I agree - parts of this lawsuit are borderline ridiculous, but I think that says more about the legal system than anything else. The fact is, by not suing Samsung, Apple risks setting a precedent where almost any company can rip off other parts of their product - to enforce your design, the legal system encourages (and indeed requires) you to defend it.
But rectangles with rounded corners is certainly something that isn't Apple's design, I agree. Their icons, the colour of them, the images featured on them - they are Apple's design however, and Samsung have blatantly copied them.
...but there's no denying the Samsung devices mentioned in the lawsuit borrow heavily from the iPhone's design. Right down to the icons- the stock Android icons were replaced with icons that look exactly like the iPhone ones.
Whether or not that's illegal though, I'm not sure. Apple reckons it is, and I guess the courts will decide.
Right, but my reply was to a commenter who was suggesting this stuff is just made up by Hollywood.
Whether you get 'sucked' or 'blown' from the aircraft is neither here nor there (unless you're a pedant). Either way, if there's a big enough hole in the plane, you're going through it.
...a red-top tabloid which publishes crap like this every day. It's readership are one step up from an amoeba. There's not much more to expect than this.
If I watched my friends and family get massacred in Tiananmen Square for daring to express how they really felt, I too might lack to courage to speak out against my government's continued oppression.
From what I've read, the Chinese people generally support their country's censorship, and honestly believe in the importance of the state protecting them from "immoral" things and so on.
Putting aside the woman's motivations and this specific case in general, the ability to remove the tag after the fact is of limited use. As soon as you're 'tagged' it shows up in mutual friend's 'news feeds' - you'd have to be pretty quick in removing the tag for no-one to notice.
Curiously, when it comes to their laptop line Apple rarely makes changes to the chassis design for years at a time.
This doesn't seem to have stifled the growth of their portable Mac business however, so I'm not sure how bad this really is for Apple. It seems they only change the chassis design when they genuinely come up with one that is better. The last time they did that was the launch of the unibody.
I guess your wife could purchase Lion when it becomes available (most likely this summer). The fact that Apple offers their operating system for sale at all suggests to me that they are quite happy for people to hold onto their hardware as long as they feel the need to, or at least until Apple drops support for it (in the case of PowerPC models).
Same here. A friend of mine keeps saying how much she wants an Apple, but can't afford one.
She's gone through exactly three cheaper laptops over a 5 year period, 2 of those Toshibas, one Dell. My 5-year old MacBook (white plastic) is still functional, save for a knackered battery which doesn't hold the charge as long these days.
The ailments that have plagued those Tosh's and Dells are mainly broken or lose hinges, a CD-tray which would no longer eject, and one accident where a power cord was tripped over which pulled the power-socket clean out of the laptop (the number of times I've appreciated the magnetic power cord on the MacBook...)
Admittedly, all of those things could have been repaired, or claimed on insurance. But all that costs money, and most people don't spend money on a laptop after they've bought it.
There will be other tales from other people about MacBooks which haven't been up to standard, so the above isn't representative of everyone of course.
So we're left with the OS, the design, and some other features like a higher-contrast-ratio LCD. If you are willing to pay more for that, that's your decision.
You betcha I'm willing to pay more for that. For a lot of people, the OS is the crucial selling point.
But stop trying to pretend that you aren't paying a big premium for those features.
You get a big discount for not having those features.
You're buying the PC equivalent of a a Lexus. Yes, it's nicer than the Toyota that costs half as much. It's not twice as nice, though.
Subjective. If the OS isn't as nice, and the design isn't as nice, and things like the trackpad aren't nearly as nice, then overall it can be an order of magnitude nicer.
And trying to pretend that it's somehow justified from a value standpoint is stupid.
Depends how much value you derive from those features.
Fortunately there is a market for all tastes and mostly all budgets.
They're not all that better than your average PC trackpad,
Your opinion, of course, and duly respected - however I've never used a 'PC trackpad' that's come even close to the MacBook versions. The ones on the Thinkpad are the worst I have ever used.
except for multitouch (and that is getting more common in PC land also).
Given the next version of Mac OS X (Lion) is extensively multi-touch and gesture controlled, the trackpad isn't just a nice to have on the Mac, it's a crucial input tool.
You're only chained to the RAID array whilst you're dealing with uncompressed video.
And even if you need to work with uncompressed video away from the edit room, a laptop + RAID box is much more portable than carrying a tower, monitor, the keyboard + mouse, plus the cables, plus the hassle of finding a power supply.
TRIMs in Mac OS X Lion, expected to launch this summer, so you won't have to wait long for that.
Blu-ray won't be supported though, Apple's clearly heading toward dropping optical drive support altogether. There was no optical drive in the MacBook Air released in 1998, and Apple haven't bothered updating their DVD authoring app iDVD for years now. Their most successful recent product, the iPad, wouldn't know what a DVD was if you held one up in front of it.
it's been a good long while since they were doing much more than perfecting something that somebody else did first, which is a much easier task.
Sure. It's so easy that everyone does it, right?
MP3 players - there's loads of those which are just as successful as the iPod, right?
Smartphones - there's loads of those which are just as successful as the iPhone, right?
Tablets - there's loads of those which are just as successful as the iPad, right?
Perfecting existing technology is just so damned easy.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree - parts of this lawsuit are borderline ridiculous, but I think that says more about the legal system than anything else. The fact is, by not suing Samsung, Apple risks setting a precedent where almost any company can rip off other parts of their product - to enforce your design, the legal system encourages (and indeed requires) you to defend it.
But rectangles with rounded corners is certainly something that isn't Apple's design, I agree. Their icons, the colour of them, the images featured on them - they are Apple's design however, and Samsung have blatantly copied them.
...but there's no denying the Samsung devices mentioned in the lawsuit borrow heavily from the iPhone's design. Right down to the icons- the stock Android icons were replaced with icons that look exactly like the iPhone ones.
Whether or not that's illegal though, I'm not sure. Apple reckons it is, and I guess the courts will decide.
It looks like you're writing a letter.
Regrettably I can't help you with that.
Right, but my reply was to a commenter who was suggesting this stuff is just made up by Hollywood.
Whether you get 'sucked' or 'blown' from the aircraft is neither here nor there (unless you're a pedant). Either way, if there's a big enough hole in the plane, you're going through it.
So BA Flight 5980 and Aloha Airlines 243 were made up then?
...a red-top tabloid which publishes crap like this every day. It's readership are one step up from an amoeba. There's not much more to expect than this.
From what I've read, the Chinese people generally support their country's censorship, and honestly believe in the importance of the state protecting them from "immoral" things and so on.
You know what you've read is censored, right?
You think during a flood you'll be able to drive down to the local McDonald's and order up a burger?
McDonald's Sail-Thru.
Now there's an idea.
My brdbnd ISP DS chg me pr crtcr typd, u insnstv cld.
the example was forking 20 compile processes. normally that's a big speedup
It's a forking hell.
I just make sure that I am a very uninteresting person.
That's fascinating. Tell me more!
Putting aside the woman's motivations and this specific case in general, the ability to remove the tag after the fact is of limited use. As soon as you're 'tagged' it shows up in mutual friend's 'news feeds' - you'd have to be pretty quick in removing the tag for no-one to notice.
Apple's interests, in order of priority:
1) Apple
2) Users
3) Developers
4) Publishers
...just make that site best viewed in IE7?
That'll do the trick.
Curiously, when it comes to their laptop line Apple rarely makes changes to the chassis design for years at a time.
This doesn't seem to have stifled the growth of their portable Mac business however, so I'm not sure how bad this really is for Apple. It seems they only change the chassis design when they genuinely come up with one that is better. The last time they did that was the launch of the unibody.
I guess your wife could purchase Lion when it becomes available (most likely this summer). The fact that Apple offers their operating system for sale at all suggests to me that they are quite happy for people to hold onto their hardware as long as they feel the need to, or at least until Apple drops support for it (in the case of PowerPC models).
People who buy Apple gear tend to have a higher disposable income.
Peripheral vendors aren't stupid.
Same here. A friend of mine keeps saying how much she wants an Apple, but can't afford one.
She's gone through exactly three cheaper laptops over a 5 year period, 2 of those Toshibas, one Dell. My 5-year old MacBook (white plastic) is still functional, save for a knackered battery which doesn't hold the charge as long these days.
The ailments that have plagued those Tosh's and Dells are mainly broken or lose hinges, a CD-tray which would no longer eject, and one accident where a power cord was tripped over which pulled the power-socket clean out of the laptop (the number of times I've appreciated the magnetic power cord on the MacBook...)
Admittedly, all of those things could have been repaired, or claimed on insurance. But all that costs money, and most people don't spend money on a laptop after they've bought it.
There will be other tales from other people about MacBooks which haven't been up to standard, so the above isn't representative of everyone of course.
So we're left with the OS, the design, and some other features like a higher-contrast-ratio LCD. If you are willing to pay more for that, that's your decision.
You betcha I'm willing to pay more for that. For a lot of people, the OS is the crucial selling point.
But stop trying to pretend that you aren't paying a big premium for those features.
You get a big discount for not having those features.
You're buying the PC equivalent of a a Lexus. Yes, it's nicer than the Toyota that costs half as much. It's not twice as nice, though.
Subjective. If the OS isn't as nice, and the design isn't as nice, and things like the trackpad aren't nearly as nice, then overall it can be an order of magnitude nicer.
And trying to pretend that it's somehow justified from a value standpoint is stupid.
Depends how much value you derive from those features.
Fortunately there is a market for all tastes and mostly all budgets.
They're not all that better than your average PC trackpad,
Your opinion, of course, and duly respected - however I've never used a 'PC trackpad' that's come even close to the MacBook versions. The ones on the Thinkpad are the worst I have ever used.
except for multitouch (and that is getting more common in PC land also).
Given the next version of Mac OS X (Lion) is extensively multi-touch and gesture controlled, the trackpad isn't just a nice to have on the Mac, it's a crucial input tool.
You're only chained to the RAID array whilst you're dealing with uncompressed video.
And even if you need to work with uncompressed video away from the edit room, a laptop + RAID box is much more portable than carrying a tower, monitor, the keyboard + mouse, plus the cables, plus the hassle of finding a power supply.
The laptop is a no-brainer.
TRIMs in Mac OS X Lion, expected to launch this summer, so you won't have to wait long for that.
Blu-ray won't be supported though, Apple's clearly heading toward dropping optical drive support altogether. There was no optical drive in the MacBook Air released in 1998, and Apple haven't bothered updating their DVD authoring app iDVD for years now. Their most successful recent product, the iPad, wouldn't know what a DVD was if you held one up in front of it.
it's been a good long while since they were doing much more than perfecting something that somebody else did first, which is a much easier task.
Sure. It's so easy that everyone does it, right?
MP3 players - there's loads of those which are just as successful as the iPod, right?
Smartphones - there's loads of those which are just as successful as the iPhone, right?
Tablets - there's loads of those which are just as successful as the iPad, right?
Perfecting existing technology is just so damned easy.
This is the year of Bad Linux on the desktop.
Bug in software. Update fixes bug.
Doesn't this happen all the time?
sticky labels on each floppy disk.