There is still a pretty big server market. I suspect power users will go back to buying "server" class hardware, workstations. I.E. a workstation with a few changes (like a better video card) reconfigured for power users. Its hard to imagine the market not being big enough to support the server -> workstation conversion market even if there were only a few million power user workstations sold per year.
They aren't really aimed at the sub $500 market. I'm a bit surprised Microsoft would let one in the program. The goal is more like $800+. And no question you can cheaper off the signature plan. OEMs get ~ $75 for filling your PC with crapware and they pass those savings on.
Apple is a little harder than that. I'm not trying to say it is as easy as Linux. Your original claim was that it was impossible not that it was easy but that Linux was even easier.
You can create your own Apple repository with a developer SDK. You can service up to 99 friends with it. If you want to service thousands or millions the enterprise SDK which is $300 / yr. Which is a trivial amount of money (if you are the sort of person that owns lots of Apple gear).
Yes Linux is easier, but no Apple's barriers are not very high.
There were people who had the technology that didn't think of it.
That means it isn't obvious. And yes that's all it takes.
Your flaw with the going back infinitely in time is there may be dependency that prevented an idea from emerging. Swipe to unlock a touchscreen requires touchscreens. If swipe to unlock had emerged contemporaneously with touch-screens or everyone building touch-screens had thought of swipe to unlock and rejected it Samsung would be fine.
Well yes. The point is it is inaccurate to say those sorts of things aren't possible. They are possible they are just turned off by default. What sort of end user knows enough to understand the dangers of software interactions? Apple is experimenting in trying to figure out how to get security and convenience to work well together. They haven't found the magic formula but they are getting closer.
Linux end users are vastly more sophisticated than iOS users, much more on par with developers.
No they are partnering with some of the OEMs. They are desperately trying to get OEMs to understand that the reason people are willing to pay so much more for Apple is the all around better experience. Vizio one OEMs have moved to an all Signature (like http://www.vizio.com/computing/ ).
Take a look at this thread where the message is PCs are dead because what people have is good enough. Now think about Windows 8 and more importantly Windows 9. Think about those laptops: capacitive touchscreen, a hinge to flip the laptop from touch to keyboard mode, a good trackpad, ultra thin, retina, high end battery, SSD.
People don't have Windows 8/9 machines. When you wonder why. People are voting with the dollars that they don't want desktops.
Can't install 3rd party packages -- Of course they can. They use iTunes and get a provisioning file Can't install 3rd party non-packages. -- That requires a compile and so requires the SDK but yes. 3rd parties can't integrate with the package manager directly -- Sure they can. You can point to any 3rd party you want. That how the entire suite of iPhone MDM works. Developers and power users can't provide their own bleeding edge repositories. -- Yes they can. Enterprise SDK. University SDK.
Well, I do appreciate a cited source, but macroeconomic models are far from "scientific proof".
True, but the claim you were questioning was about my figure for a "multiplier". That's a macroeconomic term. I think we can discuss macroeconomics but if you just are skeptical of macroeconomics entirely than such claims become vacuously true.
In addition, unknown externalities (such as the impending "fiscal cliff" debt hole, made worse by stimulus spending)
Macro-economics doesn't believe a debt in a currency we are sovereign in constitutes a cliff. Anymore than if owed someone $1m to be payable in 3x5 cards with an amount and my signature on them would be a personal debt cliff. There cannot be a debt cliff in dollars. Further interests rates are like 3% even the markets don't believe in a debt cliff.
I have no idea where you're getting your numbers from. A 200k house in a 30 year amortization at 1% is a monthly payment of ~$650
I didn't say amortized. This was an interest only loan. 30 year repayment is going to over 3% in principle every year, of course the payment is higher.
We tried that with the housing credit (which effectively became a house downpayment) -- it didn't exactly stimulate much, at least not in the long term.
We didn't try it. The US housing stock is in the trillions an injection would have been much larger and hit far more homes. The fact that a glass of water doesn't put out a house fire doesn't mean water isn't the right solution.
As well, I'm not at all convinced about things being better even in the end. Sure, I'm not saying that every single line and dot in traditional UI is there for a reason, but a great deal of them actually are, and that includes most basic stuff. In the end, for many things, there really is the single most convenient way to do them given our senses, our appendages, our way of thinking, and hardware capabilities at any given point of time
Here I just disagree. Whether it be desktop or phone I think the counter examples are simply too great. Your dismissal of Symbian is a good example. This year Symbian is going to sell about 65m phones. That's far from dead. For most of iOS's life Symbian smartphones far outsold iOS. Its just nonsense to say that alternative GUIs aren't viable because Symbian collapsed. Symbian collapsed as a result of iOS and Android exploding in sales and destroying the market for any other system.
As for BBOS similarly. For almost a decade this was the premium smartphone OS. If tens of millions of people who could spend as much as they want on an OS bought these OSes I see no reason to consider them non viable in the sense they wouldn't work. They are non viable commercial at this point because without anti trust capitalist market often move towards consolidation, just as they did under Windows. I don't want to see another Windows. It appears you don't want to see another Windows if it is iOS but are fine if it is Android.
As for the rest of your argument there is a contradiction. Your argument is that there is only one way to do things. When presented with counter evidence that lots of GUIs do things a different way your retort is that these systems even though they thrived for years and have rave reviews aren't viable because the Android/iOS way to do things is the only way. But this isn't copying from iOS because Android is totally different, except that it has to use the same gestures and the same interface elements to accomplish the same goals. But other than having the same controls, looking the same and doing the same stuff, its totally different. But laws requiring it to be different are horrible because there is only one way to do things.
The fact is these other GUIs prove there are different paradigms. Jolla will create a MeeGo which can run Android apps. BB10 can run Android. So even the app argument falls apart.
If you believe that all other phone OSes were unusable and that in 2007 Apple invented a one of a kind unique OS which advanced the state of the art so far that everything that came before it is essentially worthless than they are fully entitled to a boatload of cash and deserve a monopoly. You simply are not entitled to use Apple's design ideas without them getting paid. Heck I'd like to live in my house without having to pay my mortgage, so what? The previous owners are entitled to the money that the mortgage funds. You are no more entitled to iOS on generic hardware than OSX on generic hardware.
I conversely think they had a couple good ideas and that's it, I also think they had a bunch of bad ideas I hate. I think MeeGo is a vastly superior operating system that didn't win. Just like OS/2 was way better than Windows, and didn't win. I certainly don't believe that because Windows won OS/2's interface differences like Workplace shell were non viable.
They aren't easy to license if Apple refuses to license them (which it can)
They can but they haven't. They've offered to license. As far as dialing a number I can think 100 gestures -- like "D" (for dial, similar to the Dolphin GUI) which would work. -- swipe over the number -- circle the number -- Hold a finger over the number to select and a 2nd finger press pulls up a menu with dial as an option
etc...
What you're basically saying is that you believe in rapid UI evolution by forcing people to deal with inconvenient experimental UI because they are
Neither the USA nor China would object to this setup. The issue is how much they would be willing to help the effort. There is no question they have no interest in harming the effort.
They can't sue MeeGo now. It is not just an if. They have blocked themselves. Jolla is working on getting MeeGo to run Android applications and that should be done soon. There is an Android UI.
It isn't a question of contribute. This is like defense spending and the US. The US wants way more NATO defense than Europe and so after failing to get Europe to contribute the US just does it themselves.
Europe has tried for a global agreement and failed.
Consider this case: would you believe Apple should be able to patent to the iOS interface styling, if the iOS interface could have the parameters of those elements altered to taste by the user? For example if you could adjust the springiness of the menu scrolling, or the rounding applied to the buttons, or turn change the speed of the slide transitions between windows?
That's a great question. So lets assume we have a generic OS that has these settings say a list of 200 hundred numbers. Then company X comes along with a collection of settings which people really like, values for these 200 hundred numbers. Yes I think X is entitled to patent protection for their collection of settings. Not for each one obviously but the way they work together. For example figuring out that a 3-to-2 ratio between setting 136 and setting 14 leads to y which helps with z. Yes they should be able to protect that.
Note the original iPhone designs were very rounded, but the newer models have started to square things off again. That's part of a larger trend back towards soft but precise lines in UI design, because people are getting sick of "rounded everything".
You have seen the icons. This was no a generic user preference issue but rather a specific act of copying. And further if this was based on independent knowledge of user preferences Samsung could have shown that documentation. They never determined the user preferences themselves. Even if it was fashion, Apple was the one that figured out that people like rounded rectangles.
They are suing stock Android today, and it is very much different from iOS
But those suits have been about specific technology like single tap on a phone number to dial. They are easy to license of fix.
about the only common thing I can think of is the "grid of icons" model
If you google you can find lists of hundreds of gestures in common.
Looking at the likes of Gnome 3, I can see far more ways of it going bad than it going well.
Honestly that's a good example. Gnome 3 plus extensions is getting to be a truly amazing exploration of a new paradigm for desktops. Take a look at Gnome 3 in Cinnamon. It took some time but it is now working well. Gnome 3 with extensions is becoming pretty amazing.
a) Because of Unity far too many people are responding to two different things they hate. b) It was released too early. c) Power users are tremendously conservative when it comes to interfaces d) Gnome 3's market was different from Gnome 2's.. e) The war with Canonical hurt their propaganda
etc.... But yes something like Gnome 3 is exactly what I'm talking about. For example Gnome3's virtual desktop model is a more advanced version of OSX's (since lion) Mission Control. And that's potentially a huge upgrade from a more classic system like spaces. But if I were using a mouse and not a high end trackpad it would be a downgrade. I think a lot of the blowback in both this case and Windows 8 comes from the fact that neither Microsoft nor Gnome can directly control the hardware nor do they have a cultural expectation of "do it our way" like Apple. They have cultures that emphasize choice.
So I'd say yes, I think something like Gnome3 was likely in the hypothetical but I suspect you and I have different ideas about Gnome3. I consider Gnome3 to be way more advanced than something like WindowsXP and a huge huge upgrade. Gnome3 with extensions might be the best desktop GUI around, like OSX but with less compromise to aid people through the transition.
Either way, things like double tap should not be patentable, period - or if they are, they should be considered FRAND patents too, in accordance with "form follows function".
Double tap isn't patentable. Double tap to do something specific like "double tap zoom" would be and then generally only a specific mechanism. So implement a different mechanism. Heck, use MeeGo's GUI. These things are easy enough to skirt just don't use Apple's approach to anything. Make a list of behaviors and figure out a way not to match Apple's as much as possible. For doesn't follow function. There is no reason that double tap zooms to fit, why not triple tap? For that matter why not have browsers that are less graphical and more contract extracting that start out with a fit and double tap switches between graphical and text mode?
As for FRAND. FRAND would only imply if there were a regulatory body or if Apple were essentially a monopoly.. If Samsung, HTC, RIM, Nokia... said they couldn't compete that iOS was simply too far ahead... then I could see FRAND. I don't see it in today's world. Samsung did a lot of copying. The rest of Android has relatively minor problems those might be solved by cross licensing.
Like I said, they're similar in the same way OS X and Windows are similar - both have icons that can be double-clicked
Yes I'd say that's an area that Microsoft copied Apple. You shouldn't be "double clicking" on Windows. Microsoft should have had to come up with their own paradigms and we could be seeing the diversity in GUIs we are having today 25 years ago. There is no good reason that Windows had to be a bad version of OS3.
As I said above, Microsoft should have used a different style of mouse and thus no "double click". Rather something like a 1-click to move an icon and a 2-click to launch it. With 16 combinations its unlikely they need to invent the "double click" as a common action, rather it does something obscure like doubl
I understand. But the GP's point was not that Apple wasn't original but rather that slide to unlock wasn't really a worthwhile non obvious idea at all. The UK and Netherlands rulings don't address that point.
Apple's words are very strategic, don't be fooled by superficial decency. If Nokia were their main competition they'd be suing the pants off them too.
It's not superficial. These are now sworn statement from Apple entered into court documents. Another company using these designs would have one heck of a good defense. I agree with your description. And let me point out I think MeeGo as an OS interface is also more original and possibly better than iOS. Now that Jolla is going to produce a MeeGo which can run Android apps... that could be a very exciting option for Samsung, et al.
Yes I can't see an issue with that. Sometimes its easier to do something yourself than ask others to participate. CO2 is one of those issues. Europe should just take control and do it.
Yes they can afford it. The OEM's can't really go anywhere.
That being said I'm nor sure if Surface exists as a reference implementation or as a product or as a serious push. I know Microsoft is getting frustrated with their OEM's selling crap and they are pushing for a better experience ( example: http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/html/pbPage.MicrosoftSignature ). But... there is a huge difference between Microsoft bitching about OEMs and be willing to lose the bottom 3rd of the market.
I think Microsoft is willing to push up the price point I think Surface is a reference implementation not a serious product (i.e. I'm not expecting them to sell a lot).
sufficiently "like" OS X today - among others, Windows and some Linux DEs.
If you consider Windows "like" OSX then I wouldn't worry. Phone OSes will be like each other as much as OSX is like Windows. What Apple is trying to stop is a much higher degree of similarity.
And I can't help but think just how fucked up things would have been by now if Apple has successfully pursued that look and feel case against Microsoft over Windows back in the day.
It was a different case because Windows 1.0 was licensed. Same as Microsoft licensed a whole bunch of OSX technologies today. Microsoft never questioned if double click was patentable they just proved that things like that were not both patentable by Apple in a way enforceable against Microsoft.
That being said, assume Apple had won. Well then Microsoft likely abandons the mouse and pointer paradigm. From there there are lots of options. We know Bill Gates was huge on tablet so perhaps they move over to the stylus / touchscreen approach early. For Windows the tablet technology is part of the GUI from the earliest days and Microsoft is much stronger in laptops since Windows is a tablet technology with things like http://www.wacom.com/en/products/cintiq.aspx being used for the desktops. I can see lots of ways that isn't so bad.
Or they never use things like double clicking but instead have multi button mice much earlier. So Windows is dominated by say 4 buttons usable in combination (16 combinations of types of clicks) while Apple has a simple one button approach. Apple stays strong in education and ends up as a children't computer while Microsoft dominates the adult market.
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There is still a pretty big server market. I suspect power users will go back to buying "server" class hardware, workstations. I.E. a workstation with a few changes (like a better video card) reconfigured for power users. Its hard to imagine the market not being big enough to support the server -> workstation conversion market even if there were only a few million power user workstations sold per year.
They aren't really aimed at the sub $500 market. I'm a bit surprised Microsoft would let one in the program. The goal is more like $800+. And no question you can cheaper off the signature plan. OEMs get ~ $75 for filling your PC with crapware and they pass those savings on.
Apple is a little harder than that. I'm not trying to say it is as easy as Linux. Your original claim was that it was impossible not that it was easy but that Linux was even easier.
You can create your own Apple repository with a developer SDK. You can service up to 99 friends with it. If you want to service thousands or millions the enterprise SDK which is $300 / yr. Which is a trivial amount of money (if you are the sort of person that owns lots of Apple gear).
Yes Linux is easier, but no Apple's barriers are not very high.
There were people who had the technology that didn't think of it.
That means it isn't obvious. And yes that's all it takes.
Your flaw with the going back infinitely in time is there may be dependency that prevented an idea from emerging. Swipe to unlock a touchscreen requires touchscreens. If swipe to unlock had emerged contemporaneously with touch-screens or everyone building touch-screens had thought of swipe to unlock and rejected it Samsung would be fine.
Well yes. The point is it is inaccurate to say those sorts of things aren't possible. They are possible they are just turned off by default. What sort of end user knows enough to understand the dangers of software interactions? Apple is experimenting in trying to figure out how to get security and convenience to work well together. They haven't found the magic formula but they are getting closer.
Linux end users are vastly more sophisticated than iOS users, much more on par with developers.
No they are partnering with some of the OEMs. They are desperately trying to get OEMs to understand that the reason people are willing to pay so much more for Apple is the all around better experience. Vizio one OEMs have moved to an all Signature (like http://www.vizio.com/computing/ ).
Take a look at this thread where the message is PCs are dead because what people have is good enough. Now think about Windows 8 and more importantly Windows 9. Think about those laptops: capacitive touchscreen, a hinge to flip the laptop from touch to keyboard mode, a good trackpad, ultra thin, retina, high end battery, SSD.
People don't have Windows 8/9 machines. When you wonder why. People are voting with the dollars that they don't want desktops.
Yes they can.
Can't install 3rd party packages -- Of course they can. They use iTunes and get a provisioning file
Can't install 3rd party non-packages. -- That requires a compile and so requires the SDK but yes.
3rd parties can't integrate with the package manager directly -- Sure they can. You can point to any 3rd party you want. That how the entire suite of iPhone MDM works.
Developers and power users can't provide their own bleeding edge repositories. -- Yes they can. Enterprise SDK. University SDK.
Microsoft has a program for no crapware where they also tune the OS called Micosoft signature: http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/html/pbPage.MicrosoftSignature
Dell developed a lot of the techniques of manufacturing customization. They built lasting stuff.
Well, I do appreciate a cited source, but macroeconomic models are far from "scientific proof".
True, but the claim you were questioning was about my figure for a "multiplier". That's a macroeconomic term. I think we can discuss macroeconomics but if you just are skeptical of macroeconomics entirely than such claims become vacuously true.
In addition, unknown externalities (such as the impending "fiscal cliff" debt hole, made worse by stimulus spending)
Macro-economics doesn't believe a debt in a currency we are sovereign in constitutes a cliff. Anymore than if owed someone $1m to be payable in 3x5 cards with an amount and my signature on them would be a personal debt cliff. There cannot be a debt cliff in dollars. Further interests rates are like 3% even the markets don't believe in a debt cliff.
I have no idea where you're getting your numbers from. A 200k house in a 30 year amortization at 1% is a monthly payment of ~$650
I didn't say amortized. This was an interest only loan. 30 year repayment is going to over 3% in principle every year, of course the payment is higher.
We tried that with the housing credit (which effectively became a house downpayment) -- it didn't exactly stimulate much, at least not in the long term.
We didn't try it. The US housing stock is in the trillions an injection would have been much larger and hit far more homes. The fact that a glass of water doesn't put out a house fire doesn't mean water isn't the right solution.
I think this is the fundamental disagreement:
As well, I'm not at all convinced about things being better even in the end. Sure, I'm not saying that every single line and dot in traditional UI is there for a reason, but a great deal of them actually are, and that includes most basic stuff. In the end, for many things, there really is the single most convenient way to do them given our senses, our appendages, our way of thinking, and hardware capabilities at any given point of time
Here I just disagree. Whether it be desktop or phone I think the counter examples are simply too great. Your dismissal of Symbian is a good example. This year Symbian is going to sell about 65m phones. That's far from dead. For most of iOS's life Symbian smartphones far outsold iOS. Its just nonsense to say that alternative GUIs aren't viable because Symbian collapsed. Symbian collapsed as a result of iOS and Android exploding in sales and destroying the market for any other system.
As for BBOS similarly. For almost a decade this was the premium smartphone OS. If tens of millions of people who could spend as much as they want on an OS bought these OSes I see no reason to consider them non viable in the sense they wouldn't work. They are non viable commercial at this point because without anti trust capitalist market often move towards consolidation, just as they did under Windows. I don't want to see another Windows. It appears you don't want to see another Windows if it is iOS but are fine if it is Android.
As for the rest of your argument there is a contradiction. Your argument is that there is only one way to do things. When presented with counter evidence that lots of GUIs do things a different way your retort is that these systems even though they thrived for years and have rave reviews aren't viable because the Android/iOS way to do things is the only way. But this isn't copying from iOS because Android is totally different, except that it has to use the same gestures and the same interface elements to accomplish the same goals. But other than having the same controls, looking the same and doing the same stuff, its totally different. But laws requiring it to be different are horrible because there is only one way to do things.
The fact is these other GUIs prove there are different paradigms. Jolla will create a MeeGo which can run Android apps. BB10 can run Android. So even the app argument falls apart.
If you believe that all other phone OSes were unusable and that in 2007 Apple invented a one of a kind unique OS which advanced the state of the art so far that everything that came before it is essentially worthless than they are fully entitled to a boatload of cash and deserve a monopoly. You simply are not entitled to use Apple's design ideas without them getting paid. Heck I'd like to live in my house without having to pay my mortgage, so what? The previous owners are entitled to the money that the mortgage funds. You are no more entitled to iOS on generic hardware than OSX on generic hardware.
I conversely think they had a couple good ideas and that's it, I also think they had a bunch of bad ideas I hate. I think MeeGo is a vastly superior operating system that didn't win. Just like OS/2 was way better than Windows, and didn't win. I certainly don't believe that because Windows won OS/2's interface differences like Workplace shell were non viable.
They aren't easy to license if Apple refuses to license them (which it can)
They can but they haven't. They've offered to license. As far as dialing a number I can think 100 gestures
-- like "D" (for dial, similar to the Dolphin GUI) which would work.
-- swipe over the number
-- circle the number
-- Hold a finger over the number to select and a 2nd finger press pulls up a menu with dial as an option
etc...
What you're basically saying is that you believe in rapid UI evolution by forcing people to deal with inconvenient experimental UI because they are
Neither the USA nor China would object to this setup. The issue is how much they would be willing to help the effort. There is no question they have no interest in harming the effort.
They can't sue MeeGo now. It is not just an if. They have blocked themselves. Jolla is working on getting MeeGo to run Android applications and that should be done soon. There is an Android UI.
It isn't a question of contribute. This is like defense spending and the US. The US wants way more NATO defense than Europe and so after failing to get Europe to contribute the US just does it themselves.
Europe has tried for a global agreement and failed.
Consider this case: would you believe Apple should be able to patent to the iOS interface styling, if the iOS interface could have the parameters of those elements altered to taste by the user? For example if you could adjust the springiness of the menu scrolling, or the rounding applied to the buttons, or turn change the speed of the slide transitions between windows?
That's a great question. So lets assume we have a generic OS that has these settings say a list of 200 hundred numbers.
Then company X comes along with a collection of settings which people really like, values for these 200 hundred numbers. Yes I think X is entitled to patent protection for their collection of settings. Not for each one obviously but the way they work together. For example figuring out that a 3-to-2 ratio between setting 136 and setting 14 leads to y which helps with z. Yes they should be able to protect that.
Note the original iPhone designs were very rounded, but the newer models have started to square things off again. That's part of a larger trend back towards soft but precise lines in UI design, because people are getting sick of "rounded everything".
You have seen the icons. This was no a generic user preference issue but rather a specific act of copying. And further if this was based on independent knowledge of user preferences Samsung could have shown that documentation. They never determined the user preferences themselves. Even if it was fashion, Apple was the one that figured out that people like rounded rectangles.
They are suing stock Android today, and it is very much different from iOS
But those suits have been about specific technology like single tap on a phone number to dial. They are easy to license of fix.
about the only common thing I can think of is the "grid of icons" model
If you google you can find lists of hundreds of gestures in common.
Looking at the likes of Gnome 3, I can see far more ways of it going bad than it going well.
Honestly that's a good example. Gnome 3 plus extensions is getting to be a truly amazing exploration of a new paradigm for desktops. Take a look at Gnome 3 in Cinnamon. It took some time but it is now working well. Gnome 3 with extensions is becoming pretty amazing.
a) Because of Unity far too many people are responding to two different things they hate.
b) It was released too early.
c) Power users are tremendously conservative when it comes to interfaces
d) Gnome 3's market was different from Gnome 2's..
e) The war with Canonical hurt their propaganda
etc.... But yes something like Gnome 3 is exactly what I'm talking about. For example Gnome3's virtual desktop model is a more advanced version of OSX's (since lion) Mission Control. And that's potentially a huge upgrade from a more classic system like spaces. But if I were using a mouse and not a high end trackpad it would be a downgrade. I think a lot of the blowback in both this case and Windows 8 comes from the fact that neither Microsoft nor Gnome can directly control the hardware nor do they have a cultural expectation of "do it our way" like Apple. They have cultures that emphasize choice.
So I'd say yes, I think something like Gnome3 was likely in the hypothetical but I suspect you and I have different ideas about Gnome3. I consider Gnome3 to be way more advanced than something like WindowsXP and a huge huge upgrade. Gnome3 with extensions might be the best desktop GUI around, like OSX but with less compromise to aid people through the transition.
Either way, things like double tap should not be patentable, period - or if they are, they should be considered FRAND patents too, in accordance with "form follows function".
Double tap isn't patentable. Double tap to do something specific like "double tap zoom" would be and then generally only a specific mechanism. So implement a different mechanism. Heck, use MeeGo's GUI. These things are easy enough to skirt just don't use Apple's approach to anything. Make a list of behaviors and figure out a way not to match Apple's as much as possible. For doesn't follow function. There is no reason that double tap zooms to fit, why not triple tap? For that matter why not have browsers that are less graphical and more contract extracting that start out with a fit and double tap switches between graphical and text mode?
As for FRAND. FRAND would only imply if there were a regulatory body or if Apple were essentially a monopoly.. If Samsung, HTC, RIM, Nokia... said they couldn't compete that iOS was simply too far ahead... then I could see FRAND. I don't see it in today's world. Samsung did a lot of copying. The rest of Android has relatively minor problems those might be solved by cross licensing.
Like I said, they're similar in the same way OS X and Windows are similar - both have icons that can be double-clicked
Yes I'd say that's an area that Microsoft copied Apple. You shouldn't be "double clicking" on Windows. Microsoft should have had to come up with their own paradigms and we could be seeing the diversity in GUIs we are having today 25 years ago. There is no good reason that Windows had to be a bad version of OS3.
As I said above, Microsoft should have used a different style of mouse and thus no "double click". Rather something like a 1-click to move an icon and a 2-click to launch it. With 16 combinations its unlikely they need to invent the "double click" as a common action, rather it does something obscure like doubl
I understand. But the GP's point was not that Apple wasn't original but rather that slide to unlock wasn't really a worthwhile non obvious idea at all. The UK and Netherlands rulings don't address that point.
Understood but that was button press + slide to unlock. Regardless the point as far as GP was that it was invention.
Apple's words are very strategic, don't be fooled by superficial decency. If Nokia were their main competition they'd be suing the pants off them too.
It's not superficial. These are now sworn statement from Apple entered into court documents. Another company using these designs would have one heck of a good defense. I agree with your description. And let me point out I think MeeGo as an OS interface is also more original and possibly better than iOS. Now that Jolla is going to produce a MeeGo which can run Android apps... that could be a very exciting option for Samsung, et al.
Yes I can't see an issue with that. Sometimes its easier to do something yourself than ask others to participate. CO2 is one of those issues. Europe should just take control and do it.
Yes they can afford it. The OEM's can't really go anywhere.
That being said I'm nor sure if Surface exists as a reference implementation or as a product or as a serious push. I know Microsoft is getting frustrated with their OEM's selling crap and they are pushing for a better experience ( example: http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/html/pbPage.MicrosoftSignature ). But... there is a huge difference between Microsoft bitching about OEMs and be willing to lose the bottom 3rd of the market.
I think Microsoft is willing to push up the price point
I think Surface is a reference implementation not a serious product (i.e. I'm not expecting them to sell a lot).
But I also know I'm guessing.
There is no reason Europe couldn't just do this themselves. I don't see why the US or China need to be involved at all.
I'm not sure you meant to reply to me?
sufficiently "like" OS X today - among others, Windows and some Linux DEs.
If you consider Windows "like" OSX then I wouldn't worry. Phone OSes will be like each other as much as OSX is like Windows. What Apple is trying to stop is a much higher degree of similarity.
And I can't help but think just how fucked up things would have been by now if Apple has successfully pursued that look and feel case against Microsoft over Windows back in the day.
It was a different case because Windows 1.0 was licensed. Same as Microsoft licensed a whole bunch of OSX technologies today. Microsoft never questioned if double click was patentable they just proved that things like that were not both patentable by Apple in a way enforceable against Microsoft.
That being said, assume Apple had won. Well then Microsoft likely abandons the mouse and pointer paradigm. From there there are lots of options. We know Bill Gates was huge on tablet so perhaps they move over to the stylus / touchscreen approach early. For Windows the tablet technology is part of the GUI from the earliest days and Microsoft is much stronger in laptops since Windows is a tablet technology with things like http://www.wacom.com/en/products/cintiq.aspx being used for the desktops. I can see lots of ways that isn't so bad.
Or they never use things like double clicking but instead have multi button mice much earlier. So Windows is dominated by say 4 buttons usable in combination (16 combinations of types of clicks) while Apple has a simple one button approach. Apple stays strong in education and ends up as a children't computer while Microsoft dominates the adult market.
I just don't see the problem.