When you buy a phone, you don't have to sign any contract about the hardware.
all you have to do is remove every last trace of apple software and then you can install anything you want (Oh you might also have to figure out how to do that without violating the DMCA).
Currently, specifically for iPhones, there is already an exception to jailbreaking iPhones for the DMCA.
Or, and this is a really novel idea, you don't purchase products from companies that would like to restrict how you use their products.
The hardware involved is good hardware, it would be more expensive and very very difficult to attempt to get the same thing without just purchasing the product. Why should the company have any right whatsoever to dictate how I use their product as long as I am not harming anyone else? Easy, they shouldn't
You have only stated the argument as to why to disallow the ability to play games online if you put custom firmware on it. However, as long as you aren't playing multiplayer and thus the potential to cheat, why would you disallow DLC, Console Firmware Updates, Dashboard updates, game updates and apps? That makes no sense.
None of those should be affecting anyone but the person whose console is modded....
Security has nothing to do with it. running trainers to cheat on games is more what I was thinking about.
I'm perfectly fine with the idea that if you hack the box and put custom firmware on it, they don't have to let you on their network. However, that should not preclude you playing games offline.
I don't believe you know what a "net profit" is. The entire supply chain may earn a gross of $50, but then all the costs need to be taken out for each link in the chain based on their cut before you get anywhere near what the actual "net profit" is.
Isn't that straw man a bit itchy? Nobody said that Apple invented the smartphone. But before the iPhone, smartphones were more like a Blackberry. Now, virtually all are trying to look like the iPhone. That is a transformation in design.
LG Prada Try again. Apple wasn't the first, and the only thing that makes them "trying to look like the iPhone" is the focus on a large touch screen rather than tons of buttons. Seems the entire "Apple transformed the market" is the straw man.
The perpetual refrain of the imitator. The iPhone, with almost no hard buttons, was a huge change from popular phones like the Blackberry and Sidekick. And consumers adopted it in droves.
Again, the LG Prada made that change and won awards for its design repeatedly. It sold millions, consumers "adopted it in droves" It would seem that even Apple and all their innovative glory, imitated the LG Prada. The difference between them, was that the software for the iPhone was better. Also, don't misinterpret what I said. I said that consumers "don't like huge changes" not that they never work or result in successful products. Apple marketed the HELL out of the iPhone (as they do with every product) to get the consumers adjusted to the change, not only that but the LG Prada that came out before it broke the ice so it wasn't as big a change.
So yes, now we have manufacturers trying to ride on Apple's coattails by taking the basic design that only Apple was courageous enough to introduce and adding a bow.
Wow, your entire argument is predicated on the falsehood that only Apple thought of removing the buttons and using a large touch screen. The idea was to create something similar to tablets and PDAs but smaller and easier to use. The idea of using only the touch screen and a single button makes perfect sense when you realize that and considering they weren't the first to make a phone like that, isn't what created a transformation. It was the software in the iPhone that made it so popular.
None of which achieved market penetration comparable to the iPad. Which demonstrates that the iPad's huge and instant success was not simply the consequence of there being pent-up design of a tablet with that form-factor, but for the particular combination of hardware and software features that Apple pioneered.
Before the release of the iPad tablet PCs never got the type of market penetration that it did, mostly due to the lack of good user friendly software. Tablet PCs were developed more with the Geeks and enthusiasts in mind so the average person couldn't figure out how to easily use it. With the creation of the iPad, Apple was riding its own coattails to success. It was marketed, essentially, as an iPhone with a bigger screen. They capitalized on the iOS software that scaled well and chose the size well, probably after some good R&D. However, the form-factor concept of a flat, rectangular screen, with bezels on the side is nothing new. Tablet PCs before the iPad did it just as well. The iPad's name is reportedly a homage to the Star Trek PADD, which looks extremely similar to the iPad. As I said, the concept of a flat, rectangular, bezeled device is nothing new at all. There's nothing novel about it.The software running on it that takes advantage of the form factor and makes it as useful and easy to use, that is novel.
The real cost to Apple was taking the initial risk to actually build, manufacture, and introduce something new into the marketplace--a design that almost all the pundits predicted would be unpopular with consumers. [...] So no, even if there were no competition at all, Apple would lose money if they did not continue to substantially upgrade the iPhone and iPad.
That's a good straw man. The question was with the popularity of the iPhone as it is now, not if it bombed. I agree that if it bombed, the c
Really? Then why are so few companies doing what Apple does, coming up with new products that completely transform the marketplace? Why are most of the phone manufacturers playing follow-the-leader?
"Completely transformed the marketplace." Oh give me a break with the exaggeration. Yes, they made the smartphone more popular through ease-of-use and marketing. They did not, however, completely transform the marketplace any more than someone who comes out with product which becomes the leading product in its category. Smartphones existed before the iPhone, which allowed applications to be installed via a store. Apple made it more user-friendly, thus revisionist history makes it seem like they revolutionized things. They simply made a great product. In technology, everyone tries to follow the current latest-and-greatest while they research what will become the next latest-and-greatest. It happens in cycles.
It seems like we need more incentives to originality, not less.
The biggest hang-up for originality is the consumer. Consumers don't like huge changes. Which is something else that proves Apple didn't revolutionize the industry, they just found the right balance of marketing to get Consumers to accept the things they changed, while touting the things that they made better. Not even that, but most phone manufacturers aren't just playing "follow-the-leader" they are actively trying to differentiate themselves and improve upon the iPhone's design. Look at the variety in the hardware and phone design in Android phones. The originality in their sizes, shapes, and hardware, is driven by consumer requests, usability, and competition. Every single one is copying some aspects while changing others to try to appeal to the consumers. If anything, I'd say that Google and Android had a larger impact on the industry simply because so many phone manufacturers are competing solely on hardware specs and design rather than locked down software features. Of course, one could argue that the only reason why the phone manufacturers are doing that is because they have to compete with the iPhone but...well you get the point.
But it is not as if anybody knew that before Apple took the risk of introducing the iPhone or the iPad. There were no market surveys showing a great demand for flat, featureless phones with hardly any physical controls.
Sure there were, the problem was that the software at the time that accompanied them wasn't sufficient to support that form factor. A flat, featureless tablet, with nearly no physical controls, has literally been the dream of huge swaths of consumers. It's been the dream of every geek and person who enjoys sci-fi. Every single depiction of "future technology" involves a pad that looks quite like an iPad. Where do you think the idea came from anyways? The hardware and technology has existed for a long time, the only hold-up was the software to support it. That's what Apple brought to the game and why it worked.
Indeed, the conventional wisdom was the consumers wanted phones and netbooks with hard keyboards.
In fact, that is still conventional wisdom and a selling point for a lot of Android phones. Many people purposefully get an Android phone with a hard keyboard rather than an iPhone. They get the features and functionality they want, with the keyboard they wanted.
as long as nearly everybody is lined up behind Apple playing follow the leader, and nobody has the courage to risk trying something genuinely novel. Once more, the evidence seems to indicate that we need to make imitation harder, not easier.
Researching and coming up with something genuinely novel takes time. Saying that no one else but Apple is allowed to make a bezelled, minimalistic, rectangular, tablet...in other words, what consumers in that category want, just hands Apple a monopoly for the time being. All it does is reduce competition which is bad
The success of the platform says otherwise. Although there are less iPhones out there than the sum of all the various Android phones, far more iPhone apps are sold than Android apps. Heck, not even sold - there are more downloaded.
It took time for Android to overtake iOS in the smartphone market. But not only are there more Android users, there are more total apps downloaded also. Currently, the iPhone has only more apps downloaded per user than Android. The more total apps downloaded is chalked up to the open policies of the Android Market.
Does the "one stop shop with strict rules approach" work? Of course it does. Does it result in many apps that would be great, innovative, and novel not being put onto that platform? Yup. See, you're falling into what TFA talks about. The problem with the iOS App Store is not that the strict rules don't work, because they obviously do. The problem is that more and more companies are seeing the walled garden strict rules approach as a viable option (look at Windows Mobile). If every company takes up that walled garden approach, then tons of creative, innovative applications will be disallowed from being created simply because some corporations don't allow it. If people don't make the fuss and aren't outright vocal about the restrictiveness of the rules, then it will continue to be seen as desireable.
Does it work? Sure it does. But if you're restricted just to the one market, then you're missing out on lots of applications. Many of which you might find useful, fun, productive, etc. You stay satisfied with "good enough" I'll stick with better
If the speakers/microphone were a set of stylized vertical grills (which might look quite nice actually), there would be no lawsuit. Square screen (and why couldn't someone make a nice UI for a square screen?) and there is no lawsuit. Screen offset from the center (perhaps a row of function buttons underneath?) and there is no lawsuit. A significant colour difference anywhere on the device and there would be no lawsuit. Hell, make the buttons rounded squares and you have probably killed any possible claims.
So why is there a lawsuit when it is a completely different size and aspect ratio? Along with having the word SAMSUNG on the front of it?
Yes, that is one of the goals of patents--to encourage innovation and risk-taking by giving the company that took the risk a commensurate reward by offering a limited term monopoly.
They get enough reward by being first to market if it sells. Everything else is just anti-competitive
And how is it so terribly detrimental to make other companies come up with their own original design ideas?
Flat, few to no buttons, clear screen, bezels, rectangular. That is the form factor that Tablets serve, and is what consumers want. So you have two choices, give consumers what they want or try something new that may or may not sell. Obviously the safer choice for a company is to pick one or two areas where you can distinguish yourself (color, size, aspect ratio) but keep the rest (flat, bezels, rectangular), thus detrimental not to follow what is currently selling, unless you get lucky.
Have you actually thought about this? Apple introduces a new iPhone and iPad every year. Do you think that next year's model will sell well if it doesn't appreciably improve on last year's one? What do you imagine would happen to Apple's profits and stock price if everybody decided to stick with last year's model?
Apple introduces a new iPhone and iPad every year because other companies are releasing other phones and tablets to compete with them. If there were no other competitors in the smartphone or tablet spaces, I can guarantee the actual improvement year to year for their devices would be substantially smaller. You have proved GP's point. Competition has given Apple pressure to improve.
Apple is not the only company with patents. So if the courts find that Apple has infringed an Android patent, Apple will have to pay a license fee, or trade some of its own patents to get access to that feature, or come up with its own features that are even better. How is that such a bad thing?
Notice how none of the Android makers are suing Apple without having been sued first. Why should you have to pay a license fee to say, "hey, people really like that feature! Let's figure out how we can do it too!" Or even worse, why should you be barred completely from doing it no matter what if they don't want to license the patent? In few cases does this result in "better" features. Better features tend to come around, not because of patents and having to work around them, but by a company saying "how can we improve upon what people currently like?". Generally patents just lead to inefficient designs used as a workaround. Notice I'm not saying that the benefits you tout never happen, just that they are rare enough that the benefit does not outweigh the cost to society.
Think of it this way, if everyone was allowed to just go "hey, people like that, we should figure out how to do it!" then everyone has to turn around and come up with something completely different and new to differentiate themselves. They will need to constantly improve and innovate to make their product better than their competition. Because they know if people like the thing they come up with they get the advantage of being first to market with a really good thing. Which gives them the ability to come up with more improvements before the competition. Patents just slow this entire process down.
THIS ISN'T A PATENT. IT'S A DESIGN PATENT. These are separate things. People spouting bullshit up and down this thread on both sides. You're all fucking morons.
I'm confused, isn't a Design Patent......by definition, a kind of patent?
There are very draconian rules about what is not allowed based upon a company playing morality police and using anti-competitive behavior. Which I would have no problem with, if you were allowed to install whatever you like from outside of Apple's app store.
You also ignored the first point I made. If your rules prevent any novel and innovative applications at all, then your rules aren't good enough. Either ease up on the restrictions or allow applications to be installed without the app store. Without one of those, Apple will continue to be bashed for its walled garden.
1) Policies that target specifically removing malware should not be targeting anything legitimate or innovative. Essentially, if your policies to remove malware result in anything that is not malware being prevented, then your policies are wrong.
2) I'd rather wade through and avoid malware, then prevent the novel and innovative applications from being made.
Simply having the Android Market does not in fact make an Android phone proprietary and locked-down. For example: the Nexus series of phones. Thus is Chase only wants to release their application the Android Market and limit the amount of people they can reach, that is their perogative
Who the fuck supports a platform, for a major party in a democratic republic, that says: "We get every single thing we want and you get nothing you want. If you don't comply, we'll watch it all burn until you give it."
Sounds like the Dems, alright. Oh, you meant the Reps? Alas, both Parties are dancing to that tune right now.
Except the Democrats have compromised on nearly everything already, hell they even put up cuts to Social Security and Medicare to compromise, but the Republicans refused to entertain any Tax Increases at all and shot it down. It would seem the only one's playing the game of "We get what we want or else" is the Republicans.
By the same token, everyone can agree that spending cuts are necessary. Except the Dems of course. Note that the biggest proponent of NOT cutting Defense Spending is Obama's Secretary of Defense, not the Republicans
Hold on...this isn't the Secretary of Defense suggesting a spending cuts? What about Obama suggesting Defense Spending Cuts Here. It seems your information is wrong. Every proposal that the Democrats have made included defense spending cuts. It was the Republicans who refused to cut defense spending.
The rest of your post I completely agree with though.
The SAT is not an IQ test, and should never be used as a means to determine who is "smart". As with most standardized tests, it tests you on your ability to take a test. Along with some test of knowledge of Math and vocabulary.
Not only that, but when he would have taken the SATs, most colleges other than community colleges would not have accepted a 1206. 1350 -> 1400 was the usual that most prestigious colleges required.
Standardized testing is just stupid in most cases though. I've seen exceptionally bright people who scored low and not quite bright people who've scored high. Not just on the SATs but in general. Some people who are really smart, just have a problem taking tests. Other people who aren't the smartest, are just really good at taking tests. When I was preparing for the SAT, it consisted of mostly standard test-taking strategies. The actual content and knowledge wasn't the focus. I assume it's like that for many people.
I'm impressed. The first time in 3 years I've been impressed, so the bar is pretty low. But good going Obama.
Really? Getting rid of Ghadafi at very minimal cost and with 0 US lives lost didn't impress you?
No, hiring thugs and orchestrating a PR campaign to overthrow a government because it was making deals with the wrong country (China) doesn't impress me at all. Especially given that the new government looks to be even more brutal than the one that was replaced (but at least they are making deals with OUR corporations and Frances' instead of Chiner's - that's all the counts, right?)
Right...who cares about getting a country to overthrow it's dictatorship without using our troops to force it....
Only if it's commercially appropriate to do so. Other competitor companies will take a license.
Assuming that your company offers licenses. Many patents frequently do not allow anyone to take a license unless you are cross licensing something, thus a small company has no way to get a license since they do not have a valuable patent portfolio that they could cross license with. The result is that patents frequently stifle competition.
And make sure that it is a sufficiently different approach so that you can't sue them for patent violation. I wouldn't call that encouraging innovation.
You just said that the engineers would have to come up with an entirely new and different way to do something. Isn't that innovative?
Is it really innovative if a company has to come up with a less efficient way of doing something or must purposefully leave out features from a product, to avoid being sued over patents? Or pay large sums of money (assuming that they offer licenses) to get a license? Not to mention the cost of having the patent lawyers to begin with in order to tell them that their idea is currently patented and they can't do it. The entire thing is ridiculous.
Bullshiat. If the idea is really that great, then your small company will get bought by a big company - possibly the one with patent, even. If the complaint is that small companies with economically non-viable ideas can't compete in the marketplace, then, sure... but you haven't really said much.
That's a great idea, but in practice it only happens in a very small number situations. Not only that, but it means you have to invest a lot of money developing a product and hope that some company comes up and buys you, which also has enough money to license the patents involved. Your analysis might make sense if we were dealing with one patent, but frequently new software is dependent upon multiple patents. Each of which could potentially have high price tags or not even be available for license.
Not only that, but the entire situation also provides a disincentive for individual developers creating applications. Look at the recent Lodsys thing with Apple. Thousands of developers sued over a patent that should never have been granted. Many of them just took their applications off the App Store, or deactivated functionality, or paid thousands of dollars. This is innovation? Hardly.
The few times where patents might help innovation are far outweighed by the amount of times that Patents hinder innovation and hurt competition. We're just seeing it in overdrive with software because the industry moves so far, 20 years is WAY too long for a software patent. Despite my own bias in wanting software patents to go away, a compromise makes sense to me. Bring it down to 5 years, maybe even 2 or 3 years. Those are all long enough for software patents.
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That's the device maker's problem. That doesn't give them any right to put a hole in my mug if I don't use their coffee.
When you buy a phone, you don't have to sign any contract about the hardware.
all you have to do is remove every last trace of apple software and then you can install anything you want (Oh you might also have to figure out how to do that without violating the DMCA).
Currently, specifically for iPhones, there is already an exception to jailbreaking iPhones for the DMCA.
Or, and this is a really novel idea, you don't purchase products from companies that would like to restrict how you use their products.
The hardware involved is good hardware, it would be more expensive and very very difficult to attempt to get the same thing without just purchasing the product. Why should the company have any right whatsoever to dictate how I use their product as long as I am not harming anyone else? Easy, they shouldn't
You have only stated the argument as to why to disallow the ability to play games online if you put custom firmware on it. However, as long as you aren't playing multiplayer and thus the potential to cheat, why would you disallow DLC, Console Firmware Updates, Dashboard updates, game updates and apps? That makes no sense.
None of those should be affecting anyone but the person whose console is modded....
Security has nothing to do with it. running trainers to cheat on games is more what I was thinking about.
I'm perfectly fine with the idea that if you hack the box and put custom firmware on it, they don't have to let you on their network. However, that should not preclude you playing games offline.
I don't believe you know what a "net profit" is. The entire supply chain may earn a gross of $50, but then all the costs need to be taken out for each link in the chain based on their cut before you get anywhere near what the actual "net profit" is.
Isn't that straw man a bit itchy? Nobody said that Apple invented the smartphone. But before the iPhone, smartphones were more like a Blackberry. Now, virtually all are trying to look like the iPhone. That is a transformation in design.
LG Prada Try again. Apple wasn't the first, and the only thing that makes them "trying to look like the iPhone" is the focus on a large touch screen rather than tons of buttons. Seems the entire "Apple transformed the market" is the straw man.
The perpetual refrain of the imitator. The iPhone, with almost no hard buttons, was a huge change from popular phones like the Blackberry and Sidekick. And consumers adopted it in droves.
Again, the LG Prada made that change and won awards for its design repeatedly. It sold millions, consumers "adopted it in droves" It would seem that even Apple and all their innovative glory, imitated the LG Prada. The difference between them, was that the software for the iPhone was better. Also, don't misinterpret what I said. I said that consumers "don't like huge changes" not that they never work or result in successful products. Apple marketed the HELL out of the iPhone (as they do with every product) to get the consumers adjusted to the change, not only that but the LG Prada that came out before it broke the ice so it wasn't as big a change.
So yes, now we have manufacturers trying to ride on Apple's coattails by taking the basic design that only Apple was courageous enough to introduce and adding a bow.
Wow, your entire argument is predicated on the falsehood that only Apple thought of removing the buttons and using a large touch screen. The idea was to create something similar to tablets and PDAs but smaller and easier to use. The idea of using only the touch screen and a single button makes perfect sense when you realize that and considering they weren't the first to make a phone like that, isn't what created a transformation. It was the software in the iPhone that made it so popular.
None of which achieved market penetration comparable to the iPad. Which demonstrates that the iPad's huge and instant success was not simply the consequence of there being pent-up design of a tablet with that form-factor, but for the particular combination of hardware and software features that Apple pioneered.
Before the release of the iPad tablet PCs never got the type of market penetration that it did, mostly due to the lack of good user friendly software. Tablet PCs were developed more with the Geeks and enthusiasts in mind so the average person couldn't figure out how to easily use it. With the creation of the iPad, Apple was riding its own coattails to success. It was marketed, essentially, as an iPhone with a bigger screen. They capitalized on the iOS software that scaled well and chose the size well, probably after some good R&D. However, the form-factor concept of a flat, rectangular screen, with bezels on the side is nothing new. Tablet PCs before the iPad did it just as well. The iPad's name is reportedly a homage to the Star Trek PADD, which looks extremely similar to the iPad. As I said, the concept of a flat, rectangular, bezeled device is nothing new at all. There's nothing novel about it.The software running on it that takes advantage of the form factor and makes it as useful and easy to use, that is novel.
The real cost to Apple was taking the initial risk to actually build, manufacture, and introduce something new into the marketplace--a design that almost all the pundits predicted would be unpopular with consumers. [...] So no, even if there were no competition at all, Apple would lose money if they did not continue to substantially upgrade the iPhone and iPad.
That's a good straw man. The question was with the popularity of the iPhone as it is now, not if it bombed. I agree that if it bombed, the c
Really? Then why are so few companies doing what Apple does, coming up with new products that completely transform the marketplace? Why are most of the phone manufacturers playing follow-the-leader?
"Completely transformed the marketplace." Oh give me a break with the exaggeration. Yes, they made the smartphone more popular through ease-of-use and marketing. They did not, however, completely transform the marketplace any more than someone who comes out with product which becomes the leading product in its category. Smartphones existed before the iPhone, which allowed applications to be installed via a store. Apple made it more user-friendly, thus revisionist history makes it seem like they revolutionized things. They simply made a great product. In technology, everyone tries to follow the current latest-and-greatest while they research what will become the next latest-and-greatest. It happens in cycles.
It seems like we need more incentives to originality, not less.
The biggest hang-up for originality is the consumer. Consumers don't like huge changes. Which is something else that proves Apple didn't revolutionize the industry, they just found the right balance of marketing to get Consumers to accept the things they changed, while touting the things that they made better. Not even that, but most phone manufacturers aren't just playing "follow-the-leader" they are actively trying to differentiate themselves and improve upon the iPhone's design. Look at the variety in the hardware and phone design in Android phones. The originality in their sizes, shapes, and hardware, is driven by consumer requests, usability, and competition. Every single one is copying some aspects while changing others to try to appeal to the consumers. If anything, I'd say that Google and Android had a larger impact on the industry simply because so many phone manufacturers are competing solely on hardware specs and design rather than locked down software features. Of course, one could argue that the only reason why the phone manufacturers are doing that is because they have to compete with the iPhone but...well you get the point.
But it is not as if anybody knew that before Apple took the risk of introducing the iPhone or the iPad. There were no market surveys showing a great demand for flat, featureless phones with hardly any physical controls.
Sure there were, the problem was that the software at the time that accompanied them wasn't sufficient to support that form factor. A flat, featureless tablet, with nearly no physical controls, has literally been the dream of huge swaths of consumers. It's been the dream of every geek and person who enjoys sci-fi. Every single depiction of "future technology" involves a pad that looks quite like an iPad. Where do you think the idea came from anyways? The hardware and technology has existed for a long time, the only hold-up was the software to support it. That's what Apple brought to the game and why it worked.
Indeed, the conventional wisdom was the consumers wanted phones and netbooks with hard keyboards.
In fact, that is still conventional wisdom and a selling point for a lot of Android phones. Many people purposefully get an Android phone with a hard keyboard rather than an iPhone. They get the features and functionality they want, with the keyboard they wanted.
as long as nearly everybody is lined up behind Apple playing follow the leader, and nobody has the courage to risk trying something genuinely novel. Once more, the evidence seems to indicate that we need to make imitation harder, not easier.
Researching and coming up with something genuinely novel takes time. Saying that no one else but Apple is allowed to make a bezelled, minimalistic, rectangular, tablet...in other words, what consumers in that category want, just hands Apple a monopoly for the time being. All it does is reduce competition which is bad
The success of the platform says otherwise. Although there are less iPhones out there than the sum of all the various Android phones, far more iPhone apps are sold than Android apps. Heck, not even sold - there are more downloaded.
Looks like you're wrong now
It took time for Android to overtake iOS in the smartphone market. But not only are there more Android users, there are more total apps downloaded also. Currently, the iPhone has only more apps downloaded per user than Android. The more total apps downloaded is chalked up to the open policies of the Android Market.
Does the "one stop shop with strict rules approach" work? Of course it does. Does it result in many apps that would be great, innovative, and novel not being put onto that platform? Yup. See, you're falling into what TFA talks about. The problem with the iOS App Store is not that the strict rules don't work, because they obviously do. The problem is that more and more companies are seeing the walled garden strict rules approach as a viable option (look at Windows Mobile). If every company takes up that walled garden approach, then tons of creative, innovative applications will be disallowed from being created simply because some corporations don't allow it. If people don't make the fuss and aren't outright vocal about the restrictiveness of the rules, then it will continue to be seen as desireable.
Does it work? Sure it does. But if you're restricted just to the one market, then you're missing out on lots of applications. Many of which you might find useful, fun, productive, etc. You stay satisfied with "good enough" I'll stick with better
If the speakers/microphone were a set of stylized vertical grills (which might look quite nice actually), there would be no lawsuit. Square screen (and why couldn't someone make a nice UI for a square screen?) and there is no lawsuit. Screen offset from the center (perhaps a row of function buttons underneath?) and there is no lawsuit. A significant colour difference anywhere on the device and there would be no lawsuit. Hell, make the buttons rounded squares and you have probably killed any possible claims.
So why is there a lawsuit when it is a completely different size and aspect ratio? Along with having the word SAMSUNG on the front of it?
Yes, that is one of the goals of patents--to encourage innovation and risk-taking by giving the company that took the risk a commensurate reward by offering a limited term monopoly.
They get enough reward by being first to market if it sells. Everything else is just anti-competitive
And how is it so terribly detrimental to make other companies come up with their own original design ideas?
Flat, few to no buttons, clear screen, bezels, rectangular. That is the form factor that Tablets serve, and is what consumers want. So you have two choices, give consumers what they want or try something new that may or may not sell. Obviously the safer choice for a company is to pick one or two areas where you can distinguish yourself (color, size, aspect ratio) but keep the rest (flat, bezels, rectangular), thus detrimental not to follow what is currently selling, unless you get lucky.
Have you actually thought about this? Apple introduces a new iPhone and iPad every year. Do you think that next year's model will sell well if it doesn't appreciably improve on last year's one? What do you imagine would happen to Apple's profits and stock price if everybody decided to stick with last year's model?
Apple introduces a new iPhone and iPad every year because other companies are releasing other phones and tablets to compete with them. If there were no other competitors in the smartphone or tablet spaces, I can guarantee the actual improvement year to year for their devices would be substantially smaller. You have proved GP's point. Competition has given Apple pressure to improve.
Apple is not the only company with patents. So if the courts find that Apple has infringed an Android patent, Apple will have to pay a license fee, or trade some of its own patents to get access to that feature, or come up with its own features that are even better. How is that such a bad thing?
Notice how none of the Android makers are suing Apple without having been sued first. Why should you have to pay a license fee to say, "hey, people really like that feature! Let's figure out how we can do it too!" Or even worse, why should you be barred completely from doing it no matter what if they don't want to license the patent? In few cases does this result in "better" features. Better features tend to come around, not because of patents and having to work around them, but by a company saying "how can we improve upon what people currently like?". Generally patents just lead to inefficient designs used as a workaround. Notice I'm not saying that the benefits you tout never happen, just that they are rare enough that the benefit does not outweigh the cost to society.
Think of it this way, if everyone was allowed to just go "hey, people like that, we should figure out how to do it!" then everyone has to turn around and come up with something completely different and new to differentiate themselves. They will need to constantly improve and innovate to make their product better than their competition. Because they know if people like the thing they come up with they get the advantage of being first to market with a really good thing. Which gives them the ability to come up with more improvements before the competition. Patents just slow this entire process down.
Except they changed the aspect ratio and size of the screen....which means they specifically chose something to distinguish themselves....
THIS ISN'T A PATENT. IT'S A DESIGN PATENT. These are separate things. People spouting bullshit up and down this thread on both sides. You're all fucking morons.
I'm confused, isn't a Design Patent......by definition, a kind of patent?
There are very draconian rules about what is not allowed based upon a company playing morality police and using anti-competitive behavior. Which I would have no problem with, if you were allowed to install whatever you like from outside of Apple's app store.
You also ignored the first point I made. If your rules prevent any novel and innovative applications at all, then your rules aren't good enough. Either ease up on the restrictions or allow applications to be installed without the app store. Without one of those, Apple will continue to be bashed for its walled garden.
1) Policies that target specifically removing malware should not be targeting anything legitimate or innovative. Essentially, if your policies to remove malware result in anything that is not malware being prevented, then your policies are wrong.
2) I'd rather wade through and avoid malware, then prevent the novel and innovative applications from being made.
Simply having the Android Market does not in fact make an Android phone proprietary and locked-down. For example: the Nexus series of phones. Thus is Chase only wants to release their application the Android Market and limit the amount of people they can reach, that is their perogative
As mentioned above. The last update has already been announced as the Last update that will be released for Stanza.
And what if that 121,001st person has something completely novel, innovative and great, but can't publish it on the app store due to Apple's policies?
"shhh.....my common sense is tingling!!" -- Deadpool
Who the fuck supports a platform, for a major party in a democratic republic, that says: "We get every single thing we want and you get nothing you want. If you don't comply, we'll watch it all burn until you give it."
Sounds like the Dems, alright. Oh, you meant the Reps? Alas, both Parties are dancing to that tune right now.
Except the Democrats have compromised on nearly everything already, hell they even put up cuts to Social Security and Medicare to compromise, but the Republicans refused to entertain any Tax Increases at all and shot it down. It would seem the only one's playing the game of "We get what we want or else" is the Republicans.
By the same token, everyone can agree that spending cuts are necessary. Except the Dems of course. Note that the biggest proponent of NOT cutting Defense Spending is Obama's Secretary of Defense, not the Republicans
Hold on...this isn't the Secretary of Defense suggesting a spending cuts? What about Obama suggesting Defense Spending Cuts Here. It seems your information is wrong. Every proposal that the Democrats have made included defense spending cuts. It was the Republicans who refused to cut defense spending.
The rest of your post I completely agree with though.
Just pick the revision of it there. Because the 3.0 source code, rolled back before any 4.x changes exists in that repository. Good job :)
I don't see how that line is moronic. It's completely accurate.
The SAT is not an IQ test, and should never be used as a means to determine who is "smart". As with most standardized tests, it tests you on your ability to take a test. Along with some test of knowledge of Math and vocabulary.
Not only that, but when he would have taken the SATs, most colleges other than community colleges would not have accepted a 1206. 1350 -> 1400 was the usual that most prestigious colleges required.
Standardized testing is just stupid in most cases though. I've seen exceptionally bright people who scored low and not quite bright people who've scored high. Not just on the SATs but in general. Some people who are really smart, just have a problem taking tests. Other people who aren't the smartest, are just really good at taking tests. When I was preparing for the SAT, it consisted of mostly standard test-taking strategies. The actual content and knowledge wasn't the focus. I assume it's like that for many people.
I'm impressed. The first time in 3 years I've been impressed, so the bar is pretty low. But good going Obama.
Really? Getting rid of Ghadafi at very minimal cost and with 0 US lives lost didn't impress you?
No, hiring thugs and orchestrating a PR campaign to overthrow a government because it was making deals with the wrong country (China) doesn't impress me at all. Especially given that the new government looks to be even more brutal than the one that was replaced (but at least they are making deals with OUR corporations and Frances' instead of Chiner's - that's all the counts, right?)
Right...who cares about getting a country to overthrow it's dictatorship without using our troops to force it....
Only if it's commercially appropriate to do so. Other competitor companies will take a license.
Assuming that your company offers licenses. Many patents frequently do not allow anyone to take a license unless you are cross licensing something, thus a small company has no way to get a license since they do not have a valuable patent portfolio that they could cross license with. The result is that patents frequently stifle competition.
And make sure that it is a sufficiently different approach so that you can't sue them for patent violation. I wouldn't call that encouraging innovation.
You just said that the engineers would have to come up with an entirely new and different way to do something. Isn't that innovative?
Is it really innovative if a company has to come up with a less efficient way of doing something or must purposefully leave out features from a product, to avoid being sued over patents? Or pay large sums of money (assuming that they offer licenses) to get a license? Not to mention the cost of having the patent lawyers to begin with in order to tell them that their idea is currently patented and they can't do it. The entire thing is ridiculous.
Bullshiat. If the idea is really that great, then your small company will get bought by a big company - possibly the one with patent, even. If the complaint is that small companies with economically non-viable ideas can't compete in the marketplace, then, sure... but you haven't really said much.
That's a great idea, but in practice it only happens in a very small number situations. Not only that, but it means you have to invest a lot of money developing a product and hope that some company comes up and buys you, which also has enough money to license the patents involved. Your analysis might make sense if we were dealing with one patent, but frequently new software is dependent upon multiple patents. Each of which could potentially have high price tags or not even be available for license.
Not only that, but the entire situation also provides a disincentive for individual developers creating applications. Look at the recent Lodsys thing with Apple. Thousands of developers sued over a patent that should never have been granted. Many of them just took their applications off the App Store, or deactivated functionality, or paid thousands of dollars. This is innovation? Hardly.
The few times where patents might help innovation are far outweighed by the amount of times that Patents hinder innovation and hurt competition. We're just seeing it in overdrive with software because the industry moves so far, 20 years is WAY too long for a software patent. Despite my own bias in wanting software patents to go away, a compromise makes sense to me. Bring it down to 5 years, maybe even 2 or 3 years. Those are all long enough for software patents.