My Motorola Atrix on Gingerbread has the ability to set a proxy server on an individual basis for wifi APs. I suspect this would be the case of most recent Motorola phones.
So, aside from what everyone has pointed out already - that these are not really direct competition - it should also be noted that google probably didn't just code this all up in a couple weeks. It's likely been on their roadmap and under development for months.
perhaps, but the key for me is whether or not they're being transparent about it. This instance is not a big deal to me because they explicitly and publicly stated their intentions and reasoning.
What would be extremely damaging in my eyes is if they failed to follow through with their public commitment to release ICS, or if they kept doing this. I just can't get worked up over one release. The reasoning holds water, and they have done everything they said they would do so far.
And as further weight to that argument - your argument about putting 3.x on a handset - They didn't release 3.x specifically because they didn't *want* someone to put it on a handset and provide a royally effed up experience, because it's explicitly for tablets.
Isn't a developer free to license something however they want, within the constraints of the licenses of whatever is being used? If Google suddenly said they weren't ever publishing source again, I'd be pretty peeved, but they had reasonable, non-evil reasons for not releasing 3.x, and have committed to releasing Ice Cream Sandwich. I'd like to see 3.x released, but as long as it's a non-regular occurrence, it doesn't bother me any - but i'm not quite as idealistic as RDS - if that were possible.
I'm fairly sure that they pay for the patent office people with fees from those applying for patents. In fact, until recently, 10% of their fee revenue was diverted to the general fund - meaning not only were they not costing the taxpayers anything, they were generating revenue.
Yeah, companies probably have better things to do with their times, but the people that generate and file patents are different than those who do manufacturing. Unless you know a lot of lawyers who work on a factory line or similar;) Besides, if they're not being jerks with their portfolio, how does it hurt anyone? Heck, it probably provides some high paying jobs.
That said, I still think absurd patents are absurd.
Not directly, no, but they're clearly waging a proxy war through the Samsungs and HTCs and Motorolas. Maybe it's not 'new', but Google has to assume they're on the apple lawyers' list somewhere..
Yes, absurd patents are absurd, but when you have people suing you using absurd patents *coughapplecough*, and absurd patents are how the US landscape is, then you file absurd patents too.
This is only problematic if Google goes and attempts to use this to sue people with. There's mountains of absurd patents, and the vast majority only come into play as defense against trolls *coughapplecough*
Of course, shutting down the space program is going to result in the loss of tens of thousands of jobs across the country.
the ROI on dollars invested in space is pretty good, I bet.
And Motorola, and HTC...
That's not the only example - they also went and knowingly infringed upon things like "iPhone", and the aforementioned Apple Records deal - they were explicitly barred from doing anything in the music space, and they launched iTunes.
They have a long and illustrious track record of doing what they want, and dealing with the fallout later. It works for them - it's completely unethical in my book, but it seems they get away with it in the end.
Apple's disregard for *other* companies' IP is almost legendary. It amuses me to no end the ego of Jobs and his crew. They cry foul on stupid things like "Swipe to unlock", but have no problem infringing on patents relating to actual cellular radio and antenna technology. The entire industry cross licenses these because Nokia, Motorola, Ericsson, et al all have some key piece of the IP puzzle. You simply cannot legally build a phone without licensing tech from a number of places. Apple, however, is the only major player that thinks they don't have to play the same way.
Hence - lawsuits.
Right, but again, the people that are going to care about this aren't likely to use support... The company isn't going to update past a certain point anyway, and again, the crowd that wants to do this is going to be upgrading more than often - plus, they are more likely to be influencers - the people that provide recommendations - good or bad - to 'normal' people.
I suggested to them a year or more ago - provide software that lets you unlock your phone's bootloader, but in doing so, submits the phone info to a database to immediately void 'brick' warranty claims.
And lastly.. the amount of effort required to implement all of their security mechanisms probably costs millions of dollars - certainly offsetting the impact of the other things you mentioned.
Anyway, I'll go with someone else next time. It's sad. I haven't had a non-motorola phone in 15 years or more. I want to support an american technology company, but damnit, they make it so #@%@# hard.
I've pretty much exclusively had motorola phones since high school. Not always great, but always well built... The phones that required Phone Tools were in a time where everyone's was proprietary.
A long time ago, I was trying to coax another charger into charging my razr faster. I read that the 'official' USB cable has an extra pin which is required for accessories, but any normal USB cable worked once they went to MicroUSB... I've used random cables on my RAZR, V3XX, Q9h, and Milestone and they all work fine. It was the old weird flat wide connector that was proprietary.. but then again, so was everyone's at that point.
Pretty much everything these days is super easy. Plugging in the latest android phones are awesome - you simply use a web browser, or a file manager and can get to everything on the phone.
That said - I'm a hacker, so I probably won't go with motorola next time around as I want to put my own roms on. This attitude of theirs doesn't really seem to have any point to it. Taking it off hurts nothing at all. Leaving it on costs them sales. Maybe not tons, but a sale is a sale. Why go out of your way to lose sales?
Yeah, it's a pretty small drop in the bucket, but it's one of those highly visible things that is an example of eliminating waste. We could use more of it!
I've had perhaps 6 different phones i've run on AT&T's network, including a work iphone.
5 of them worked great. the iphone was consistently worse.
Apple is a software & marketing company. Their RF design is awful in comparison to the Motorolas, HTCs, and Samsungs out there.
The thing is - MOST of them do this with MOST of the patents. The patents Motorola holds have been licensed to most everyone else. It's been stated that Apple and Motorola have been in licensing talks for some time. Apple does this over and over, so I don't find Motorola's stance to be a stretch.
The one thing that seems to set this one apart from all the others is that these appear to be much less focused on silly software things...
Slashdot Mirror
what are you, 2?
My Motorola Atrix on Gingerbread has the ability to set a proxy server on an individual basis for wifi APs. I suspect this would be the case of most recent Motorola phones.
So, aside from what everyone has pointed out already - that these are not really direct competition - it should also be noted that google probably didn't just code this all up in a couple weeks. It's likely been on their roadmap and under development for months.
perhaps, but the key for me is whether or not they're being transparent about it. This instance is not a big deal to me because they explicitly and publicly stated their intentions and reasoning. What would be extremely damaging in my eyes is if they failed to follow through with their public commitment to release ICS, or if they kept doing this. I just can't get worked up over one release. The reasoning holds water, and they have done everything they said they would do so far. And as further weight to that argument - your argument about putting 3.x on a handset - They didn't release 3.x specifically because they didn't *want* someone to put it on a handset and provide a royally effed up experience, because it's explicitly for tablets.
Isn't a developer free to license something however they want, within the constraints of the licenses of whatever is being used? If Google suddenly said they weren't ever publishing source again, I'd be pretty peeved, but they had reasonable, non-evil reasons for not releasing 3.x, and have committed to releasing Ice Cream Sandwich. I'd like to see 3.x released, but as long as it's a non-regular occurrence, it doesn't bother me any - but i'm not quite as idealistic as RDS - if that were possible.
We could only hope, but most likely they'd just become ambulance chasers or work for Apple.
I'm fairly sure that they pay for the patent office people with fees from those applying for patents. In fact, until recently, 10% of their fee revenue was diverted to the general fund - meaning not only were they not costing the taxpayers anything, they were generating revenue. Yeah, companies probably have better things to do with their times, but the people that generate and file patents are different than those who do manufacturing. Unless you know a lot of lawyers who work on a factory line or similar ;) Besides, if they're not being jerks with their portfolio, how does it hurt anyone? Heck, it probably provides some high paying jobs.
That said, I still think absurd patents are absurd.
Not directly, no, but they're clearly waging a proxy war through the Samsungs and HTCs and Motorolas. Maybe it's not 'new', but Google has to assume they're on the apple lawyers' list somewhere..
Yes, absurd patents are absurd, but when you have people suing you using absurd patents *coughapplecough*, and absurd patents are how the US landscape is, then you file absurd patents too. This is only problematic if Google goes and attempts to use this to sue people with. There's mountains of absurd patents, and the vast majority only come into play as defense against trolls *coughapplecough*
if you read the RTFL, it had to be made for under $65. Even a cheap circuit board might not leave you with much room in the budget.
Oh, uh, nevermind.. One supposes the metal tin would obscure its insides. Remind me never to have altoids in my backpack.
Kinda, but on an x-ray, wouldn't it be fairly clear there's no material that could actually explode?
So, uh, a university joins 57% of other peer universities in doing something, and it's news?
In related news, Apple claims they invented the magical concept of "do-not-track".
Aw, my bad. ;)
Of course, shutting down the space program is going to result in the loss of tens of thousands of jobs across the country. the ROI on dollars invested in space is pretty good, I bet.
And Motorola, and HTC... That's not the only example - they also went and knowingly infringed upon things like "iPhone", and the aforementioned Apple Records deal - they were explicitly barred from doing anything in the music space, and they launched iTunes. They have a long and illustrious track record of doing what they want, and dealing with the fallout later. It works for them - it's completely unethical in my book, but it seems they get away with it in the end.
Apple's disregard for *other* companies' IP is almost legendary. It amuses me to no end the ego of Jobs and his crew. They cry foul on stupid things like "Swipe to unlock", but have no problem infringing on patents relating to actual cellular radio and antenna technology. The entire industry cross licenses these because Nokia, Motorola, Ericsson, et al all have some key piece of the IP puzzle. You simply cannot legally build a phone without licensing tech from a number of places. Apple, however, is the only major player that thinks they don't have to play the same way. Hence - lawsuits.
Right, but again, the people that are going to care about this aren't likely to use support... The company isn't going to update past a certain point anyway, and again, the crowd that wants to do this is going to be upgrading more than often - plus, they are more likely to be influencers - the people that provide recommendations - good or bad - to 'normal' people. I suggested to them a year or more ago - provide software that lets you unlock your phone's bootloader, but in doing so, submits the phone info to a database to immediately void 'brick' warranty claims. And lastly.. the amount of effort required to implement all of their security mechanisms probably costs millions of dollars - certainly offsetting the impact of the other things you mentioned. Anyway, I'll go with someone else next time. It's sad. I haven't had a non-motorola phone in 15 years or more. I want to support an american technology company, but damnit, they make it so #@%@# hard.
I've pretty much exclusively had motorola phones since high school. Not always great, but always well built... The phones that required Phone Tools were in a time where everyone's was proprietary. A long time ago, I was trying to coax another charger into charging my razr faster. I read that the 'official' USB cable has an extra pin which is required for accessories, but any normal USB cable worked once they went to MicroUSB... I've used random cables on my RAZR, V3XX, Q9h, and Milestone and they all work fine. It was the old weird flat wide connector that was proprietary.. but then again, so was everyone's at that point. Pretty much everything these days is super easy. Plugging in the latest android phones are awesome - you simply use a web browser, or a file manager and can get to everything on the phone. That said - I'm a hacker, so I probably won't go with motorola next time around as I want to put my own roms on. This attitude of theirs doesn't really seem to have any point to it. Taking it off hurts nothing at all. Leaving it on costs them sales. Maybe not tons, but a sale is a sale. Why go out of your way to lose sales?
Yeah, it's a pretty small drop in the bucket, but it's one of those highly visible things that is an example of eliminating waste. We could use more of it!
I've had perhaps 6 different phones i've run on AT&T's network, including a work iphone. 5 of them worked great. the iphone was consistently worse. Apple is a software & marketing company. Their RF design is awful in comparison to the Motorolas, HTCs, and Samsungs out there.
How is this different enough from the rear touchpad on the Motorola Backflip that it warrants a patent?
Kin: certainly a major failure. it's hard to consider WP7 as a failure or a success: it hasn't even gone on sale yet.
The thing is - MOST of them do this with MOST of the patents. The patents Motorola holds have been licensed to most everyone else. It's been stated that Apple and Motorola have been in licensing talks for some time. Apple does this over and over, so I don't find Motorola's stance to be a stretch. The one thing that seems to set this one apart from all the others is that these appear to be much less focused on silly software things...