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Apple Tweaks iOS Animation In China In Attempt To Avoid Sales Ban (theverge.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the software-fixes dept.

Apple released a tiny update to iOS this week designed to avoid a sales ban in China. iOS version 12.1.2 contains software changes exclusive to China that are designed to circumvent Apple's patent dispute with Qualcomm, which won an initial sales ban over claims that Apple violated a pair of its patents. The Verge reports: The update changes the animation for when an app is forced to close, according to MacRumors, seemingly avoiding a Qualcomm patent around app management. Previously a closed app would slide off the top of the screen, but it now shrinks and disappears into the middle of the screen. Last month, Qualcomm won a court injunction that banned Apple from selling iPhone models including the 6S, 6S Plus, 7, 7 Plus, 8, 8 Plus, and X. iOS 12.1.2 The patents related to how software resizes pictures and manages applications. This fix appears to change application management, but it's currently unclear what, if anything, has changed about the process of resizing pictures.

21 of 47 comments (clear)

  1. Surreal by coastwalker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If this constitutes a valuable piece of intellectual property which deserves the protection of patent law then I suspect evolution has run its course and humanity is about to become extinct. Either that or the next populist dictator could do worse than round up the entirity of the "tech" world and execute them posthaste.

    --
    Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
    1. Re:Surreal by AbRASiON · · Score: 2

      > "humanity is about to become extinct"

      This is actually, very very likely in the next 300 years.

    2. Re:Surreal by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      It's extremely ironic that this happened to Apple, who previously enforced patents on bouncing when reaching the end of a scrolling list, on rounded corners and on a lack of adornments.

      I'm surprised no-one bothered to patent the notification shade. When Apple ripped that off from Android I expected a lawsuit, but it seems that no-one is claiming to have invented it and unlike all this other nonsense it's an actually useful and slightly original UI element.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  2. Re:Holy crap that is what this is about by Desler · · Score: 1

    Qualcomm was the one filing suit not Apple.

  3. A trivial animation is patentable? by chromaexcursion · · Score: 1

    How is a stupid animation new or novel.
    What in the world made this patentible.
    Oh! I know. Over worked patent examiners who let anything through with a big enough pile of paper.
    BULL$#1T

    1. Re:A trivial animation is patentable? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      This has absolutely zero to do with overworked examiners, because it's less work to read part of a patent application and deny it than to read the whole thing and Grant it. It's because the patent office gets more money when they Grant than when they deny.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  4. Back dat up by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

    I first read the headline as "Apple Twerks...".

    I think I may have been spending too much time browsing Instagram.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  5. rounded corners by SimonInOz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I seem to recall similar totally ridiculous patents. Didn't Apple sue Samsung at great length about, what was it, bouncing when you couldn't scroll any more? Or was it rounded corners? This sounds like payback.

    Really, this patent issue is well and truly out of hand.

    Can I patent the wheel, please? How about a box?

    --
    "Cats like plain crisps"
    1. Re:rounded corners by Solandri · · Score: 1

      It's not the slightest bit novel. It's the behavior of an underdamped second order system. Literally every engineering student learns it in their first or second year. We all know it. Newton and Leibniz figured it out when they invented Calculus and differential equations.

      Unfortunately some dweeb patent examiner who probably slept through the lecture didn't know it, and granted the patent. I rate the patent about as bad as the stupid XOR patent. Both literally handed a company a patent on a fundamental mathematical concept which had been known for centuries.

    2. Re:rounded corners by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Can I patent the wheel, please? How about a box?

      Didn't someone in Australia manage to get a patent on the wheel? Ah yes...

      https://yro.slashdot.org/story...

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    3. Re:rounded corners by ilsaloving · · Score: 1

      Except it wasn't a ridiculous patent. It was industrial design, and Samsung *did* blatantly copy it in an effort to make a phone that was a near identical iphone clone. It was more akin to copyright than patent.

      You can't patent industrial design. Or at least, you're not supposed to be able to.

  6. Oh, now we're patenting screen transitions by GrumpySteen · · Score: 4, Funny

    Not that these transitions have been used in movies since the 1930s or anything.

    But they're on a phone now, so that makes it totally fucking original.

    1. Re:Oh, now we're patenting screen transitions by grep+-v+'.*'+* · · Score: 1

      Not that these transitions have been used in movies since the 1930s or anything. But they're on a phone now, so that makes it totally fucking original.

      Movies are up on that big screen. A phone is in your hand. That's COMPLETELY different -- stupid.

      (Walking off...) Gaaa, why do you guys keep trying to interfere with my money stream?

      --
      If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
    2. Re:Oh, now we're patenting screen transitions by Waccoon · · Score: 1

      Exit stage left.

      I mean, up

  7. Re: Holy crap that is what this is about by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Their second attempt violates the looney toons ending sequence, probably a copyright violation vs patent

  8. You know by nehumanuscrede · · Score: 1

    Unless someone comes to their senses about all this patent, copyright, Intellectual Property insanity, there will come a time in the future where you won't be able to create anything new because there will already be a bazillion hazy, wide-reaching and / or totally bullshit patents ( and patent trolls ) standing by to cash in on your work.

    You'll end up having to pay off so many people it won't even be worth the effort to bring your idea to market.

    Seriously ? A patent on an window close animation ?

    THIS is what Qualcomm is whining about ?

    1. Re:You know by Known+Nutter · · Score: 1

      You should patent the method of placing unnecessary spaces between sentence characters and punctuation marks!

      --
      Beware of the Leopard.
  9. Qualcomm doesn't make or sell phones or os's... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    But is suing those who do. Specifically apple because of their disagreement over royalties isn't it?

  10. Re:Holy crap that is what this is about by Desler · · Score: 1

    Hurr hurr hurr.

  11. Re:Holy crap that is what this is about by cheekyboy · · Score: 1

    Still there is an engineer that had to draft the spec
    and document it, and write the code.

    Hey dude, your a dumb ass, this is not innovation, but easy shit any coder could do even in the 80s.

    What a prick of an engineer to think he can claim this patent, who is it, hes gotta be a be a dick head wanker.

    --
    Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
  12. Re:Holy crap that is what this is about by gnasher719 · · Score: 1

    Hey dude, your a dumb ass, this is not innovation, but easy shit any coder could do even in the 80s.

    This is a misunderstanding. There is no patent on the code. There is a patent on the action. And there are many things that get patented that _could_ have been done in the 80s, but nobody came up with the idea of doing it.

    Of course it is Qualcomm's bad luck that today, with developers used to lots of graphics effects, any decent developer can on the spot replace this apparently patented animation with one that isn't patented out of the million possible animations. Or at least not patented by Qualcomm.