Apple Orders Technicians to Feign Ignorance About Mac Malware

[IPD]

DailyTech - Apple Lawyers Attempt Kill Shot on Samsung's Flagship Smartphones

more amazing awesomeness from the land of apple. the fail never ends.

p.s.
comments by "macdevdude" have convinced me that astroturfing is real; it is a threat; and it needs to be cracked down on.

*edit*

p.p.s.
http://www.tuaw.com/2008/05/01/flick...iphone-parody/

[stealthify]

Apple sues Samsung, Samsung sues Apple. Apple continues to do business with Samsung and puts over 6 billion dollars in their pockets annually for components. You're just getting wind of this now?

You do understand that if Apple's legal team doesn't defend its patents, they'll lose them - right? This holds true for any business and applies not just to hardware design (in this case), but logos, likeness, etc as well. Losing these patents could be devastating, especially when some of your largest competitors are trying to get them out from underneath you for free.

I, personally, think this is a case of Samsung saying 'well, Apple's product has been working. It's a slick design. We could either re-invent the wheel or we can just model our phone closely after theirs and hope they don't notice.' (and by 'modeling it closely after theirs', I mean let's use the same exact colors, button/camera placement, backside bevel, icon design, design cues, materials, etc). I mean damn, just make it look like Apple made it! All this while not even consulting Apple about licensing any of these patents just to avoid the legal trouble.

The only thing Samsung is at risk of is having to go back to the drawing-board in order to come up with something with a bit more originality. Or, alternatively, they can do things right and talk to Apple about paying to share the patents so that they can continue to use them. Easy. They've got the money.

I know it's easy to criminalize someone who ties up the legal system with (what seems to us like) silly things having to do with menial patents and designs, but to these large companies these infringements could end up costing them a LOT of money. And Apple is not the only ones needing to do this (Microsoft v. Motorola, Google v. Specht, etc).

Those jerks.

[IPD]

shaun, apart from the "biting the hand that feeds it" aspect of apple suing samsung...there's a bit more humor to this.

1. apple didn't create the first touchscreen phone; let alone even being the first to use this particular "form factor/desigin". at the very least, one has to credit the LG prada as beating it to the market--even though the prada wasn't the first touchscreen phone. i don't dispute the patents exist; i dispute the validity thereof. according to apple, everything that came before didn't exist; and everything that came after is a copycat/clone. this is laughable at best.

2. patenting a size of phone, color, or a generic icon (like the logo of a power button) is possible--but won't hold water in court. as commenters in my link had posted, this isn't like GM making a mustang. this is like GM making a black, 2-door coupe with a v8 engine--and ford suing them for patent infringement. apple suing amazon for having an app store. apple will sue whenever, wherever they think they can get away with it.

3. apple doesn't share. apple will NOT grant license rights to samsung if it did (by some freak accident) win these preposterous lawsuits. psystar was not allowed to make macs; it was trampled to death. apple wants to sue, it wants money, and it wants to ensure market dominance by bullying. hey, that's fine--it's a free market; but let's call it for what it is.

4. apple isn't unilaterally suing all smartphone makers who made a black, regangular, touchscreen phone with buttons. apple doesn't appear to be carrying a hatchet for LG. perhaps this is because apple knows that LG legitimately beat them to the punch, and they don't have a snowball in hell's chance of winning.

believe me, i'm all for defending one's territory. that said, apple is trying to make the claim that they're the only ones who own the rights to touchscreen phones--well technically, black, rectangular ones with buttons on the front.

[stealthify]

shaun, apart from the "biting the hand that feeds it" aspect of apple suing samsung...there's a bit more humor to this.

See, this is where your hypocrisy is showing. Again.

Biting the hand that feeds? In your world, Samsung blatantly copying Apple, without Apple's permission, is not considered biting the hand that feeds? This double-standard is amazing.

apple didn't create the first touchscreen phone; let alone even being the first to use this particular "form factor/desigin".

As much as that article would have you believe, after they dumb down what this lawsuit is all about, you might walk away thinking that Apple is suing Samsung because they use a 'touchscreen' on their device. If this was the case, and just like you strangely mentioned in your point #4, Apple would be going sue-happy with every single cell phone manufacturer. But they're not. They're going after the ones that tried to boldly mimic Apple's style. When you look at the Galaxy S (not pro), what is the first thing you see? It looks almost exactly like a cheaper version of the iPhone 3G/3GS! This is no coincidence.

Did Apple go after Motorola for the design of the Droid 1 or 2, which also sports a touchscreen? No. The Droid is different enough to not be confused with Apple's patented design. Yet it still had buttons and a touchscreen.

This isn't about 'Samsung making a phone with a touchscreen that has some buttons,' this is about Samsung so brazenly copying Apple's form-factor and not paying a cent to do so.

apple suing amazon for having an app store. apple will sue whenever, wherever they think they can get away with it.

Just like Amazon suing time and time again over 'one-click purchasing'. When you really open your eyes you will begin to see every company capable of doing so will defend its patents, no matter how 'generic' they seem.

But you're right, these patents will be tested to see if they hold water in court. And for the most part, they have been. And just like Apple pointed out some of the obvious ways that Samsung copied their design, Samsung is doing the same exact thing to Apple, saying Apple stole some of their ideas. As it stands right now, I believe the court has ruled that Apple has more of a case than Samsung. That is why Samsung isn't looking so hot right now.

apple doesn't share. apple will NOT grant license rights to samsung if it did (by some freak accident) win these preposterous lawsuits. psystar was not allowed to make macs; it was trampled to death.

I know Psystar is a touchy subject with you, but in many ways these cases relate. I could almost write a whole separate post about Psystar and how they could have handled things completely differently. But in short, this all ties back in to Apple's business model and trying to financially stay afloat. They make little to no money on their OS (charging $29), and instead they make their money on selling hardware. In essence, the price of Mac OS X is subsidized, because Apple knows it'll make its money back on the hardware end of things. Allowing Psystar to make hackintoshes essentially cut Apple out of the equation completely, and they would be losing money on every hackintosh sold.

You know, I watched an interesting conference the other day and I thought about you. If you're bored one of these nights, I really encourage you to watch it - even if it pains you to do so:

YouTube - ‪Apple WWDC '97 Steve Jobs

It addresses the issues of cloning, and if you watch it through to the end you'll see that things aren't quite what they seem.

[IPD]

"biting the hand that feeds it" was simply in regards to apple sourcing all of its screens from samsung. that's it.

look, there's legitimate patent lawsuits out there. dyson suing hoover was pretty clear-cut. dyson wasn't making claims about the design of an upright vacuum; it was rightfully defending its development of the use of centripidal force filtration in a vacuum.

apple doesn't have anything propritary. as i stated, it's like ford claiming that only it can produce the automobile in a 2-door, coupe with a v8 engine. it's preposterous.

p.s.
if apple has to fight clones so much, perhaps it should consider a change to its business model; like going software-only. of course, we know this will never happen....because as soon as apple only sells software, it will die off. there will be no physical hardware for itards to coo over and froth at the mouth over all the "propritary" functions that jobs tells them they need.

p.p.s.
even if you added another $200 to the cost of osx for clone-makers, you'd still have clones costing $300 less than macs. apple won't allow that.

[BigTyla]

I read this yesterday. When I got to this part

Apple claims that Samsung's phones look too much like the iPhone in that they are small, thin black rectangles with buttons.

I laughed hysterically. I will be irate if Apple wins this portion of the suit.

[stealthify]

As I said, compare the Galaxy S to the iPhone 3G or 3GS.



Now compare the same iPhone to the Droid or the other hordes of touchscreen sporting smart phones that Apple isn't going after.



You will see that these other smartphone manufacturers actually made an effort to be different. The same can't be said for Samsung. That is why this lawsuit exists, and that is why Apple is winning in the battle against them.

[IPD]

really? they're suing the shit out of HTC, and htc's smartphones look no more like the iphone than the droid does.

no, i think the real factor here is that HTC was leading the smartphone sales race. samsung is the new leader. both are being sued by apple. that's too much of a coincidence.

[BigTyla]

You screwed up by saying they make an effort to be different. There are differences in the Galaxy S, however subtle they may be. There's only so many ways you can produce a phone while meeting certain form factors. The smaller phones get, the more homogenized they become.

The Droid pictured above is also a "small, thin black rectangle with buttons." Should Apple be suing Droid as well? Do you see how asanine that is?

It would be an absolute travesty for Apple to win this lawsuit. I can't even begin to imagine the reprecussions this would have throughout the tech community. You'll have microchip producers going after each other because a competitor's chip looks too similar.

Hate to say it Shaun, but you and Apple are totally off base on this one.

[stealthify]

really? they're suing the shit out of HTC, and htc's smartphones look no more like the iphone than the droid does.

no, i think the real factor here is that HTC was leading the smartphone sales race. samsung is the new leader. both are being sued by apple. that's too much of a coincidence.

Or, maybe these two manufacturers are selling so well because they're modeling after Apple?

While the Samsung argument is obvious (I mean look at the damn thing!), I'm not as well versed on the HTC patent infringement suit. However, it should go without saying that Apple isn't suing them because they are making a smartphone (as a device), they're putting their foot down on some very specific copying that has to do with patents that Apple was legally awarded PRIOR to these manufacturers copying them. If my memory serves me correctly, HTC had around 20 patent infringements that could have had to do with anything that Apple was granted a patent to. How generic these patents were, I have no idea. But in the end, the court will decide better than I ever could.