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Apple Hides Samsung Apology So It Can't Be Seen Without Scrolling
An anonymous reader writes "Apple today posted its second Samsung apology to its UK website, complying with requests by the UK Court of Appeal to say its original apology was inaccurate and link to a new statement. As users on Hacker News and Reddit point out, however, Apple modified its website recently to ensure the message is never displayed without visitors having to scroll down to the bottom first."
The lawyers are probably going to get put in front of the bar for their shite advice to these pricks too.
Banned product, I reckon. And some few billion in compensatory damages to Samsung. It seems the only thing they won't weasel out like a spoilt four-year-old is being slammed down hard financially.
Obviously the courts care since they are the ones that mandated Apple provide this info on their site.
When you've been slapped down for contempt of court, your next action really shouldn't be this kind of open contempt. I wonder how Apple's UK employees feel about this disrespect to their courts?
Apple managers are apparently unaware that sneaky behavior is likely to get a big story on Slashdot.
I wonder exactly how much patience the judges have for this kind of nonsense.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
In English judgment is spelt without the extra e when it refers to a legal judgment given by a judge. I don't know why, it just is. Usually the two spellings can be used interchangeably, but if it is an English legal thing, it never has the extra e.
And before this you did not need to scroll. They are trying to manipulate the situation in a way the judges already warned them about.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Sorry to burst your bubble there, but Samsung is by far the largest smartphone maker in the world and their profits seem to be quite close to Apple's. So no, they're not that far behind.
Kiteo, his eyes closed: AOL buying Time Warner.
The space is occupied by an ad for the iPad mini, with a resolution of 1024x768. Yeah, you're full of shit. You only have a retina resolution on an iPad if it's less than 8 months old, or else it would be 1024x768 as well, so don't go talking about 1920x1080 being obsolete since the year 2000 as if you're making any damned sense.
Apple.com doesn't scale the ipad mini ad like this, it just has a static size. Apple.com/uk does. That much seems suspicious as hell. Now, that said, Apple.com/ca for Canada also does, despite not having legalese.
Viewed from my 1920x1200 monitor, landscape orientation. I first got something with this resolution in 2006 IIRC, maybe 2007. Clearly I'm a damned luddite.
Actually last week I was able to see the footer on both websites without scrolling.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
hah.
Sokath, his eyes uncovered.
If you are in landscape mode, and enable scripting for "apple.com", then the bottom of the webpage will be just below the four images, every time.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
On my 2560x1600 monitor with the browser maximized i have to scroll to see the text. Yup, I would say it is definitely fishy.
Not only that, it appears that they've turned off the normal redirect from apple.com to the UK website and aren't displaying it on the main apple.com website for UK visitors, so it's not actually visible even with scrolling to most of the people it's meant to reach. They're literally begging to be found in contempt.
Probably very little, given how quickly they reacted to Apple ignoring the spirit of the law last week. Frankly, I'm stunned that Apple seriously expected that any kind of special treatment of the message posting wasn't doing to get picked up given the level of tech press interest in the UK - the story has even been on the front page of the BBC news site. I'm guessing we'll have wait a few days to find out whether they are going to get another chance to do the right thing by the spirit of the law, or we're just going to go straight to contempt of court and see some more serious punitive action - like having to put the message in place of that nice picture of the iPad Mini.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Prosser: But the statement was on display.
Arthur Dent: On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar.
Prosser: That's the display department.
There are four links (2x thenextweb, ycombinator, and reddit) in the summary and none of them actually point to the web site or the actual statement. Was this really the best submission for this story?
How about some facts.
First, the UK website has had this responsive layout for weeks. Also, most other country-specific landing pages of Apple use the same layout (for example German, Austrian websites). With the notable exception being the US site.
Second, Apple was laughed at for claiming to need 2 weeks to implement the new statement on their website. While I agree I could fix something like that in 5 minutes, you just don't fiddle around in the CSS of such a website. In addition to drafting a new text, you have to adjust the code and actually test it, which can't be done in a few days. That the court demanded Apple to fix this in 48hrs, just goes to show how much they understand about this.
apple.com/uk vs apple.com on a 1600-px high screen. I had to hit F11 *after* loading apple.com/uk to include the notice in the screen capture.
Pretty sleazy.
This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
If you're going to make a claim like that, you might want to spare thirty seconds to check out the actual web sites.
US Site: No picture scaling
UK Site: Picture scales to hide the bottom of the page. I had to turn my monitor on its side, making it 1920 pixels tall, in order to get the notice to appear.
I really don't understand how some people think they can get away with such obvious lies on the internet. Do they really think that not a single person will bother to check?
Hey, even on my 145inch 8K monitor I have to scroll down... Oh wait, let me turn the magnification down a bit... Ah yes, there we go... Damn! Now where did I put my reading glasses?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
You seem to care how much money this company makes.
Maybe you should just give them more money just by donating them money, since you think having the smallest userbase with the maximum profit is a good thing.
Blackberry at it's peak had twice as much users (50%+), windows is still dominating (75%+), Samsung has always sold more smartphones...
So why do you want each device to be more expensive for no other reason than to make a company rich?
... you do understand that "Market Value" has nothing to do with "largest company", right?
Apple isn't even top 20 in terms of actual value
Apple's profits: $33 Billion Rank: #2
Apple's assets: $138 Billion Rank: #187.
Apple's sales: $127 Billion Rank: #26
Their stock is over-priced and it will return to earth eventually. They probably cannot maintain their profit margin over the next 3-5 years and as soon as the sharks see them miss a few growth estimates, it will be bye bye Apple market value.
I wonder if a creative judge wouldn't have an original redress, like:
On apple.com, and all your international sites, in the languages you already display, you must display the apology in a click-thru manner, such as NO customer to any apple property is unaware that
Dear customers, we've been found before British court to have falsely accused samsung of theft. Moreover we've been found also by the british court, in contempt of court for not informing our british customers of such.
Please click here to continue to your normal apple site.
They obviously value publicity far more than money, and should be hit appropriately.
It's getting harder and harder to defend Apple.
It's 1997, they're near bankruptcy, and St. Steve comes back to save them. They're the underdog, and we cheer for them.
The iMac comes out. OSX comes out. The iBook comes out, with wifi standard, and they start cementing their reputation for avant-garde design paired with avant-garde architecture.
The iPod comes out, and they're clearly on a roll.
Then, the iPhone. Very nice device, miles ahead of everything else, but one niggling problem: the walled garden. Still, that's perfectly defensible: simply a way to preempt any virii, right?
Then they start bricking phones that are jailbroken. WTF, Apple? It's malicious behavior, and can't be explained away by any desire to stop viruses: people who jailbreak aren't Apple's responsibility, they chose that path and Apple should let them walk it.
Then, once Android starts to get really competitive, the suing starts. Sure, some of it may be technically correct - they won a number of their cases, around the world, and phones like the Galaxy S were pretty clearly rip-offs. But Apple wasn't just standing up for its rights, it was competing in the courtrooms instead of the marketplace. They had stopped being the underdog that succeeded through innovation (not invention, innovation - look it up), and started being the establishment that succeeded through inertia and bullying as much as anything else.
And now, they descend even further, and behave petulantly, seeming to agree with the law when it serves their interests and flaunt the law when it doesn't. From a company that advances the state of the art to a company that wants to freeze the state of the art for purely selfish reasons.
its really a good thing that I'm not a UK judge.
I'd have zero problem fining them 10% of their annual UK profits.
10% isn't enough to kill anyone but it surely is enough to sting.
screw with the ruling again and it doubles. each fucking time!
look, apple is toying with the courts and laughing at them.
UK judges: strike back and show them who's boss. please! we're all hoping for a huge slap-down to put them back in line.
spoilt children do need to be taught a lesson. and one that actually hurts so that they remember it.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
In case you missed this:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/6237043/applesucks.png
What now?
Required reading for internet skeptics
THIS, this right here, is why I can't understand why MSFT is blowing billions jumping into the shark tank that is ARM powered mobile devices. Frankly Apple is the ONLY one making reliable money, the rest are caught in a race to the bottom, HTC has had some bad quarters, so has Samsung, the rest are looking ready to lose their shirts. the chips are changing too fast, they have too much stock, and frankly nobody looks at anything but the price...except for Apple.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, even in a downturn Apple will make out like bandits because they are NOT a tech company that makes fashionable devices, they are a fashion company that happens to work in tech. This is actually a GOOD thing for Apple fans, just look at lines around the block and people paying crazy markup for Air Jordans. Fashion seems immune when it comes to downturns for the most part, and even when article after article bitches about their memory prices...they keep right on buying.
So any company trying to jump into that blood soaked shark tank is frankly more than a little insane, and anybody that thinks they'll make iMoney with Android or WinRT are frankly delusional. Mark my words you'll see dual core 7 inch tablets for $50, the prices will drop so low it'll practically be throwaway devices. The only one that will be making consistent profits will be Apple, and this is coming from someone who doesn't even own an iPod.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Will be down in the basement, in the dark, with no stairs, in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'.
It's from the Time Cube website. Ancient trolling.
Keep on knockin'
https://robbiecrash.me
That hides the bottom 310px of the page no matter what screen resolution is used.
Page with javascript
Page without javascript
Apple has no debt. Did you factor that in?
The $33bn number is "old news". Apple made $41bn in their just ended fiscal year. They are still seeing growth in 3 of their 4 main product lines (iPods are understandably seeing negative growth). Their product mix is still high value and high margin. I frankly do not see them taking an axe to their margins for market share. The bottom line is they sell in the high end of the market, where people spend money (App Store revenues are still ahead of Google Market/Google Play revenues), even with a much diminished market share/install base.
THIS, this right here, is why I can't understand why MSFT is blowing billions jumping into the shark tank that is ARM powered mobile devices. Frankly Apple is the ONLY one making reliable money, the rest are caught in a race to the bottom, HTC has had some bad quarters, so has Samsung, the rest are looking ready to lose their shirts. the chips are changing too fast, they have too much stock, and frankly nobody looks at anything but the price...except for Apple.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, even in a downturn Apple will make out like bandits because they are NOT a tech company that makes fashionable devices, they are a fashion company that happens to work in tech. This is actually a GOOD thing for Apple fans, just look at lines around the block and people paying crazy markup for Air Jordans. Fashion seems immune when it comes to downturns for the most part, and even when article after article bitches about their memory prices...they keep right on buying.
So any company trying to jump into that blood soaked shark tank is frankly more than a little insane, and anybody that thinks they'll make iMoney with Android or WinRT are frankly delusional. Mark my words you'll see dual core 7 inch tablets for $50, the prices will drop so low it'll practically be throwaway devices. The only one that will be making consistent profits will be Apple, and this is coming from someone who doesn't even own an iPod.
It isn't necessarily about making money, IMO. It is about creating an ecosystem that allows their existing product to continue to thrive. As more and more people embrace mobile, and as the tablet and the laptop continue to converge, it seems apparent that Microsoft can't just keep on delivering new releases of Windows and Office. Eventually, as Google Apps continue to improve and make headway, as Google releases the Chromebook and such alternatives take root, there is going to be fewer and fewer things that are keeping people in the Microsoft world.
Even if Microsoft's mobile venture doesn't win them huge sums of money, inroads in market share means that the Windows experience is out there as a viable alternative moving forward. Delivering an ecosystem where Windows applications can run on both the desktop and the mobile device means that development for the Windows platform can continue. If enterprises are forced to support Android and/or iOS anyway then there is no reason to build anything that takes advantage of Microsoft unique features. If Microsoft can put forth a unified ecosystem where enterprises can be convinced to target the Windows platform, that is a huge win for the long term viability of Microsoft.
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I have no idea what I had for lunch last Wednesday.
Not everyone has a piss-poor memory.
I know what I had for lunch last Wednesday. Why? Because I don't stumble through life blindly moving from one moment to the next!
Had I checked out Apples page like the parent last week, I would have certainly taken note of both the position and content in the footer due to all the talk about how Apple was likely to bury the link there. Not that it would have been terribly difficult to call to mind the look of a page I'd seen recently!
Still, your argument boils down to "I have a bad memory therefore the parent is lying!" Not too convincing...
Required reading for internet skeptics
They can't keep up for the simple reason that they are riding a bubble, and sooner or later the bubble will pop, as it happens to all bubbles.
Even the judge admitted Apple is free to disagree.
Did Apple post the result of the judgement? Yes. Did Apple state there is no injunction in the EU? Yes.
The problem isn't that Apple included inaccurate information, the problem is that Apple included too much factually accurate information, information that the judge didn't care to be seen.
Nobody has been able to show me what in that statement is not factually accurate. The judge forced Apple to post a factually inaccurate statement in the revised text, the inaccuracy being that the previous text was inaccurate.
My point is that Apple bubbles inflated very fast, far beyond their ability to sustain it, especially considering the increased competition they are having to endure.
Yes, Google's bubble will eventually pop, but it may take a decade or more for it to happen, and Google has a lot of time to create safeguards, which they have actively being doing for some time now.
Apple's bubble, on the other hand is going to burst much sooner and they havent been doing much in order to safeguard themselves against the eventuality.
Fining 10% of profits does not in and of itself cost jobs, as those are profits - therefore, the jobs can still be kept without causing loss to the company. So if Apple decides to fire people just to reinflate profits, I wouldn't exactly blame a court judgement for that.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
UK and Samsung at Tanagra. Their arms closed.
In typesetting if you don't really want most people from reading a specific paragraph it is always best to put that paragraph at the bottom of the page and if possible put it in a sans-serif font while having all other fonts seriffed. Of course it also helps if you put said paragraph in a page with heavy coloured pictures which basically insures it won't be read by all but the most persistent reader. It must be noted in the UK Apple website all fonts are not seriffed however nearly all words are mainly for captions which is a very valid way of using sans-serif fonts (magazines do this all the time).
Don't believe me then go to here and scroll to the bottom, then try to read the paragraph without your eyes wanting to take a holiday.
Congratulations to Apple web designers for using a technique that typesetters knew over a hundred years ago and yes unless the judge is ignorant or does not care about typesetting (in this case web layout) tricks like this then I can see Apple being found in contempt.
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
Ordering the apology be put on their web page was done so that customers would see the apology, it is therefore apparent that the court wanted the apology to be plainly visible. Public apologies are ordered by the courts all the time and screwing around with them even while remaining within the strict letter of the order is blatant contempt of court and is generally treated severely by the courts. Add to that, apple seem to have removed the redirect from the US site to the UK one it becomes more obvious that apples intention here is to go against the spirit of the order by ensuring as few people see it as possible. Apple are playing chicken with the courts, somehow I don't think the courts will swerve first.
I wonder if a creative judge wouldn't have an original redress, like:
On apple.com, and all your international sites, in the languages you already display, you must display the apology in a click-thru manner, such as NO customer to any apple property is unaware that
Dear customers, we've been found before British court to have falsely accused samsung of theft. Moreover we've been found also by the british court, in contempt of court for not informing our british customers of such.
Please click here to continue to your normal apple site.
They obviously value publicity far more than money, and should be hit appropriately.
There's a good argument that the judge wouldn't have the power to order them to change any non-.co.uk sites, as they're not under his jurisdiction.
Apple's more recent success was in creating and filling a market that hadn't previously been properly established and expanded. Full credit to it for its imagination and high standards with regards to usability. Its success has also been to exploit the lackluster performance of Microsoft, which seemed to have become complacent in its market dominance. However Apple plays dirty, and it is worse than Microsoft in its lock-down and lock-in attitude to its systems. That is its weakness, and Google has had some success with Android because of this. Microsoft is the dark horse this time I think because if it can produce a software development platform that straddles the x86 architecture and also ARM, it can kick Apple's arse. Sadly, Linux once again is left a bit in the cold, except in its Android incarnation. I wish the hardware on smartphones and tablets was more open.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
You don't understand. This isnt about Samsung vs Apple. This is about Apple vs the UK.
A judge is god of his courtroom. Just as the saying goes don't fight the police, fight in court. Well the followup to that is don't taunt a judge in his domain.
Feel free to request a review of a judicial order, but you better be starting to comply immediately if you aren't granted a temporary stay on the order pending review.
A judge has the authority to toss your ass in jail if he thinks you show contempt for the court. Unless you are in the US and trying to perform civil disobedience in order to have standing to constitutionally challenge a law, its always bad to piss of a judge.
The judge can also find you in contempt even if you follow the exact letter of the law. That's why they are called judges. We give them the authority to use judgement in applying most laws. They can ruin your day.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
The lawyers are probably going to get put in front of the bar for their shite advice to these pricks too.
You think the lawyers are advising MS to do this. I doubt it. More likely the lawyers are trying to tell Apple not to do this. If Apple keeps it up much longer, no lawyer in the EU is going to want to represent Apple.
So tell me, which jobs would be shed?
Which people are Apple employing unnecessarily, that they could currently shed to gain 10% additional profits, and have decided against shedding, but would shed to regain 10% of their profits?
If those jobs were surplus to the efficient and effective operations of the business, a corporation would already have shed them.
Sorry, I don't trust you at all.
Exactly, PE ratio and debt-equity have nothing to do with growth ratios, and stagnation in growth ratio is what burst bubbles. Share prices can only keep artificially high while there is perspective of growth. As soon as growth stops share prices are soon to follow and companies start to sink.
Apple has an extremely restrict product portfolio, especially compared to Google in the real world (which is not your fantasy world), and Android is far from being a economical failure for Google as you paint, quite the opposite, actually.
But keep to your delusions. Lets see in a few years where Apple and Google stand and then you can come and apologize to me. I will be waiting.
For Apple to post a statement that purports to be from Apple stating that Samsung did not copy would be ridiculous, because it's already won judgments in other jurisdictions that say Samsung did copy.
Apple spread the suggestion that Samsung had infringed on their IP. A court found that Samsung did not infringe. The court has ruled that Apple make it clear that Samsung did not infringe, to correct the damage caused by their initial list.
You may call that juvenile. I consider it to be a reasonable request. Other jurisdictions are utterly irrelevant and the ruling didn't even demand that Apple state that Samsung didn't copy, merely draw attention to the lack of infringement and link to the case.
Let the people know their judges are looking to deceive them.
Please. Tell me how the judges are trying to deceive people. Quote the specific sentence or sentences in the transcript from the court. Because I've read it and the only attempts at deception that I can see come from Apple.
*sigh* You have no idea what you're talking about. For a bubble to exist, the stock must be *OVERVALUED*. Of the two stocks, Google is the one which is MORE overvalued by any measure you care to look at.
Really? Let's compare the two companies, based on the major components of their revenue streams:
Apple: Laptops, desktop computers, peripherals, tablets, phones, music players, set top boxes, music sales, app sales, software sales.
Google: Advertising.
Or did you think Gmail, G+, Youtube, and Chrome were Google's "products"? Those are known as loss leaders, which get people into Google's infrastructure, so Google can rape their privacy and sell the resulting data to their CUSTOMERS, the advertisers.
Android is not far from being an economical failure for Google - it *is* a financial failure. It makes them almost no money directly - Google dumped it into the market in order to prevent from being frozen out of the mobile advertising space. Except it turns out that that mobile advertising space isn't very lucrative, and now Google is struggling to find a way to make money off mobile advertising to replace its declining desktop advertising revenues. This is in their very public SEC filings - I'm not sure why you're trying to claim that I'm making this up - this is GOOGLE saying it.
This doesn't mean Android itself will fail - it won't fail any more than Linux could fail - the problem is, SAMSUNG is making all the profit off of Android, not Google. Which means that when Google eventually crashes and can't afford an Android development team, they'll either try and restrict it to their Motorola division only, leaving Samsung to try maintaining their own forked version, or they'll simply stop development, and all the handset manufacturers can go do their own thing with the latest code drop. It's not making Google money, it was intended to be a loss leader: "you get this awesome phone os to build phones with, and in return... we get all the money from advertising on them!"
In a few years, Apple will still be making strong money off its many devices (do you REALLY think they don't have additional products and features in their pipeline? please), Google will still be struggling to make money off advertising, and Microsoft will have chiseled a sizable (but still minority) share of the smartphone market largely on the backs of Android manufacturers leaving the market since they can't profitably compete with Samsung. At that point, I'll gladly welcome your concession that I was right, though i won't hold you to it - I know how hard it is for you without the constant pacifying effect of Google's dick in your mouth.
Since when are judges supposed to care about numbers of jobs? They're law-interpreting machines, not economic strategists. That's for the politicians to worry about.
Looks to me like Apple is complying and the Court of Appeal isn't too fussed in general.
Ha ha, you Apple apologists really break me up. Here's what really happened.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
More importantly Samsung has diversity. Their top end Galaxy S3 has recently passed the 30 million sales mark, but they also do a large number of other phones and tablet devices. They also manufacture many of the components, including the CPUs and screens. Samsung has valuable patents on key phone related tech.
Apple has the iPhone and iPad. If they ever go out of fashion Apple is screwed.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
JAGga.me ----> Producing video games addressing emotional health and wellness issues affecting teens.