Ardour, etc for my Digital Audio Workstation (which is also available for OS X) but nothing beats the price/performance curve when combined with the high quality software that suits my purpose at this time. Frankly, when I bought the thing I never expected to like it so much.

Apple meet Sony

[clickclickdrone]

I've had quite a few iPods over the years and was thinking about an iPad but now Apple have joined Sony on my 'never buying a damned thing from them ever again because they're evil' list.

Re:Apple meet Sony

[serviscope_minor]

I'm glad I'm not the only one with that list :)

Oh, don't forget ot stick Oracle on there too, just in case you're ever in the kind of position i your company where that matters. Sony hate their customers and randomly lash out out of spite, malice and perhaps ennui. Oracle truly despise their customers and seem to relish the opportunity to carefully devise and execute a plans to harm their customers with a persistence and glee that one can only marvel at.

Sony provide the very much the consumer version of customer hatred, where as Oracle provide the full enterprise ready solution complete with customer-hatred-java-bean-factory-factory-factory-factory, misconfigured redundant failover, week long downtimes for upgrades and an army of consultants to tell you how it's your fault that you accidently had a satisfied customer but they can fix it for a vast fee.

Not so funny anymore

[Damouze]

How about the millions of damages for the idea of a tablet computer, posthumously, to Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke?

Re:Not so funny anymore

[Tastecicles]

I would be concerned if Apple ever get the patent for a remote microwave communications relay in geostationary orbit. (Clarke, 1945)

The Clarke estate would have KITTENS.

Re:Not so funny anymore

[bill_mcgonigle]

Ideas don't matter. Registering a monopoly grant request with the government for that idea is all that seems to matter today.

It's what happens...

[Kupfernigk]

What happened to the concept of a "jury of peers" as in English law (i.e. equals)? If corporations are people in the USA, then the jury in a trial between corporations over technical issues should consist of retired (as in no ax to grind) design engineers with experience of the patent, trademark and design system. This won't happen because they would rapidly expose the ignorance of the lawyers, simply by the questions they would ask. But it would eliminate an awful lot of bad decisions and legal costs.

Re:It's what happens...

[maroberts]

What happened to the concept of a "jury of peers" as in English law (i.e. equals)? If corporations are people in the USA, then the jury in a trial between corporations over technical issues should consist of retired (as in no ax to grind) design engineers with experience of the patent, trademark and design system. This won't happen because they would rapidly expose the ignorance of the lawyers, simply by the questions they would ask. But it would eliminate an awful lot of bad decisions and legal costs.

Yes but the foreman was such a person, and used his experience of the system to testify rather than to base the decision on the evidence.

I personally think that a small decision either way would have been regarded as just, but this decision made a bad joke of the US IP judicial system.

Re:It's what happens...

[jbolden]

I think it is a great idea to have technical trials before random experts. I agree with you.

But that's the way regulatory boards are setup. Far fewer court trials and more administrative trials would be a huge benefit. But that requires going back to "bigger government" since the burden on the administrators increases and the burden on the courts decreases.

Re:It's what happens...

[Missing.Matter]

Problem was he was the only one. If the jury were made of 12 knowledgeable people, one person would have a harder time hijacking the verdict (12 angry men notwithstanding).

Re:It's what happens...

[drinkypoo]

On one hand, you'd get people more familiar with the issues. On the other hand, if the lawyers can't distill the argument into something a layman can understand then it's a bunch of bullshit legal mumbo-jumbo that they can blow out their arse. On the gripping hand, those experts are a lot easier to pay off ahead of time than a truly random selection of the population.

Maybe what we really need here isn't panels of experts (we do have expert witnesses, any bias will be relatively apparent) but an overhaul of the jury selection system so that you don't have to prove that you don't know shit about shit before you can be selected.

Re:It's what happens...

[WillRobinson]

Have you ever been grilled before being on a jury? As soon as they find out you have a analytical mind, they will drop you like a hot potato, they want decisions based off emotions.

Here is my example, in being interviewed the lawyer gave a hypothetical situation and asked for a answer. nobody raised their hand, so I did. He asked for my answer and I told him he did not give me enough information to make an informed decision. He said your exactly right, your dismissed!

Re:It's what happens...

[jrumney]

The transcripts of jury selection released with Samsung's motion for retrial reveal that there were at least three patent holders on the jury.

Re:It's what happens...

[Kupfernigk]

One of my kids is a competition lawyer and these cases are held before judges at the European Court. For the lawyers to explain these cases to a jury, they'd need to start with a four-year economics degree. There are some technical issues which require an awful lot of background to understand, where one juror with half a clue could persuade 11 with no clue. It's obvious why lawyers like clueless, emotional juries - but law is far too important to be run for the convenience of lawyers.

Lawyer costs

[camcorder]

This additional damages must have been linked to lawyer costs associated with the trial.

A saying only used by asshole players

[SmallFurryCreature]

That statement is only used by abusers of the system and their fanboys.

Don't hate the rapist, hate rape. Only a rapist would say that. The rest of the world hates both.

Re:A saying only used by asshole players

[fustakrakich]

No, what is being said is that the game rewards the rapist/abuser with fame, fortune, hookers, cocaine, and blackjack. Greed is good.. Nice guys finish last, and all that.. It actually applies here. What we see speaks for itself. Don't try to reverse all the evidence from Pavlov's experiments. If bad behavior is rewarded, you shouldn't expect much else. It's all pretty much automatic.

Re:A saying only used by asshole players

[EmagGeek]

Don't hate politicians. Hate inside-the-beltway Washington politics.

Only a career politician would say that.

Re:A saying only used by asshole players

[shentino]

Bad behavior is rewarded because it works.

A playground bully gets rich on other kid's lunch money because he's a big bad-ass who can break your bones if you don't cough up.

There is no system rewarding that, it's just a natural consequence of letting people do what they please.

Re:A saying only used by asshole players

[fustakrakich]

Bad behavior is rewarded because it works.

Yes, by design..

If I were a shareholder

[darkat]

If I were a shareholder I would be quite worried about the (cr)Apple strategy. IMHO this is a clear signal of lack of innovative ideas. Innovation cannot be a continuos flow and they are reaching their limits. I doubt that the iphone 5 will be a planetary success because of the lack of real innovation in it. It's a sad black thing with infamous rounded corners. It's not appealing neither aestethically nor tecnologically. The competitors do at least the same and also much better. They appear on the descending path.

Re:If I were a shareholder

[Splab]

Since when is do not disturb a new thing?

Re:If I were a shareholder

[Anonymous Coward]

a) An entirely new design for screen manufacture no one else (but the Apple rMBP) uses.

Made by Samsung.

b) An entirely new CPU design (and yes this is the Intrinsity division of Apple).

The credits for the CPU design belong to ARM

c) An entirely new mapping subsystem

Yet another object mapping system. So what?

d) Passbook

Kwallet has been around for at least 10 years.

f) VIP mail

So you filter your e-mail based on sender. This is so old that I haven't even been born when it was first implemented.

g) Do not disturb / call me later

You can't be serious with this one.

etc...

Please go on. Don't let the facts stop you.

Re:If I were a shareholder

[jbolden]

The implementation is new. If you look at BlackBerry's setup scheme it is quite a bit different and doesn't do things like multiple calls from same number.

Re:If I were a shareholder

[serviscope_minor]

) An entirely new design for screen manufacture no one else (but the Apple rMBP) uses.

Er what? What's new about that? The screen tech was devised by someone else, and slashdottres have been clamouring for a return to high resolution for years. Remeber even Dell used to provide 1600x1200 14" screens *IN 2002*. Screens of such a DPI have also been available for years. Apple may have been the irst to actually do it, but it's a stretch to cal it innovative.

Of if you're talking about the screen tech, being the first to use another vendors tech doesn't make you innovative.

b) An entirely new CPU design (and yes this is the Intrinsity division of Apple).

Links needed. Intrinsity came up with some new stuff certainly before the acquisition, but 1GHz ARM cores aren't exactly hard to come by. It probably required some innovations internally, though.

c) An entirely new mapping subsystem

That is not innovtion. Mapping is well established, and it provides nothing that GIS and other mapping systems have provided for years. Oh, except for mis-named continents. That's new.

Doing a reimplementation of something else with no new features is not really an innovation.

d) Passbook

I'm sure that remember reading years ago that paying with a phone was very common in Japan. I know people have been hacking on it for years with all sorts of things like NFC and etc. It's another me-too imlementation, though they probably have the size an influence to carry it off. Given that it's old hat, claiming it as an innovation is silly.

e) Guided access

Sounds interesting, but locking out parts of the device is not a new idea.

f) VIP mail

Perhaps I've misunderstood this, but it sonuds like a combination of filters and tagging. I have a similar sounding thing set up on my gmail account where emails from certain people go to a specific "important" folder as ewll as the inbox.

g) Do not disturb / call me later

Seriously? the linux desktop notification system has had a disable switch for yonks. "yeah but on a phone" is not new.

etc... You may not like Apple but the claim they aren't innovative is nonsense.

Apple's not so secret sauce is that they do very slick and well integrated systems and products. The individual parts are generally not innovative, but have often done poorly before. Just because you haven't seen the features before does not mean they are innovative. You may like apple products, but why can't you be happy with that? Why do you feel the need ot claim they they have inovated a bunch of stuff which already existed elsewhere?

Re:If I were a shareholder

[serviscope_minor]

Since when is do not disturb a new thing?

Because it's ON A PHONE!!

Re:If I were a shareholder

[Xest]

"Yet another object mapping system. So what?"

Maybe he's referring to the fact that Apple's mapping system is innovative in that it places things where they actually are not, so that you have to explore and learn more about the area?

It's not really my sort of thing, personally I prefer mapping tools that tell me where things actually are, like Google Maps, but either way he's right about one thing, Apple maps is definitely innovative. Just not in a good way.

Re:If I were a shareholder

[jbolden]

No but for example it is vector based and that is quite innovative. The sky shots are innovative.

Bad data isn't innovative that's what mapping systems look like when they are young.

Re:If I were a shareholder

[jbolden]

Yep. And there are even phone versions. The implementation details were different.

Re:If I were a shareholder

[serviscope_minor]

No but for example it is vector based and that is quite innovative.

No it isn't. Google has been vector based for a while now on suitably enabled platforms. The main reason they didn't do it before it because HTML was even suckier. Trust me, they store the maps internally as vectors. It's the only sane way to do it.

In fact, GIS systems have been vector based since approximately forever. Google earth used vector maps for years. But that wasn't new. Expensive GIS systems like google earth existed for years before, but were expensive and proprietary. Just because it's the first time you've noticed it does not mean then the entity has shown you is the innovative one.

I really don't get why people like you insist that every feature which is new to Apple is innovative no matter how long those features have existed in the wild before Apple notived them.

Bad data isn't innovative that's what mapping systems look like when they are young.

You may wish to re-engage your sense of humour.

Re:If I were a shareholder

[jbolden]

a) The MBP retina display is made by LG
So what? Apple isn't the parts business they are in the systems business. All their hardware innovations are going to involve partnering with parts vendors.

b) The A6 is simply a modified Arm instruction set processor. Not a entirely new CPU design

Agreed. That doesn't change the modification by Intensity

c) Are you talking about their new maps? Surely you are not suggesting that something so craptastic is innovation.

Yes. Vector maps rather than bit maps. Excellent scrolling. Terrific 3D and height effects. Other than bad / missing data I think is a fantastic release. And doing data clean up for a mapping app, while boatload of work is something everyone knows how to do.

e) Guided access you mean crippling the device is better?

Yes. Frequently good design is what you leave out. For toddlers and the autistic you need to leave out a lot. You aren't the target customer for Guided Access.

g) Do not disturb / call me later - had that on a 1.6 android phone nothing new.

You mean on the phone itself. Like 2 call break through or via. Google Voice?

Re:If I were a shareholder

[jbolden]

Trust me, they store the maps internally as vectors. It's the only sane way to do it.

I understand that. But that's the difference between bit map fonts and scalable fonts. Rendering on the device makes all sorts of things possible that aren't with rendering on a server not in real time.

Just because it's the first time you've noticed it does not mean then the entity has shown you is the innovative one.

Google earth was not a driving system.

I really don't get why people like you insist that every feature which is new to Apple is innovative no matter how long those features have existed in the wild before Apple notived them.

See my initial response. In these discussion it seems to be fashionable to define innovation in ways that more or less exclude every invention in human history. Everything is a chain of small steps. That doesn't mean that hasn't been innovation in the last 10000 years.

Re:If I were a shareholder

[serviscope_minor]

I understand that

Yes, but you're ignoring that (a) google maps already used vectors where available (WebGL), google earth already used vectors and profesional GIS systems before that used vectors. I really do not see how you can claim innovation on the part of Apple.

Maps as vectors is very old hat. It's not an Apple innovation.

Why list advantages which are well known and are already used by other people?

Google earth was not a driving system.

Er what?

Google maps (which already uses vectors with webgl) gives turn by turn navigation. Tomtom stores maps as vectors and is used for driving.

See my initial response. In these discussion it seems to be fashionable to define innovation in ways that more or less exclude every invention in human history.

I saw your initial rensponse. I disagree. The things you have listed are not small steps. They are steps which were taken decades ago by others.

There is nothing new in Apple's mapping app, which has not been hashed over time and again. Maybe thaty've hashed over it better (they sometimes do, but this isn't one of them).

In these discussion it seems to be fashionable to define innovation in ways that more or less exclude every invention in human history.

it also seems fashionable to define evrything, no matter how derivative to be an innovation, which would include pretty much every nail bashed into a plank of wood over the course of human history.

Re:If I were a shareholder

[serviscope_minor]

So what?

So what? How ca you claim that using such a part is innovative? By your logic that makes every phone out there innovative since they chose someone else's screens...

Yes. Vector maps rather than bit maps. Excellent scrolling. Terrific 3D and height effects. Other than bad / missing data I think is a fantastic release. And doing data clean up for a mapping app, while boatload of work is something everyone knows how to do.

Wuh. OK, so firstly, vector maps already exist. See, e.g. google maps with WebGL. It's great that it's a fantastic release, but where is the innovation you speak of? An excellent release of something is a great thing, but it does not need to be innovative to be excellent. Polishing something thoroughly is a worthy goal, which is distinct from innovation. There is smimply no need to conflate the two.

Re:If I were a shareholder

[jbolden]

So what? How ca you claim that using such a part is innovative?

They are the first system to use the part. And at least for the rMBP they put the deal together. The part exists because of them. They didn't buy it off the shelf. I consider LG's role minimal and for all practical purposes Apple made the rMBP screen.

Re:If I were a shareholder

[Alioth]

> b) The A6 is simply a modified Arm instruction set processor. Not a entirely new CPU design

The processor core is ARM, but Apple had to design the SoC that went around it (which is probably the bulk of what's in the A6 package).

I can very well hate the player

[Sycraft-fu]

Apple decided to go nuclear, and it is likely to backfire on them. While the patent system is broken for sure, most other large companies seemed to use stupid patents largely defensively. They'd patent everything under the sun so that if someone came after them, they could counter with thousands of patents and see what stuck. In terms of legit patents, they'd do cross licensing.

Not Apple, they've decided to go nuclear on other players. Sue them for stupid amounts of money, declare nobody can make anything that looks like an Apple product, and so on. They raised the stakes, and thus things are getting nasty.

So we sure can, and will, hate on Apple.

Re:I can very well hate the player

[drinkypoo]

To be fair, Microsoft and Apple have both been in patent wars with each other and with the rest of us for a long time, Microsoft more than Apple. And it's been over stupid shit. Look and feel? the GUI? Windows? It's not all patents, either. Let's not forget Microsoft's sock puppet SCO (nee Caldera... I don't want to malign the actual pre-Caldera SCO, they were lame in other ways) attacking Linux over bogus copyright. Apple is frankly not a dramatic example of bad behavior, they're just asking for lots of money because these are unprecedentedly popular products (on both sides.)

I *DON'T buy Apple products

[Anonymous Coward]

"So what am I going to do, refuse to buy Apple out of some sense of moral outrage?"

Well I do NOT buy Apple products over this, and sure most people don't know what Apple is up to here, but that's OK, because I'm going to tell them. That is what stories like this do, they make people aware.

Over time people WILL be aware of what Apple is up to, just as Microsoft can't sell jack shit in any market they don't have a lock on, so Apple is in that position in future.

Apple patented PANTS!

[Anonymous Coward]

Then they noticed Samsung employees going to work - wearing PANTS!.

It does

[Sycraft-fu]

While an individual doesn't send a large message, every little bit helps and just because each individual message isn't large doesn't mean that a flood of them will be small.

It also helps in that Apple is in a positive feedback loop of their stuff being popular because it is popular. Well, the less people who are seen with Apple products, the more it works to break that feedback loop.

I certainly encourage anyone who is angered at Apple's business practices to find other devices. The good news is that it is perfectly doable. There's nothing Apple has I'm aware of that you can't find a workable alternative to.

Now if you like the stuff Apple makes the best and don't care about their actions, fair enough, but "I can't find anything else," isn't a valid point. Android or Windows Mobile phones work real well, tons of companies will supply you with a computer at any price and quality point you wish and so on.

So the parent has the right of it: If you are mad at Apple, don't buy their stuff. Better still, send them a polite e-mail, letting them know. Even better still, let others know why and encourage them to do the same (don't be pushy though).

Swiss

[bloodhawk]

If they win maybe they can use the proceeds to pay the swiss railway. by the sounds of it apple believes in harsh penalty for wilful violation. Swiss Rail will be very happy to hear apple feels this way.

Re:Swiss

[should_be_linear]

Except there is nothing in Samsung phone or tablet so blatantly stolen and copied, like Swiss Rail Clock on Apple. Using Samsung and Apple for 5 minutes easily convince any technically litterate person that you are using 2 completely different platforms with nothing in common.

Easy business

[sturle]

Must be easy to be a US company. Make a product. Doesn't matter if it sucks or not. If someone else make a better competing product with their own technology, sue their ass with bogus patents on rounded corners and whatnot, which are only possible in the US, and grab all the competitors profit in the entire world.

Re:Easy business

[grenadeh]

Sardine cans have had the same shape as an iPhone, for decades. I think Beach Cliff should sue Apple.

re-exam

[ProfBooty]

Why doesn't samsung just have the USPTO do a re-exam of the patent, its cheap and would possibly invalidate the patent.

A song

[wbr1]

http://m.youtube.com/results?q=ticks%20%26%20leeches%20tool#/watch?v=RelR85j09XY
Seemed somewhat apropos.

Try to keep up ...

[Zero__Kelvin]

Bullshit. I am not saying that the Patent dispute is valid. What I am saying is that Apple makes hardware and software and sells it. It is not correct to say that defending their patents is how they make their money. What you are thinking of is a patent troll. You cannot expect any company to ignore patent violations, and you cannot fault any company for refusing to ignore them. Unless that company is a patent troll, any claim that they make their money through patent lawsuits is ridiculous. Apple makes their money by designing and selling computer systems.

Re:Try to keep up ...

[Tastecicles]

...and asking the court to award on top of the judgment they already have in their favour.

That says "Troll" with hundred foot high letters and fucking lightbars.

Re:Try to keep up ...

[Zero__Kelvin]

What you wrote says is that you don't know the definition of the word troll.

Re:Try to keep up ...

[Xest]

I actually agree with most of what you say:

"You cannot expect any company to ignore patent violations, and you cannot fault any company for refusing to ignore them."

Well that's exactly how the mobile phone market worked for the two decades before Apple rolled in. Why do you think it can't exist this way when it already did? The only reason it doesn't now is because Apple refused to license the same patents from Nokia that everyone else was willing to license fairly, and for the same fee Nokia was licensing them to everyone else at. It all exploded from there and Apple started suing everyone else for other things left and right.

Honestly, for most of it's existence the mobile phone market has been based off mutual respect and reasonable cross-licensing agreements. It's only Apple's entry into the market and it's refusal to play ball with everyone else that changed that and gave us the trainwreck of a situation we have now.

Re:Try to keep up ...

[Tastecicles]

troll: noun: a mountain cave-dwelling humanlike creature from Scandinavian and Norse mythology which is described as not particularly ugly and rarely helpful to humans. Co-opted in contemporary language to describe someone who posts inflammatory or offtopic comments on internet forums.

Re:Try to keep up ...

[shentino]

Apple is a patent troll because the patents they are beating over Samsung's head are bullshit and never should have been issued in the first place. Yet the court grants the USPTO a wide berth of "deference" when the USPTO is already rubber stamping things expecting the courts to clean up THEIR mess.

It's a chicken and egg situation where the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.

It's a racket.

And Apple is in on it.

That makes them a patent troll.

Worse yet, you can't get a reexam at the USPTO without shitting your position up in court if you get sued later. According to the law, if you botch a reexam you cannot use prior art as a defense in court.

Re:Try to keep up ...

[Zero__Kelvin]

Thanks for the clarification that you have no idea what the word means, but that was already pretty obvious to almost everyone here.

Re:Try to keep up ...

[Zero__Kelvin]

"That makes them a patent troll."

No. It does not. A patent troll is a company that buys or applies for patents with no intention of producing anything, that derives its income exclusively or primarily through patent enforcement.

Re:Try to keep up ...

[kencurry]

'gonna help you all out here. Patent trolls buys up patents, and then lay in wait for unsuspecting companies to violate them, then goes after them for cash. They are not inventors, nor do not use the patents to protect their own products. So, is that Apple?

Re:Try to keep up ...

[shentino]

I challenge the contemporary definition of patent troll.

Samsung will be dealing with Apple Senior Counsel.

[MrKaos]

Ben Dover.

It's the 'preserving evidence' sideshow.

[robbak]

He's referring to the side show where Apple claimed that Samsung should have guessed earlier than they did that Apple was going to take them to court, and begun preserving evidence. This is contradicted in that Apple also did not begin preserving evidence until after Samsung did. If Apple did not feel that it might take action, how was Samsung to guess? Crystal ball? Examining sheep's livers?
As I said, a sideshow. Apple backed off as soon as the judge started making noises that Apple should be punished as well.

An ammended quote from Goodfellas

[puddingebola]

For most of the guys, *court cases* got to be accepted. *Suing* was the only way that everybody stayed in line. You got out of line, you got *sued*. Everybody knew the rules. But sometimes, even if people didn't get out of line, they got sued. I mean, hits just became a habit for some of the guys. Guys would get into arguments over nothing and before you knew it, one of them was *bankrupt*. And they were suing each other all the time. Suing people was a normal thing. It was no big deal.

Oddly Enough

[Murdoch5]

Isn't Apple copying Samsung at this point? Samsung is a FULL generation ahead of Apple in software and hardware, so anything Apple comes up with at this point is following Samsung.

Re:Your daily two minutes of hate

[shentino]

You vote with your wallet, I'll vote with mine.

Re:Your daily two minutes of hate

[Plammox]

Which is exactly what I meant with the comment above. Buy the device you would like to own. Stop bitching about what others choose. And that goes for both sides of the fence.

good research to support smaller wage disparity

[Chirs]

There's a fair bit of research showing that well-being is related inversely to the difference in income between the richest and poorest people in a society. The smaller the difference, the better off people are.

707

[jtroy92]

LOL

Sigh

[grenadeh]

You shouldn't be allowed to come back and ask for more money.

Re:Your daily two minutes of hate

[grenadeh]

No one cares what device anyone is using. I care what predatory asshat of a company they support - especially when it comes to Apple because apple fans are the worst people in the entire consumer market. They buy pure crap, pretend its extraordinary, then furiously defend their company as if they know Apple or care or have any input to the company. They buy an ipod or iphone each year, when there is absolutely no improvement or new feature included in any iteration of these toys. I used to do it. I usued to buy an ipod almost once or twice a year. I know better now, and I would never be caught dead buying an apple computer. I lost friends when Steve Jobs died because I didn't pay him the respect he didn't deserve - this is what these people are like.

real$

[morian97]

"A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you're talking real money" /Dickerson?