back to article Cook's 'values' memo shows Apple has lost its soul

On the one year anniversary of his appointment as Apple CEO, Tim Cook must be partying especially hard in light of Friday's verdict against Samsung. But if his memo to staff about the verdict is anything to go by, in winning the case Apple has lost its soul. The memo, leaked to 9to5Mac, shows Cook is in no mood to play nice …

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  1. St3n

    Anyone who views Apple as anything but another evil company needs their head examined.

    Granted, they make pretty gadgets that idiots can use, but virtually everything they do is copied from elsewhere.

    1. Joseph Lord
      Big Brother

      Apple are another amoral company

      But are Samsung or Google really any better?

      Evil is probably going too far for any of them but I don't trust either of them to look out for my interests except when it aligns with theirs.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Apple are another amoral company

        Well, lets ask what huge risks Samsung has ever taken in the market? none I can think of.

        iPhone was a big risk, iPad was a big risk. Both paid off. Samsung just rode the wave created by them.

        We need people releasing new things, not simply copying.

        1. henrydddd
          Thumb Down

          Re: Apple are another amoral company

          "We need people releasing new things, not simply copying."

          You tell me, where did Apple get the gui (GMT too) from for Lisa?

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: iPhone was a big risk, iPad was a big risk.

          Errm not quite. iPod was not a risk. Many many MP3 players existed before, just that those companies didn't have huge marketing budgets. Ipod copied, and then used a huge marketing budget. Just like iPhone copies, and iPad too. Such phones existed before, as did tablets. Without the huge marketing budget. Copy copy copy. There's a pattern there.

          1. Stuart Castle Silver badge

            Re: iPhone was a big risk, iPad was a big risk.

            OK...

            Sony made MP3 players before Apple. Sony Ericsson and Nokia made smartphones before Apple. Compaq, HP and various other manufacturers made tablets before Apple.

            Are you seriously suggesting that none of those firms have large marketing budgets? Are you suggesting that Microsoft (who would arguably have profited from the first gen tablets had they not failed) don't have a large marketing budget.

            I think the main reason a lot of consumers go for Apple gear is that in general, it works.

            1. BeachBoy
              FAIL

              Re: iPhone was a big risk, iPad was a big risk.

              No, people buy these Apple products because they are fashion accessories, and its cool to have a little apple logo on things. Not because they´re better. Is an Ipod really better than a generic MP3 player is the sound any better (hint they almost all use the same chips inside)?

              It´s exactly the same with Nike sports wear, Rayban sunglasses, D&G handbags etc. etc. etc.

              The sheep will always buy something that other sheep deem to be cool.

              1. Peter Johnstone
                Stop

                Re: iPhone was a big risk, iPad was a big risk.

                'People buy these apple products because they are fashion accessories' - that's a rather sweeping gereralisation. I bought a MacBook pro last year, I'd spent a few months beforehand running a dual boot Hackintosh / Windows setup and found that I was hardly using the Windows side at all, because I found the OS quicker, more responsive and usable than Windows on the same hardware. Seeing the developer preview of Windows 8 also swung it for me. I assure you that fashion was the last thing on my mind when I bought it.

                1. Peter Johnstone
                  WTF?

                  Re: iPhone was a big risk, iPad was a big risk.

                  Why the down votes? I made an informed decision and switched OS based on a practical evaluation. Surely as this is a tech site, nobody here chose an OS because it was fashionable? Maybe the down-voters just didn't like my choice. Any down-voters care to comment?

                  1. Turtle

                    @Peter Johnstone: Re: iPhone was a big risk, iPad was a big risk.

                    "Why the down votes? I made an informed decision and switched OS based on a practical evaluation. Surely as this is a tech site, nobody here chose an OS because it was fashionable? Maybe the down-voters just didn't like my choice. Any down-voters care to comment?"

                    I'm not a downvoter of your post, I don't like Apple, loathe Steve Jobs, and I am and will remain an XP user. I personally don't care what OS you use. In this thread I've gotten about 50 downvotes so far and that is nowhere near my "record" for a single post, let alone multiple posts in a single thread. In a thread like this, in which Google, Android, and FOSS supporters are bashing Apple, you have to expect downvotes from those people if you support Apple in any way. These people seem to want to be able to buy products with Apple features at a fraction of Apple prices - and they have a very well-developed sense of entitlement.

                    Let me put it this way: If you point to a weather report that predicts rain for tomorrow, you will get downvotes from people who think that the weather report is wrong, and from people who had planned to go for a picnic tomorrow and think that "shooting the messenger" will somehow change the weather report.

                    Ignore the downvotes. There's nothing else to say about it.

                    1. Peter Johnstone

                      Re: @Peter Johnstone: iPhone was a big risk, iPad was a big risk.

                      @Turtle I'm not bothered at all by the down votes but am curious about the opinions of those that made them, but you're probably right that its the anti-apple brigade down voting anything than appears to show Apple in a positive light. They've probably missed the point entirely that whenever sweeping generalisations are made they're invariably untrue.

                      I've just up voted your post for taking the time to contribute to the debate.

                2. Chika
                  Devil

                  Re: iPhone was a big risk, iPad was a big risk.

                  Yes, that was a sweeping generalisation. Like any generalisation, there are always exceptions. Including that one.

                  But that's it, really. I can recall when people bought Nokia mobile phones above all others, with Motorola as a second best and many other brands hardly ever, yet they all did roughly the same thing. The only reason why the Nokia was bought above any other was because they could be customised with fancy covers and goodness knows what else. The fad came, the fad went. Look at Nokia now!

                  Yes, there will always be those that buy a particular brand because it does what they want it to do. Unfortunately this is often overlooked by the large flocks of sheep that buy a particular brand because it is the "in thing" and they don't want to be left out. These flocks tend to be big enough that the individuals often get overlooked, so a sweeping generalisation often gets made.

                  So I don't think that ewe were being specifically referred to by that statement, but anyone wool'd make a baaad mistake like that, given the situation.

              2. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: iPhone was a big risk, iPad was a big risk.

                So are you wearing a hessian sack and clogs?

                What is wrong with looking good?

                I suppose your ideal woman is a 20 stone blimp who wears sandals?

              3. Turtle

                @BeachBoy: Re: iPhone was a big risk, iPad was a big risk.

                "No, people buy these Apple products because they are fashion accessories, and its cool to have a little apple logo on things. Not because they´re better. Is an Ipod really better than a generic MP3 player is the sound any better (hint they almost all use the same chips inside)? The sheep will always buy something that other sheep deem to be cool."

                1) There is no company on earth that would refuse to take the money of those "sheep". In fact that is what every company pretty much strives for.

                2) A significant part of the iPod's success is the ecosystem, as embodied by iTunes, that Apple has built around it. *That* was a risk that required a great deal of planning and investment., and was the result of successful negotiations with the rights-holders of the content that is sold on iTunes. Be aware that that was no small achievement on Apple's part. (I consider iTunes to be a horrible piece of software, but other people seem able to tolerate it. Maybe they even like it. Dunno.)

                3) It is not the case that Apple can succeed with anything. Consider Apple TV.

                4) You are right about iPods not sounding better than other mp3 players. (That's not strictly true, but true enough as far as the average or typical consumer is concerned.) But you are wrong if you think that the average or typical consumer buys an mp3 player based on sound quality. If you don't believe me, look at the headphones or earbuds that most people use. And see point 2 again.

          2. Christian Berger

            Re: iPhone was a big risk, iPad was a big risk.

            The iPod might have been the most riskiest of those products... Apple didn't yet have that highly religious cult following back then. The iPhone and the iPad came out at a time where Apple could have as well released sheets of cardboard and nobody would have minded.

            1. Giles Jones Gold badge

              Re: iPhone was a big risk, iPad was a big risk.

              Exactly right. 2001 was a whole different era to the late 2000s. If you wanted a MK1 iPod you had to buy a Mac too since it wouldn't sync with Windows. It was Firewire based with Windows software.

              It was their first consumer electronic product since the Apple Newton in 1993.

            2. Tom 13

              Re: Apple didn't yet have that highly religious cult following back then.

              Apple had a religious cult following that denied they were a religious cult following way back in 1992 (and probably before). That was about the time I moved to take my second real job and a coworker was constantly going on about how they didn't understand why people bought PCs because Apple gave more bang for the buck than PCs did.

          3. Daniel Barnes

            Re: iPhone was a big risk, iPad was a big risk.

            You are kidding, right?

            I think you'll find releasing any product onto any market is a risk, a calculated risk probably, but a risk nonetheless.

            The ipod didn't copy anything, it did the same basic function (play music) but as a whole package did it in a better way than the competition.

            The iPhone included many features that smartphones already did, but did them better in most cases and wrapped it up in a sexy shell. Did you use a Windows phone pre-iphone? I sure did, I had quite a few, my favourite being the HTC Universal, great for typing on the move. But they were clunky and not very user friendly for anyone who wasn't a techie. What Apple did was make the user experience so much better and easier that even my nan could use it.

            How many tablet computers were around before the iPad? Loads

            Were they any good? No

            They were laptops without the keyboard, with the some OS as laptops so they were clunky too and the user experience was awful.

            If these Apple devices are just copies why did the industry suddenly decide to start releasing tablets for the masses and phones with capacitive screens and no physical keyboard until AFTER apple did? Because Apple led the way in user experience.

          4. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: iPhone was a big risk, iPad was a big risk.

            It was since it was a device that was Mac only until the second generation which limited its possible market share, didn't have USB mass storage, was at a fairly early stage of the MP3 market. Ripping CDs to MP3 was not legal in many countries.

            The reliability of the hard disks in the players was unproven. Apple products weren't in many homes in the EU, they had no shops.

            It was a very stripped down simple MP3 player compared to many others around. There was even lawsuits against other MP3 players by the RIAA a few years earlier.

          5. Tom 13

            Re: Copy copy copy. There's a pattern there.

            I think it is as erroneous to say Apple just copies as it is to say they took a risk with iPhone and iPad. They do improve, and patents do and should be issued for actual technical advancements. But they also have a fanatical base. So, as long as you don't over-extend your manufacturing, you are guaranteed to make a profit. Likewise if a product turns out to be more popular than they expect, they can quickly ramp up manufacturing production.

            What bothers me about this whole affair is how broad and ridiculous the claims are. I never really compared an iPhone and the Samsung until I saw an article yesterday with the two side by side. Honestly, I like the Samsung appearance better. It is more open and pleasing to my eye than the crowded iPhone. But regardless of which one you prefer, the two are obviously different while using an obvious layout.

        3. dssf

          Re: Apple are another amoral company

          You got an inadvertent + from me when I intended to hit the reply key.

          Okay, consider these:

          1. Nobody copied Ford

          2. Nobody copied German rocketry

          3. Nobody copied submarines

          4. Nobody tried to surpass Sputnik

          5. Nobody copied the first skyscraper

          6. Nobody copied toothbrushes

          7. Washing machines remained roller/hand-crank affairs

          8. On and on and on.

          Apple created the iPhone. So what? They should know that nothing lasts forever, not even a mimiced phone.

          1. Naughtyhorse

            Re: Apple are another amoral company

            <cough> ford copied benz and the US arms industry <cough>

            grins, ducks and runs away

        4. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Apple are another amoral company

          What risk did Apple take? Looking at the R&D expenditure of both companies tell a totally different story. Samsung R&D + Capex exceeds $40 Billion annually whereas apple does not even top $10 Billion. If you think that Samsung annual $40 billion expenditure isn't a risk at all, how do you explain OLED, A5 Chips and many other technologies in the market. Their research in technology can and should never be discounted.

        5. Chris Thomas Alpha
          FAIL

          Re: Apple are another amoral company

          well thats what you get for being a pioneer, you have to spend all the money and develop something which doesn't exist only to find once people know your idea works they'll make copies.

          this has happened since the dawn of time WITH EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF ANYTHING THAT HUMANS CAN BUILD.

          why all of a sudden should the rules change just because it's apple?

          if apple are unhappy, stop being the pioneer and let somebody else go forward...but don't blame people for wanting a piece of the pie and use tactics aimed at stopping what has happened since the dawn of our species just because you don't appreciate it.

          steve jobs is on the record as saying that apple uses the "good artists copy, great artists steal" mantra. Well, thats great, it's what people have always done, so it's good they have that value so close to heart.

          but that works both ways....not just in favour of apple, sometimes it works in favour of the other guy too.

        6. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Apple are another amoral company

          You do know that Samsung develop things don't you? New hardware etc and are doing a lot of R&D with graphene. They also build a lot of things in their own fabrication plants..... Investing another $4Billion into a fab plant in Texas is a risk isn't it?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Apple are another amoral company

            Yes, the put all their effort into R&D for chips and the grizzy shit that drives phones. But you don't see all of that crap when you're using a phone.

            Software is where the real innovation takes place. All those apps and the interface for your phone. It's rather telling that all of Apple's complaints against Samsung where about software, external casing and GUI elements, but Samsung's complaints were about dull shit inside chips that nobody cares about.

      2. Turtle

        Re: Apple are another amoral company

        "But are Samsung or Google really any better?"

        Google is in a class of its own.

        I have no particular animus against Samsung, and in spite of having supported Apple's actions in defending their products I do not like Apple at all and don't use their products. In fact, I resent having to defend Apple.

        But Google is much, much worse than any other major tech company. Witness the money they made by financing the sale of controlled and counterfeit medicines by means of their AdWords program. They financed the sites conducting these drug sales for years, in spite of any number of warnings, including a letter from Joseph Califono, Secretary for Health And Human Services for President Jimmy Carter. Eventually they agreed to disgorge $500,000,000 in return for a federal non-prosecution agreement. They finance mail-order brides and other human-trafficking sites. Need I even add that they make money by financing pirate sites enabling the theft of content and software? Don't forget the "Google Books Affair" by which they hoped to be able to strip copyright protection from whatever books they wanted. Google has suborned institutions such as Harvard and Stanford by managing to enlist academics there to lobby for Google's legislative agendas in return for large donations of Google money. And their legislative agenda, which favors expropriating content creators for the benefit of people who are *already* billionaires, can only be described as "fascist". Their invasions of the privacy of the users of Google services, and constant surveillance of anyone who uses the internet, should be well-known to everyone who frequents this site.

        And yet how many people here ignore all this, yet foam at the mouth because Apple is enforcing their rights against Samsung and Android - because Android is another of Google's ploys to increase its advertising revenue. And since Google gives these people free content - by stealing it or enabling others to steal it from the people who create that content - they think Google is good, and will not see that Google is simply the image, writ large, of the avaricious, sociopathic kleptomaniacs who run it.

        Google is in a class of its own.

        1. eulampios

          @Turtle

          Come on, you don't have to explain us anything, Florian.

          1. Turtle

            @eulampios: Re: @Turtle

            "Come on, you don't have to explain us anything, Florian."

            Apparently I do.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Apple are another amoral company

          I guess you either believe in freedom of speech or you don't. When you operate in a country that has the First Amendment, not restricting freedom of speech is a prudent default.

        3. Philip Lewis
          Thumb Up

          Re: Apple are another amoral company

          You have said that far more eloquently than I might have.

          Google is frightening and the people running it even more so.

      3. eulampios

        by comparison

        Sony is not an angel either, they however never thought of suing Apple for the same thing Apple sued Samsung. So even Sony is a white furry lamb compared to the today's "hero". Google might not be an angel either, it appears to be an angel in comparison to Apple, it has never used its patents as an assault weapon. Now it is also engaged and hopefully would hurt the Cooked crooks dearly. I tell ya, Microsoft even looks greyish and more naive in contrast.

        The very though that Apple, Microsoft or Oracle are constantly busy inventing new stuff is insane. Cook and his comrades belong in some mental institution.

      4. Shannon Jacobs
        Holmes

        Crooks cooking the rules of the game

        Actually, I would say that Samsung is less evil because they don't do much lobbying in America. Yes, the rules of the business game as encoded into American law require companies to become evil just to survive, but you aren't seriously evil until you join in the bribery.

        Did you know that Google has now become the leading lobbyist among high tech companies? That's what all the recent reports have said. I'm not sure how evil Apple is now, though Microsoft used to be a leader in spending on lobbyists--but I think Google is making the play to become the most evil of now.

        Let me clarify that most businesspeople are fine, upstanding folks. They just want to compete on a fair basis. Unfortunately, the rules of the competition are written by the most cheaply bribed professional politicians working for the LEAST ethical businessmen. It's legal bribery, but the result is such travesties as this anti-freedom ruling.

        Patent law was intended to encourage innovation and more choices and more freedom. You want meaningful and unconstrained choice? You want real freedom? NOT if Apple has anything to say about it.

      5. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Apple are another amoral company

        They are a business which makes money by selling various products.

        The only people they should care about are paying customers - they have no obligation to care about anything else and why should they?

        Where the problem lies here, has little to do with morals but everything to do with patents.

        Cook claims Samsung are stifling innovation, but the reality is *all* tech companies are stifling it by taking out patents on the most tenuous of grounds.

        It means nobody but the wealthiest of companies can afford to enter the market with electronic devices, due to the royalties on numerous patents.

        Given the fact that Apple started in a garage, do you think it's now possible this could happen again?

        Highly doubtful, because every conceivable aspect of building high tech devices - lets just call them computers - has been patented or is being patented.

      6. Rampant Spaniel

        Re: Apple are another amoral company

        samsung have only themselves and google to blame. Apple rightly lost their idiotic look and feel suit, but won on patent infringement for clearly defined (bounceback and pinch to zoom are not vague) non essential patents. They are nice to have but not essential to making a phone so there is no legal requirement to allow access to them.

        Apple and MS cross license patents because they both have valuable non essential patents each other wants. The way forward is simple, google and its android partners need to invest more in developing features people want that will drive Apple back to the table. I'm really shocked that google didn't have more patents to whack Apple with tbh.

        The judgement was far more sensible than I expected it to be. I thought Apple would finally win a ridiculous look and feel (that we copied from elsewhere) suit. The judgement was high, but sometimes when you hold onto bad cards too long it costs you dearly.

        I hope this leads to more innovation and development. I'm slowly beginning to like Android, playing with 4.0 is much nicer than 2.3! Google has the potential to out develop Apple, but it needs to sit down with htc, lg, samsung etc and say liten, just because their isn't a license fee doesn't mean it's a free lunch.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Apple are another amoral company

          "bounceback and pinch to zoom are not vague"

          No, but they are both pretty obvious/trivial. Pinch to zoom is a no-brainer once you have multi-touch. Bounce back isn't an idea worthy of being defended by the US military and in any case is just an imitation of a real-world thing so it fails pretty well every test that's supposed to be in place for patentability.

          Apple are scumbags trying to grab control of progress and nothing could be worse for the sort of real innovation that the world needs.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Apple are another amoral company

            Anything is obvious and trivial in hindsight. It's quite telling that Microsoft did their bounceback in WP7 in a different way which is still just as good.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: "Anything is obvious and trivial in hindsight."

              I wish I'd said that. Well like Oscar Wilde, eventually I will!

              That was a post worth putting your name on.

              Nice!

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            @Robert Long 1

            Yeah, you're right, "nothing could be worse for the sort of real innovation that the world needs" than preventing Samsung from copying Apple.

            Because "copying" = "innovation".

            Oh wait....

    2. Jeebus

      Yup, they've stolen nearly everything and accrued a massive patent library that is also vague they use to bludgeon the same companies they steal off.

      Cook is no different from Jobs barring the fact he is "technically" alive, but equally soul missing as the messiah.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Bullshit. Apple have a long history in mobile devices that started in 1987 with the development of the Apple Newton. It finally appeared in 1993, about two years before Windows CE appeared. PSION also have a long history, eventually becoming Symbian.

        So I don't see how you can accuse Apple of being just another Johnny-come-lately.

        Microsoft, Apple and Symbian/Nokia have been around for decades and have spent a lot of time developing technology. It is Google that has appeared from nowhere and stole or purchased technology from others.

        1. Christian Berger

          Actually in 1993

          Actually in 1993 you could already get "Windows for Pen Computing" which was a huge hype back then.

          Plus, Alan Kay, who worked for Apple during the 1980s already conceptualized tablet PCs in the 1970s when he worked for Xerox.

          Well actually there is not to much to a portable device. The difficult stuff is in the baseband, and nobody talks about that. On the service processor you just run an operating system kernel (today usually the same running on PCs) and some crappy UI nobody wants but has to endure anyhow. There are 1970s experimental systems with better UIs than what we have now.

        2. David Simpson 1
          FAIL

          Apple purchased all their touchscreen tech when they bought Fingerworks. Stop with the misinformation.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Exactly

            "Apple bought their touch screen technolgy from FingerWorks"

            Exactly - they went out, found the best technology and they bought it. Whereas Samsung (or more accurately Google) just copied it.

            Apple are innovators, but they innovate at the level of the product not the underlying technology. No, they didn't invent the GUI, but they recognised its value, headhunted the engineers who did invent it, and created an affordable product to bring it out of the lab and onto people's desks. No they didn't invent the smartphone but they created the first one that really worked (and I say that as as N95 owner at that time). And no they didn't invent the tablet, but they created the first one people actually wanted to use (and it wasn't like lots of others hadn't tried and failed)

            I get the impression that much of the bile directed at Apple comes from engineers who cannot accept that anything other than technology should determine a product's success. They find Apple's success bewildering and threatening to their world view. They blame the users, who clearly must be stupid to want products with fewer features, just because they are easier to use. I suspect it was exactly this world view that brought us the N95. Packed with features but clumsy, sluggish and ugly. The iPhone made it look like a dinosaur. Yet even now, as Nokia implodes, these people still can't accept that their could possibly have been anything innovative about the iPhone because it had no features that didn't already exist in some other product. It's true. It didn't. But a really good engineer would recognise that there is more to it than cramming features into a box.

        3. Pat 4

          You are right, Apple, Microsoft and lots of others have worked very hard to create technology.

          however.

          A RECTANGLE WITH ROUNDED CORNERS IS NOT TECHNOLOGY!!!!!!!!!

          No matter how many beeeeeelions any jury gives them......... dimwitt....

          1. Anonymous Coward
            FAIL

            "A RECTANGLE WITH ROUNDED CORNERS IS NOT TECHNOLOGY!!!!!!!!!"

            And the jury agreed with you, rewarding Apple $0.00.

            "dimwitt...."

      2. John Sanders
        Thumb Down

        Jobs was just a hustler

        Tim Cook is his apprentice.

    3. despicable me
      Meh

      @St3n

      "Anyone who views Apple as anything but another evil company needs their head examined."

      Apple joined Sony on my no-buy list long before this happened.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        WTF?

        Re: @St3n

        But Samsung are OK?

      2. Jonathan White

        Re: @St3n

        I'm sure they'll be able to dry their tears. With $100 bills probably.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Victory or Defeat?

      Being magnanimous in victory or defeat is a much better personal trait than being triumphalist.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Really?

      You're telling me that the iPhone design was stolen from Windows Mobile? Really? Maybe Windows CE? Symbian? Come on. When the iPhone launched people said it would never catch on because it lacked X, Y and Z. They missed the point: the only advantage Symbian had now was that its age had let it accumulate features. Five years later and Symbian is dead.

      Arguably the least interesting feature of OS X is the most obviously copied: the bonkers menu-bar not attached to application blunder carried over from Xerox which has confused people since before I was born.

      The triumph of OS X has been its rapid iteration and improvement and introducing APIs and programming structures for animation, graphics and sound processing far faster than Microsoft did. Consider: Apple released four versions of OS X while Microsoft were struggling to create Vista, scooped most of its features, and Apple users saw OS X get faster on the same hardware (assuming they upgraded their graphics cards, admittedly) through much of that period.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Really?

        Just to clarify:

        a) That checklist idea was also what I thought-so I got this at the time as wrong as anyone else...

        b) I agree that many of those Symbian features are/were critical for many businesses and proprietary apps; I'm thinking about the consumer perspective here. The iPhone was just a lot better for most consumers than a Symbian phone from the point of view of UI, browser design and screen size, even the day it launched.

      2. Homer 1
        Headmaster

        Re: "iPhone design was stolen from Windows Mobile"

        Actually the iPhone's design was most directly stolen from the LG Prada.

        Meanwhile, Apple stole the iPad design from Roger Fidler of Knight Ridder. This was no coincidence, since apparently the two companies' labs were only "separated by a wall" at the time, and Knight Ridder had been collaborating with Apple on providing content for the ill-fated Newton.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          FAIL

          Re: "iPhone design was stolen from Windows Mobile" by Homer 1

          So Apple researched, designed, prototyped, engineered, tooled, tested and certified a smartphone in less than 28 days? Right.

          1. Homer 1
            Paris Hilton

            Re: "28 days"

            @AnotherNetNarcissist

            "So Apple researched, designed, prototyped, engineered, tooled, tested and certified a smartphone in less than 28 days? Right."

            You mean 4 months (Sep 2006 - Jan 2007).

            And Apple wouldn't have needed to have "designed, prototyped, engineered, tooled, tested and certified" the case, which is the bit Apple copied, and the bit Apple is now fraudulently claiming to have "invented".

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re The Menu Bar

        I'm a PC user, but I like the OSX's menu bar- it is always in the same place, and you can't overshoot it with the cursor if you mouse doesn't like the surface it's sat on. You can only use one application's menu bar at a time, so I have never gained any utility from being able to see the menu bars on running applications that I'm not focused on- they just take up space. The clock, battery, WLAN signal and volume controls are always visible in OSX, without having to summon the taskbar as you do in Windows. The Windows 7 taskbar is a PITA, since it will often unhide itself for a variety reasons, obscuring any status bars or tools that sit at the bottom of a maximised application window, until such a time as you have dismissed the reason (usually Java Update wanting attention) the taskbar intruded on your work in the first place. Oh, and the OSX menu is not a 'Ribbon'.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Re The Menu Bar

          "I'm a PC user, but I like the OSX's menu bar..."

          That's the part of MacOS/OSX that I hate the most.

      4. Pat 4

        Re: Really?

        Moron... the triumph of OSX was that it`s a GUI they built on top of BSD UNIX.

        Apple didn`t even CREATE the core of their `triumphant`OS...

        And now they have the gull to gloat over winning over a billion dollars because they patented... a Rectangle with rounded corners...

        This entire thing is beyond retarded...

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Really?

          Did Apple sue anyone for the core of the OS? nope, it was about the interface which they wrote. So who gives a shit what the core of the OS is?

          Android and WebOS are both Linux based platforms, so is Meego but do they all look the same? nope.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Really?

          "Moron... the triumph of OSX was that it`s a GUI they built on top of BSD UNIX.

          Apple didn`t even CREATE the core of their `triumphant`OS..."

          And the reason therefore that BSD is not as widely used as OSX is... ?

          Oh, merely Apple marketing, right?

          I think we all know who the real "moron" here is.

      5. Carl
        WTF?

        Re: Really?

        And OSX under the glossy exterior is FreeBSD.

        Just because FreeBSD has an open license doesn't mean Apple didn't take it and use it.

        And that glossy exterior? Xerox PARC, my friends. Thats where it all began.

        This is the thing. Cook can't morally stand on the shoulders of giants (eg Dennis Ritchie) to gain success then write emails to staff crowing about how using someone else's stuff is bad. Apple was built on using other people's stuff.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Really?

          "And OSX under the glossy exterior is FreeBSD." No, no it isn't. Still at least you didn't claim its Linux. *Some* of it is based on FreeBSD, the XNU kernel itself is based on the Mach kernel which was developed at Carnegie Mellon.

          "Just because FreeBSD has an open license doesn't mean Apple didn't take it and use it."

          Nobody has said otherwise.

          "And that glossy exterior? Xerox PARC, my friends. Thats where it all began." Nope. Arguably it all began in an article by Vannevar Bush entitled "As We May Think", but kudos should be aimed in the direction at Ivan Sutherland (while at MIT) and Dough Engelbart (while at SRI) for they really are pioneers in the field. It is fair to say that Xerox PARC made a significant contribution, but then so did Apple; hope you are enjoying your overlapping windows and the content that is constantly refreshed as they are moved...

    6. Rolf Howarth

      Evil?

      "Anyone who views Apple as anything but another evil company needs their head examined."

      Certainly, it's another company, with shareholders and the objective of making a profit, but so are ALL companies.

      The companies that are evil are those patent trolls that never invent or make anything of their own but just buy up obscure patents and then make a living by blackmailing companies who can't afford to defend an expensive lawsuit, whether or not there's any merit in the claims.

      Apple isn't remotely like that. First, they clearly do invent their own stuff, and manufacturer it, so are using patents in the way they're intended. They're the victm of infinitely more patent claims from people who see a big fat cash cow, and just see dollar signs lighting up in front of their eyes, than they are the aggressor.

      1. Pat 4

        Re: Evil?

        "they clearly do invent their own stuff"

        OSX--BSD Unix

        Appli OS -- Xerox

        IPhone/IPad -- StarTrek

        Rectangle with rounded corners... SONY

        Sure... apple invented everyting...

    7. swschrad

      really?

      you know, Apple got their start making blue boxes, and after being roughed up one night, Steve Jobs decided it would be more fun and profitable to make a computer. first out of the box was a bare board machine. second was nothing less than the all-in-one computer, although the monitor screen and tape drive did not fit in the case. with 16 pure colors and a few more dithered ones.

      that provided the financial muscle and industry acceptance to get a view inside Xerox PARC, and the Lisa and Macintosh.

      they weren't all just copy, unless you consider using Chuck Peddle's 6502 processor copying.

      1. Turtle

        @swschrad

        "Apple got their start making blue boxes"

        Yep. Funny and true. (Didn't know the part about him getting roughed up, though.)

    8. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      The evil here is the fuckwit USPTO.

      If software patents were outlawed, these companies would ***gasp*** have to play on a level playing field.

      1. Turtle

        @Jim Booth: "level playing field"

        "If software patents were outlawed, these companies would ***gasp*** have to play on a level playing field."

        Right. Because if Apple invests the money and does the work and research to create software features that people want, it is only fair that Samsung and anyone and everyone else be immediately allowed to use those ideas for themselves.

        That's "innovation and fairness" at its best, now isn't it?

    9. Andy Dent 2

      Typical ignorant comment, I bet you're not a programmer or, if you are, you haven't bothered getting past your prejudices to study what Apple have been improving.

  2. Dave Perry
    WTF?

    A friend of mine works for Samsung

    And summed up her feelings as 'Apple are just scared'. The IBM created, Compaq evolved thing seems to sum up how Apple are doing this wrong. I own a 4S and am typing this on a MacBook Pro, but prefer the South Korean judgement of 'Apple infringed some patents, Samsung infringed some, pay each other some money and be done with it'.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: A friend of mine works for Samsung

      I have Apple kit too, but have just swapped my iPhone for a Lumia 800. I'm also going to think before I buy another computer from Apple, a while back it would have been automatic.

      But Samsung really are just a cloner. It says it all that Apple's patents were all software and Samsung's patents were all about boring shit like chips. All of the innovation is in the software, the chips are just the mechanics.

      1. Zbig
        Thumb Down

        Re: A friend of mine works for Samsung

        Apple's patents were all software and Samsung's patents were all about boring shit like chips. All of the innovation is in the software, the chips are just the mechanics.

        You owe me a new Ignorance-O-Meter. Mine has just exploded.

        1. steogede

          Re: Re: A friend of mine works for Samsung

          >> Apple's patents were all software and Samsung's patents were all about boring shit like chips.

          >> All of the innovation is in the software, the chips are just the mechanics.

          > You owe me a new Ignorance-O-Meter. Mine has just exploded.

          As ignorant as it seems there is a valid point in what he is saying. You can't (yet) use hardware without a user interface (personally, I'm hoping my off-spring will evolve this ability). So if Apple can get patents on all the most intuitive (and therefore obvious) UI designs, it doesn't matter how good your hardware is, the user experience is going to be crap, and no-one is going to buy it. Hardware patents might be difficult to work around and come up with alternatives, but at least you can generally do so, without it noticeably affecting the end user.

        2. nuked
          Facepalm

          Re: A friend of mine works for Samsung

          Monolithic levels of ignorance in this thread.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: A friend of mine works for Samsung

        Just give a moment's thought to which is harder to design - some simple apps that can be designed with a GUI programming-client or those vastly complex integrated circuits that you dismiss in blissful ignorance

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: harder to design

          which is harder to design - some simple apps that can be designed with a GUI programming-client or those vastly complex integrated circuits that you dismiss in blissful ignorance

          I see your point, but I think you're too quick in dismissing software in relation to hardware. Each need their own skill set, and in either environment you have talent, workers and idiots.

          I would not want a hardware engineer near an application design that has to be so user friendly the user can get the best out of it without instructions(*), but I would also not want a coder near hyper efficient hardware design.

          What I do want is them talking to each other, either directly or via a team leader who is at home in both worlds. It appears Apple has managed that, which is *seriously* rare but which has propelled them to the top.

          AFAIK, Samsung were in the mobile phone business long before Apple, yet the iPhone created a revolution by its usability (and, let's be honest) it's very good marketing. It was also the first time a company managed to force the operators to share the loot, which I personally found the most impressive feat of all - a mobile phone company telling telcos what to do.

          I am thus not on the side of Samsung. Not because I'm an Apple fan, but because I'm a fan of what Apple did, in the same way as I was a fan of the Sony Ericsson p1i because it had the best keyboard ever, and the Motorola V3i because it had a form factor that nobody has managed to better since (even though the shiny keyboard and its crappy software rendered it less useful - it was the sheer form factor and hardware that made it stand out).

          I respect Samsung as a company that designs solid products - I almost exclusively use Samsung monitors because I don't have to worry about their quality, I know what comes out of the box will always be overqualified for the job and tends to outlive the computer it gets hooked up to, and their phones are electronically pretty sound products too (I'm not enamoured by what Sony makes of it). However, the Samsung phone struck me as a "me too" the moment I saw it, and so did a number of other ones, simply because of the almost identical form factor and the strikingly similar way of operating (although I wonder if the guilty party isn't actually Google with its Android OS).

          I can appreciate they want to ride the wave that Apple created, but I think they should not try to pretend it was of their making - that is really what I saw this case to be about.

          1. Thorne

            Re: harder to design

            "I see your point, but I think you're too quick in dismissing software in relation to hardware. Each need their own skill set, and in either environment you have talent, workers and idiots."

            Yeah Slide to Unlock was far more innovative than any processor

          2. John Bailey
            Facepalm

            Re: harder to design

            So essentially.. Ferraris are fast because they are red?

            Nope.. Still an idiot.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: A friend of mine works for Samsung

          "Just give a moment's thought to which is harder to design - some simple apps that can be designed with a GUI programming-client or those vastly complex integrated circuits that you dismiss in blissful ignorance"

          It can't be that easy, Samsung had to write a 132 page document looking at all of Apple's iPhone software designs in order to copy them: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/126253497/44_iPhone_GalaxyS1_review

          It might not be illegal, but it shows which company was doing the actual thinking and which was doing the copying.

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: A friend of mine works for Samsung @AC 19:44

          'Just give a moment's thought to which is harder to design - some simple apps that can be designed with a GUI programming-client or those vastly complex integrated circuits that you dismiss in blissful ignorance'

          Yes but to make them work properly so they don't crash your system is also an art.

      3. feanor
        FAIL

        Re: A friend of mine works for Samsung

        "All of the innovation is in the software, the chips are just the mechanics."

        This statement ensures that your opinion on any and all matters technical will henceforth be completely ignored, as you clearly know nothing.

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: A friend of mine works for Samsung

        While I profoundly, profoundly disagree with this, I think putting technology together is underrated. That's what Apple has done so well: being able to create a completely legacy-free, native platform for smartphones broke a market suffering from serious inertia and interference from carriers, and management-consultant pricing structures that created model names like the Sony Erikson U4410Z. Now you can get a quad-core phone the law of diminishing returns starts to come in (unless you're running bloatware like Android, that is...).

        The snag is that it's a riskier market than selling chips. Intel, AMD, ARM and NVidia win whoever makes the best UI. But great platforms take work, and may not get the market share they deserve. Witness webOS, JoliOS, BeOS, Amiga OS, Maemo... A great processor design like x86-64 or PowerPC makes its own statement and can find markets for one-off triumphs of engineering, but a great OS needs market share and years to mature and accumulate its feature set. (OS X took a decade before it could get/licence in-OS Exchange support, for instance.)

        1. David Simpson 1
          FAIL

          Re: A friend of mine works for Samsung

          Android = Bloatware ? Funny both ICS and Jellybean fly on my 18 month old single core Desire HD, You clearly have never used Android. But then again how did iOS5 run on the 3GS again?

          1. Philip Lewis

            Re: A friend of mine works for Samsung

            It runs fine on mine. YMMV

          2. JEDIDIAH
            Linux

            Re: A friend of mine works for Samsung

            New IOS on an older iPhone might be a big part of why my local iFan defected to Android. New PhoneOS on an old phone was definitely bogging down and making her pine for a newer device. The delay on iPhone 5 just helped things along.

      5. Paul 135

        Re: A friend of mine works for Samsung

        " All of the innovation is in the software, the chips are just the mechanics."

        You have deservedly received many down votes for that comment, but from the narrow perspective of a phone manufacturer I can see why you think that. Most of the innovation is really done by the SoC provider (Qualcomm, ST-Ericsson, Broadcom etc.) and other component manufacturers in the semiconductor industry. All the phone manufacturer really does is copy a reference design from the SoC manufactuer, stick it in a fancy case, and add a bit of gloss to the software on top (the actual low-level software that makes the thing work under the hood is already provided by the SoC manufacturer). With the advent of AOSP even the UI software layer is little effort these days.

        1. Matthew 25

          Re: A friend of mine works for Samsung

          @ Paul 135

          "Most of the innovation is really done by the SoC provider"

          Agreed. The kicker is in the case of the iPhone that is Samsung :P

      6. Anonymous Coward
        WTF?

        Re: A friend of mine works for Samsung

        "It says it all that Apple's patents were all software and Samsung's patents were all about boring shit like chips. All of the innovation is in the software, the chips are just the mechanics."

        If companies didn't keep pushing forward with chips, we wouldn't have the hardware to support such innovations in software.

        Anyway, you should really read up more on Apple and software, right from the beginning. Innovation isn't really what comes to mind (make the effort to read and not make ignorant comments, then you'll understand why). They are good at putting things (that aren't necessarily theirs) in a pretty package and marketing, though.

      7. Arctic fox
        Thumb Down

        RE:"All of the innovation is in..............

        ..............the software, the chips are just the mechanics."

        That, is without peer as the most asinine comment I have read in a long time.

      8. Naughtyhorse
        FAIL

        Re: A friend of mine works for Samsung

        you need to listen to the mini-AC that wrote the first para and tell the other one to fuck off.

        where do you think all this magical software exists?

        in the boring chips fuckwit

        and are rounded corners really a software feature??

        Apple won the case cos it took place in the states where they have the best legal system money can buy. end of

      9. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: A friend of mine works for Samsung

        You could have at least tried to grey import an N9 and retain a shred of respect ;)

      10. senti

        Re: A friend of mine works for Samsung

        [quote]But Samsung really are just a cloner. It says it all that Apple's patents were all software and Samsung's patents were all about boring shit like chips. All of the innovation is in the software, the chips are just the mechanics.[/quote]

        How do you even breathe?

    2. Turtle

      Re: A friend of mine works for Samsung

      "A friend of mine works for Samsung and summed up her feelings as 'Apple are just scared'."

      There's an authoritative opinion. It must be right.

      On the other hand, I saw someone with an Apple device waiting for a bus this morning. They didn't seem concerned.

      1. David Simpson 1
        FAIL

        Re: A friend of mine works for Samsung

        Not until she has to pay of the credit card she used to buy her iPhone !

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Pirate

      Agree and disagree

      This made Samsung look like a plucky underdog, and will add anger to their 'only pretentious hipsters use iPhones' ads. Apple may feel scared, but they make so much more money than Samsung from selling phones, and it's earned them a billion in damages on top of that. It must be very frustrating to spend years designing the iPhone casing, OS and UI and watch Samsung rush-release a lazy rip-off with the help of an Apple board member, but it makes them seem paranoid.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oh come on ...

    "For us this lawsuit has always been about something much more important than patents or money."

    Bollocks.

    1. Manny Bianco
      Mushroom

      Re: Oh come on ...

      How do you know that for sure? Johnny Ive said recently that they don't design and develop their products for the money.

      Samsung were found to have wilfully infringed on a number of patents held (validly) by Apple in the US patent system.

      Samsung's lawyers trotted out the same old line about having a monopoly on rectangles with rounded corners, even though they were found NOT to have infringed on it.

      Samsung were asked by Apple to license the technology/patents. They refused, and so Apple defended themselves. Samsung would've done the same - and, in fact, did, by claiming that Apple had infringed on some of Samsung's patents.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Oh come on ...

        I won't argue with you about the facts of the case. I merely cast doubt on the statement that it was all about values, not the money.

        Sure they have design values - that's undeniable - but when you go into a major court-room battle with billions at stake, it had better be about money. Anything else and you risk pissing away your wealth and pissing off the shareholders.

        1. Turtle

          Re: Oh come on ...

          "when you go into a major court-room battle with billions at stake, it had better be about money. Anything else and you risk pissing away your wealth and pissing off the shareholders."

          I think that that's really very well put.

      2. Naughtyhorse

        Re: Oh come on ...

        lol you said 'valid' and 'us patent system' in the same sentence.

        way to demonstrate that you are a kno nothing n00b

      3. SkippyBing

        Re: Oh come on ...

        If they're not in it for the money, why have they kept so much of it rather than, oh I don't know, giving it to charity?

        Only Scrooge McDuck has a bigger cash pile, and at least he has the common decency to go swimming in it.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Apple have focus

      They've never wasted time on a market they don't think they can offer something genuinely new and different in. Samsung are a massive industrial conglomerate that make seemingly thousands of models of cameras, phones, fridges, televisions, many great, many absolute me-too products that seem to have been created with a total lack of commitment.

      That said, they're still better than Toshiba, who seem to design products by a checklist of what markets other people have been making money in recently and wonder why nobody wants to buy their laptops anymore.

      1. FutureShock999

        Re: Apple have focus

        This comment cannot be upvoted enough - it summarises the whole issue. Apple only plays in markets where they can be unique (and yes, the iPod was unique when it came out, because it had iTunes, not just the player hardware). Even their laptops are unique when they were introduced (since copied, but that aluminium monocoque was hugely innovative at the time).

        I give props to MS for Windows 8 - I don't _like_ it, but they innovated, and with time might even get it right. And I give HUGE props to Ubuntu, who never seem to lack imagination on what they might try in how to develop a UI - it's not always a win, but Shuttleworth keeps TRYING, and that is what is cool.

        And Samsung? Stuffing bigger chips and bigger screens into form factors they have copied running a third-party OS that they didn't develop. Utter failure at innovation. HTC's TouchFlow was far more innovative when it was first introduced (yeah, I owned a first-gen Touch myself...)

        1. Naughtyhorse

          Re: Apple have focus

          FYI the 'unique' part is why myself and millions of others wouldn't have an ipod if you offered it for free

    3. spegru
      Facepalm

      Re: Oh come on ...

      The scary part is that Tim Cook (and others) might actually believe this is true.

      What they don't consider is that the benefits of ~200 years of the industrial age have relied on designs being copied and improved on. Just imagine what would have happened if Apple had invented Fire, or the Steam Engine, or HTML?

      They don't consider that they themselves are Standing on the Shoulders of Giants.

      A little modesty does alot to make you popular, whereas arrogance does quite the opposite

      Perhaps Apple shareholders should take that into account. I give them max 5 yrs before the downside of their approach is obvious to all.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Oh come on ...

        Doh!

        The steam engine was patented, and the monopoly afforded by the valid patent, made many people very very rich.

        You morons here need to learn some history before you spout of your own ignorance.

    4. Matthew 25

      Re: Oh come on ...

      Steve Jobs once said that he wanted to kill Android. That is what this lawsuit is about. Starting with Samsung, Apple want to remove competing products from the market. Phase one - "Project curvy corners" - complete. Next?

    5. Chika
      Mushroom

      Re: Oh come on ...

      Two, present and accounted for, SAH!!!

      In my opinion, this is all a case of Apple trying to protect themselves and extend control across the market by misusing the patent system, itself fatally flawed anyway. While I could consider that they might - just MIGHT - have been hard done by in the old GUI "Look and Feel" case against Microsoft all those years ago, what we have here is a very different Apple. It's an Apple that is afraid to compete in the market, so it gets the courts to do its dirty work for them and, as proven in so many cases, the amount of money they can throw at the courts outweighs any legitimate argument they might have. Why else have you had so many different judgements in different locations, from the US going all out for Apple, the UK throwing the same case out while the South Koreans have basically claimed that both Samsung and Apple are just as guilty as each other!

  4. uncredited

    What did Samsung supposedly copy?

    Does anyone know exactly what it was that Samsung has been deemed to have copied from Apple?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Down

      Re: What did Samsung supposedly copy?

      I suggest that you actually read the myriad articles that have been published around the internet over the last 24 hours to gain an insight. Next time, read those *before* commenting, just a thought.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What did Samsung supposedly copy?

      I could write you a list, but then I'd be doing what you want me to do. Go away.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What did Samsung supposedly copy?

      Apparently the Epic 4G and iPhone look alike. Oh wait, HTC and Motorola make phones that look exactly like the Epic 4G, too. And many phones before that for Samsung.

      Personally, I think LG should sue all of them over design, after all it got there before even Apple.

      1. Tom 7

        Re: What did Samsung supposedly copy?

        There was even evidence from Apples disclosure's showing they copied the iPhone from sony but that evidence wasn't allowed in court ... this time.

        1. Steve Todd
          FAIL

          Re: What did Samsung supposedly copy?

          @Tom. Utterly and completely wrong. There is evidence that, during the design process, Apple asked the question "what would the iPhone look like if Sony designed it" but the resulting phone didn't look much like the finished iPhone, and other prototypes (created both before and after the Sony inspired model) looked much more like it. For that reason the judge held that it wasn't relevant.

          It's a bit like you claiming "that Ford designer sketched out a design based on Ferrari while he was working on the Focus. The Focus is a Ferrari rip-off!"

    4. Pat 4

      Re: What did Samsung supposedly copy?

      Their pad is a rectangle with rounded corners...

  5. EWI

    This is just a disaster of an article

    "Based on the evidence yes, Samsung copied both the design and the style of Apple's products, in the same way that Apple always has. The company itself got its start from copying the GUI system developed at Xerox PARC."

    Apple got a guided tour of the research secrets at Xerox PARC in return for allowing Xerox to take a stake in the company pre-IPO (from which they made a profit). There was no misunderstanding between Apple and Xerox as to the consequences of showing off stuff like the GUI (in fact, the PARC researchers delayed and obfuscated, but ex-PARC employees on the Apple side knew exactly what to ask for, and Xerox head office passed the order down to show everything).

    There was no 'stealing' involved, just shockingly bad management at Xerox who had no idea of the potential value of the ideas at PARC.

    1. EWI

      Re: This is just a disaster of an article

      And, by the way - Apple got its 'start' from the Apple I and Apple II, neither of which had a GUI.

      Better article writers, please?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: This is just a disaster of an article

        Why the down vote? Are you suggesting that Apple didn't get it's start from the Apple ][ ?

        1. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

          Re: Apple I

          I have never seen or heard of an Apple I. What was it like? Or was that the Adam & Eve version?

          1. Philip Lewis
            Joke

            Re: Apple I

            They only made one of them, so they are quite rare

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: This is just a disaster of an article

        "And, by the way - Apple got its 'start' from the Apple I and Apple II, neither of which had a GUI."

        What the! They copied the CLI too???

        :-)

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: This is just a disaster of an article

        Actually, Apple got its start selling blue boxes (stealing from phone companies) and its name (stolen from the Beatles). Just the start of a long-running tradition it seems.

        1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

          Re: This is just a disaster of an article

          Also, Jobs stole USD 500 from Woz for his work on that Atari machine along the lines of "he's just a nerd, give *me* the money".

          An auspicious beginning.

  6. Derk
    FAIL

    Bad long term move really

    Apple should not have seen Samsung as a real threat, followers never are, they come late to market with something similar, and cheaper. Often tapping a market segment that Apple never used to be interested in. At one time Apple Macintosh made good reliable product aimed at the quality end of the market. But shear greed has taken over, they now want it all. This will mean that the followers will now have to do something, something radical, something really innovative, or die. They just might come up with something much better, who knows? They will have to find ways around their patents too. Samsung will now also be looking at this billion dollar award and wondering if it should supply parts to Apple. I'm sure if I was Samsung's CEO I'd be asking some very pertinent questions on cost/benefits of having a relationship with Apple.

    I switched to OSX in 2005, and have in the last couple of years, not really liked the style and direction that Apple have taken. They have become "Microsoft".

    I'm reminded of the start of Ben and Jerries ice cream, were they whinged about being "excluded" from the market, as the big competitors wouldn't allow shops to put their product in the competitors freezers, only years later to do the exact same to quite a few start ups. The Merkins just love a monopoly!

    Although I use and Love my IPhone 4, MacMini, & MacPro. I think I'll be looking around at the alternatives for my next phone, and computer....Linux? Linux with Steam would be a winner for me.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      There should be a carrot, not just a stick

      I think the products Samsung made were so obviously a rip-off it's funny. But Samsung do seem to have tried to get away from the old ways and strike out in a new direction-though I find its design a little lifeless, the Galaxy S III really is something new, with features (like calling a contact when you lift your phone to your ear) Apple hasn't even tried. If I were Tim Cook I would at least try to make up-I'm sure Samsung can earn more dollars and feel more honest about itself making great components for Apple than making lazy rip-offs of iPhones and iPads.

    2. Turtle

      Re: Bad long term move really

      "Apple should not have seen Samsung as a real threat, followers never are, they come late to market with something similar, and cheaper."

      Another morality tale. I am sure that this story appeals to your sense of justice, but does not have a very close relationship with reality. Here's a good example: Japan. In the 60's, "Made In Japan" was synonymous with cheap and cheaply-made goods, very often direct knock-offs of more expensive items - and that applied to pretty nearly everything that Japan produced. According to your outlook, they were not a "real threat" to any American or Western manufacturers because they were "late to market with something similar, and cheaper" but in fact, they were. I will leave it as an exercise for you to find supporting examples. (Hint: start with "automobiles"if you are really stuck.)

      "I'm reminded of the start of Ben and Jerries ice cream, were they whinged about being 'excluded' from the market, as the big competitors wouldn't allow shops to put their product in the competitors freezers, only years later to do the exact same to quite a few start ups. The Merkins just love a monopoly!"

      You have an odd definition of "monopoly". With the exception of a few stores which Ben & Jerry's seems to own and in which the only product sold in the entire store is Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, I have *never* seen a store that sold only Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream. I can not even count the number of different brands of ice cream for sale in any of my local stores here, which includes both national chain stores and mom-&-pop stores. And it would not even be possible for any given store to stock all available brands of ice cream, because there are simply too many brands for too little space in any given store's freezers. Therefore there will always be "excluded" brands. But you know, that's not a "monopoly" either.

  7. David 45

    Cloud talk

    This is total twaddle. The Jobs' arrogance and mind-set must have been well incorporated into the company before he died. Apple makes and sells some of the most over-priced kit on the planet and they seem to think they have a monopoly on things like "rounded corners". Most appliances or equipment designed to do the same job look very similar, Televisions and cars come to mind. I don't hear Ford suing Toyota for their cars having four wheels or Sony suing Panasonic because their screens are the same certain shape. So........someone produces a similar piece of kit at a lower price that does the job. Apple obviously can't hack the competition and throws its corporate rattle out of the buggy. I have grave suspicions about the jury in this complicated case. To come up with a verdict in such a short time seems to suggest that they just wanted to get the case out of the way in the shortest possible time or maybe there were more indoctrinated Apple fanbois in there than people realised. It all sounds rather Apple-biassed to me.

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Cloud talk

      Televisions and cars come to mind. I don't hear Ford suing Toyota for their cars having four wheels or Sony suing Panasonic because their screens are the same certain shape

      The problem with those analogies is that if patents had been allowed on those design features, they'd have expired long ago. When was the first four wheeled cart built? :-)

      On the other hand, there are probably as many if not more patents encumbering a new car design than there are in a smartphone. As with the smartphone, those patents are usually cross-licensed between the big boys. A new entrant into the car manufacturing biz needs to have something innovative to share or it's going to cost a lot to get started. That's why Korean companies not so many years ago bought in engineers, designers and parts to kickstart the industry

      1. g e

        Re: Cloud talk

        ...patents encumbering car design...

        Sure but you don't read every day about, say, Mercedes Benz trying to arse-rape Audi over some indicator stem function like a bitchy little girl.

        Because pretty much all the car co's behave like grownups for the most part with no stroppy over-privileged little kids in the playground to fuck it up for everyone else. If Apple tried to make a car they'd get brutally bitch-raped on day one by the Germans and Japanese, pre-emptively, because of how they've behaved in the phone sector. Rightly so, too, given their form.

        1. Turtle

          Re: Cloud talk

          "If Apple tried to make a car they'd get brutally bitch-raped on day one by the Germans and Japanese, pre-emptively, because of how they've behaved in the phone sector. Rightly so, too, given their form."

          But if Apple didn't sue Samsung, and thereafter did attempt to enter the automobile market, you think that the additional competition would be welcomed by existing automobile producers with open arms? You're kidding, right?

        2. Thorne

          Re: Cloud talk

          "If Apple tried to make a car they'd get brutally bitch-raped on day one by the Germans and Japanese, pre-emptively, because of how they've behaved in the phone sector. Rightly so, too, given their form."

          No they wouldn't

          Apple would preemtively patent having four wheels on a car and sue them into oblivion.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Cloud talk

        "On the other hand, there are probably as many if not more patents encumbering a new car design than there are in a smartphone. As with the smartphone, those patents are usually cross-licensed between the big boys."

        The key really is software patents - cars will be mostly functional hardware that's patented, ABS etc. Things like bouncing lists and slide to unlock shouldn't be patentable in the first place.

        The Galaxy S was way too 3GS like, with it's chrome bevel etc. but that should have been a copyright issue, not a patent issue.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Cloud talk

        "As with the smartphone, those patents are usually cross-licensed between the big boys"

        Yeah, there's a word for that too: cartel.

        Government-granted monopolies are an obsolete idea and should be scrapped across the board.

    2. Captain DaFt

      Re: Cloud talk

      Actually, I doubt there was any pro-Apple thought behind it.

      Just 12 people too dumb to figure out how to get out of jury duty, and just wanting it be over and go home.

      1. slhilly

        Re: Cloud talk

        Shame you proved yourself dumber than the jury by not even knowing that there aren't 12 members for this type of case...

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Cloud talk

      Ok Apple sell expensive kit - sure - but it's pretty damn nice kit in my opinion. Sure if you compare specs of (some) Mac computers with generic PC kit then yeah it's frequently not cutting edge and you pay more, but then again it's not hard to argue the form factor and design is significantly better (aluminium cases, fantastic track pads etc etc). Equally much Apple kit is significantly better than all(?) the competition in terms of tech specs at time of first release (eg retina displays etc) - although it's frustrating that the price doesn't generally reduce over time as the competition catch up.

      I used to be a strong PC/Windows advocate (since WFWG 3.11 and NT 3.5.1) - but following a short stint with a Hackintosh a year or two ago to try out OSX I'm now 100% Apple at home (iPhone/iPad/Aluminium Macbook/Mac Pro/Hacked Apple TV). Ok I lied the wife isn't comfortable with OSX - and prefers Windows 7 (great, I bought her a £400 laptop rather than a Macbook and she's happy so I saved money!).

      Anyway I'm a techie through and through (tech lead, using Linux/Solaris (Sparc) at work), but I really like my Apple hardware and I love the OS (Unix with a nice shell) and whilst it's painful shelling out the cash (and sure the closed nature of some things is less than ideal) - I think it's worth it overall - and I'm loving Mountain Lion (Lion was a bit crap) with stable features like FaceTime / messages / notifications. I've just been on holiday to Turkey and using FaceTime on the iPad to video chat back to relatives in the UK was just great - simple to use and really great quality over fairly slow links. I really don't want to spend my free time installing/troubleshooting programs and the integrated approach Apple have taken is pretty attractive to me and the less technically literate amongst the family (I'd honestly rather spend my time with my baby daughter/wife than fiddle with PCs nowadays).

      Oh and my Macbook laptop is the first generation aluminium one and still going strong. Yeah I'd appreciate a faster (and cooler) processor/more battery life/ a higher res display - but it's significantly better and faster than PC laptops of that age - and the resale value is still pretty good (which is worth bearing in mind for Apple kit).

      1. Naughtyhorse

        Re: Cloud talk

        'although it's frustrating that the price doesn't generally reduce over time as the competition catch up.'

        and there in lies the reasoning behind the suit (we'll leave the iphones new power connector for another day). apple have you by the balls and want to do everything to keep it that way.

        its just business

        (oh and evil btw)

        1. Turtle

          @Naughtyhorse

          "apple have you by the balls"

          Only if you want Apple kit and nothing else.

  8. TalesOfaFlaneur
    WTF?

    Apple's values are important. Seriously.

    Lost its soul? Hardly. Apple have stood their ground and avenged the mistakes of the past (e.g., Microsoft Windows, Apple's dumb licensing deal).

    Apple redefined computing (again) and this time no one is going to screw them by making cheap, ghastly knockoffs.

    Samsung is a massively profitable bottom-feeder - nothing more, nothing less.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Gimp

      Except...

      I think in Apple's triumphs you can see the seeds of what their downfall might look like. They don't look at anyone else. They don't listen. They always want to be new. They work in complete secrecy. That works very well with a computer-literate, majority-user demographic who are happy to learn how to deal with unexpected UI changes when the OS updates every year, no five-year hardware roadmap to keep things interesting and (in the past) less device support than Windows. Not so great with the corporate market or a pro audience who require every single feature from a long checklist, pretty UI be damned. (Witness the Final Cut Pro X debacle, or their lack of interest in creating new Mac Pros.)

      And above all-some time in the future when their ideas aren't so good, will they realise before they ship? Or will they be too trapped in a bubble to notice? Witness John Siracusa's argument that Objective-C's memory management is a dead end and they should start porting something else (maybe C sharp) over before it's too late.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Except...

        Yeah the secrecy isn't ideal for us techies as we're chomping at the bit to find out what's coming next, but i can appreciate why they do it to some extent.

        Actually I think the fact they're not afraid to make significant future thinking changes to their hardware and software and not maintain historic compatibility layers is a good thing in many ways (PITA for pro use though and the software companies who have to re-write stuff using the latest frameworks). Whilst they've generally abstracted it pretty well, I do tend to think Windows suffers from a lot of backward compatibility baggage.

        I haven't delved into objective-C yet (Java guy mainly nowadays) but the syntax does look f-ugly, verbose and outdated and that's put me off even bothering.

    2. Naughtyhorse

      Re: Apple's values are important. Seriously.

      Samsung is a massively profitable bottom-feeder

      that just so happens to supply apple with a ton of their magical hardware.... or at least they did at the time of writing this.....

    3. senti

      Re: Apple's values are important. Seriously.

      "Lost its soul? Hardly. Apple have stood their ground and avenged the mistakes of the past (e.g., Microsoft Windows, Apple's dumb licensing deal).

      Apple redefined computing (again) and this time no one is going to screw them by making cheap, ghastly knockoffs."

      As someone who has been using computers every day for past 32 years, I am dying to find out how exactly Apple "redefined computing (again)".

      All ears.

    4. spegru
      Thumb Down

      Re: Apple's values are important. Seriously.

      If by 'mistakes' you mean following decades, nay centuries, of precedent and practice with regards to patents then I have to agree. But another way of seeing it is following the law.

  9. Turtle

    A moralist predicts the future

    Not a terribly insightful article; in it reads like the script of a morality play that a moralist would like to see played out.

    "Cook is in no mood to play nice with the rest of the industry" - nor has Apple ever been. One li'l example: USB was adopted as an alternative to Firewire. Why? Because the royalty that Jobs wanted for it was exorbitant.

    "Based on the evidence yes, Samsung copied both the design and the style of Apple's products, in the same way that Apple always has." Actually it's not that Samsung copied the design and style. It's that they infringed Apple's patents protecting the "design and style" - along with the way certain parts of the way that the hardware and software operate. And once you agree that Samsung did "copy" then it's difficult to see how you can complain about how quickly the jury returned its verdict.

    In fact, once you know that Google warned Samsung about the too-close-resemblance of Samsung's products to Apple's, it really becomes an open-and-shut, slam-dunk kind of case.

    Apple has always been about walled-gardens, lock-in and lock-out, planned incompatibility and no interoperability, proprietary formats and hardware specs. And you know what? They are the most valuable company in the world today. To think that anything that Apple is doing at the current time is going to change that, is to think wishfully, magically, and childishly.

    1. EWI

      Re: A moralist predicts the future

      "One li'l example: USB was adopted as an alternative to Firewire. Why? Because the royalty that Jobs wanted for it was exorbitant."

      Not so. USB and Firewire are two very different technologies. Firewire is better in a variety of ways, but USB is cheap'n'cheerful.

      "planned incompatibility and no interoperability, proprietary formats and hardware specs."

      MPEG-4, MP3, USB, HTML5 etcetc. are all non-proprietary, and have all been supported by Apple for a long time. And you may want to look at the technical specs of all Apple computers since 2006.

      1. Turtle

        Re: A moralist predicts the future

        The problem with your corrections is that the points you make don't really answer the points I make.

        If you look again, you will see that it is possible for my two propositions and your two comments on them to all be true simultaneously.

    2. Efros

      Re: A moralist predicts the future

      Firewire was Apple's name for the IEEE 1394 interface, whilst Apple indeed contributed heavily to the development and patent pool the license for each item was set at $0.25. The reason USB 1.0 and 2.0 were successful despite IEEE 1394's greater performance was that the hardware for IEEE 1394 was significantly more expensive, in a tight margin market this will kill or severely limit the implementation of a product.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: A moralist predicts the future

        Jobs originally wanted $1 per port per device. That's crazy money.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Empire of Evil

    So they think that they are the only one that can make tablets and smartphones and everybody else gets sued?? I am fed up with this hi-tech bullying. My opinion is that they can stick their foolish patents and rounded rectangles.....you know where!. At this point I wouldn't be surprised if the jurors were promised something for this absurd and lopsided verdict. I am praying that the appeal completely overturns this, and that they get sacked with with a massive antitrust suit.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Empire of Evil

      "I am praying that they get sacked with with a massive antitrust suit."

      Will that anti-trust suit be based on anything in particular, or just, well, just because you would like it?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Erm, how?

      You get an antitrust invasion for taking over a market, not just being the most popular product.

      The only areas where I can say Apple might have done this has been in purchasing up pro audio-video software about five years back, and there there's always been enough competition for it not to matter.

      Google relentlessly trying to get people to join Google+, on the other hand....

  11. tkioz
    Unhappy

    Everyone is quick to bag on Microsoft for all the "evil" things they did, but oh Apple, you little scamp, it was just mischief when you stole the mouse and the GUI and tried to create a monopoly on it... thankfully THAT lawsuit failed...

    Go watch the PBS documentary "Triumph of the Nerds" for a more detailed account.

    The Jury in this case was terminally stupid. Hell I would have taken longer to consider it and I had my mind made up from the start that the whole thing was insane...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "I had my mind made up from the start that the whole thing was insane..."

      And that makes your opinion on the outcome worth what?

  12. ZenCoder
    Happy

    The jury was right, the law was wrong.

    Reading the account of one jury member ... they seemed to make the right decision based on current patent law.

    Don't blame the jury, or the judicial system, they don't make the laws they just interpret them.

    If you you think the patent system is broken, only Congress can fix it. Good luck they are too busy slinging mud and trying to undermine each other so spend any actual time trying to enact laws for the good of the nation.

    The ultimate blame is with the voter. They act in whatever way gets the most votes. If we had intelligent well informed voters who paid attention to the details of politics we'd have politicians engaging in intelligent debate with each other and the electorate.

    1. Gene Cash Silver badge

      Re: The jury was right, the law was wrong.

      No, American juries are fully empowered to say "this law is bullshit and they're not guilty of breaking it" so it's the jury's fault. It's known as "jury nullification"

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The jury was right, the law was wrong.

      If you read what the jury has said, it could well help Samsung with an appeal. Damages were meant to compensate Apple, but the jury chose it on the basis to punish. (Contrary to the jury guidance notes.)

      In total, 21 hours were spent and it was 700 questions so that works out at 1.8 minutes per question. Could they have really analysed each phone, debated it and made a decision in that time? Impossible to know without being there, but some of their comments are strange and the quick time to decision surprised a lot of people.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The jury was right, the law was wrong.

        You have obviously never dealt with muliple variable problems. Only a moron would sit down and review every phone for every issue sequentially (this is implicit in your complaint). The jury were not morons.

    3. Tom 35

      Re: The jury was right, the law was wrong.

      So, they were just following orders?

      If the judge told you to jump off a bridge would you?

      1. Charles 9

        Re: The jury was right, the law was wrong.

        If it was that or be locked up for the rest of my life, I'd probably jump. Depending on the height and my skills in achieving a vertical layout before splashdown, the odds of surviving the jump may vary but can lean towards pretty good (I mean, look at cliff divers--they're pretty high up as well).

  13. etabeta
    Thumb Down

    Seems like Apple is on the way up on the hate list

    Just look at the "likes" and "dislikes" on the various posts...Looks like the Apple trolls are getting a 95% dislike rating! I wish all consumers were the same, so these devils wouldn't have the cash to pay their evil lawyers!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Seems like Apple is on the way up on the hate list

      Meh, are you sure it's not Barry Shitpeas and his 20 sockpuppets?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Seems like Apple is on the way up on the hate list

      I doubt Apple will lose sleep over the 30 people who have nothing better to do on a Saturday night than post messages about how evil they are!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Seems like Apple is on the way up on the hate list

        Straight from the Google campaign operations manual, pg 24: "How win at any Internet argument"

        * Open Google Apps account

        * Install Chrome

        * Install Swap My Cookies extension

        * Login in once with each user/cookie set

        * Switch as you please between profiles, up/down voting posts as required

        It's page 63 in Samsung's Korean copy due to the extra translation.

        Pro agents read page 188: Advanced profile scripting

        1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
          Paris Hilton

          Woah!

          The Apple fanboy whoring here is astonishing.

          Mash up with a "Google campaign" insinuation and some "I'm too cool to post here, I'm busy in a club banging chicks in a toilet stall" and serve.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "The jury, who were carefully screened to make sure no-one with technical knowledge got on the case"

    Not according to Reuters ...

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/25/us-apple-samsung-juror-idUSBRE87O09U20120825

    I wonder which journalist is right? The one with access to the Jurors or the one who hadn't and has a particular slant on the story?

    1. David Simpson 1
      FAIL

      "The jury, who were carefully screened to make sure no-one with technical knowledge got on the case"

      So explains Anonymous Coward 345.

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

        "At one point during the second day of deliberations, jurors turned off the lights in the room to settle a debate about the potential influence screen brightness might have on Apple's graphics interface. Their verdict: Apple's designs were unique."

        what

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Apple better becareful

    Apple is playing a dangerous game. They have no issues of using the IP of others and having them come after Apple to get paid for their work. Apple won't license any of its IP though. How many of the current companies that Apple has had to license GSM, CDMA and 3G technology from? Many of those companies Apple has sued. I expect when 5G comes around, FRAND will be no more. When Apple asks to license the IP, they will either be told NO or told a large sum of money to actually license it. Pretty hard to sell a phone that can't make calls or use any type of data connection but WiFi. The iPad, Apple could probably get away with with just WiFi. Where does this leave Apple? Odd man out with no recourse. Nothing says that someone has to charge the same license fee to all companies. Also, when the big players have to cross license anyway, it is easy just to make it a wash amongst them, but the players with no IP can easily be left out; like Apple. When the shoe is on the other foot, Apple is not going to like it and there is not a court that can help them. If they use the IP without licensing it, they can see huge damages placed against them and the ability not to import their goods. Good luck with trying to circumvent the patents too.

    1. Steve Todd
      Go

      Re: Apple better becareful

      They won't license any of their IP, except for the stuff in h.264, oh and OpenCL (which they gave away for free), and the complete cross license they have with Microsoft, plus numerous other examples. They license their IP where they think it is in the companies interests to do so, just like every other company out there.

      Please take some time to learn what FRAND is, and why standards bodies like the ETSI and 3GPP won't include patents in their standards that haven't been committed to FRAND. It might make your next post look less foolish.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This isn't really about Samsung

    Let's be honest, this isn't really about Samsung is it? It's about Steve Jobs and his belief that Eric Schmidt sat on Apple's board, followed the development of the iPhone and then copied it with Android and broke into a market Apple had forged for themselves. Jobs was livid about that and basically died still vowing vengeance on Google.

    While I'm sure it will stir up the Android fans I've got to say I do believe Jobs was right. Before the iPhone, smart phones were horrid things. I'd owned several Windows Mobile and Nokia devices and they were fiddly and basic. They were OK for their time, but I would never say I actually enjoyed them beyond the initial novelty.

    While I do think Microsoft's engineers deserve some credit for creating a mobile OS with multitasking and so many of the Windows UI features intact, I think they were approaching the problem from the wrong direction: Microsoft were trying to cram the desktop on mobile devices, whereas with the iPhone, Apple were trying to create a simple easy to use device that was good at doing simple tasks on the go.

    For example, Apple recognised that with screens as small as the ones found on smartphones it was pointless having multi-tasking; it drained the battery, it hogged the CPU and it filled up the RAM. The first iPhone focused on just doing one task at a time and doing it well. It was elegantly simple, to the point they thought copy/paste wasn't needed (the idea being that links and phone numbers could be tapped and routed to the appropriate app). Of course that didn't work out as well as they thought, but I think that was just a sign of how people were using the phone for much more than just phone calls.

    I really don't believe that (for example) if Apple hadn't put slide to unlock on their phone that Google would have independently come up with it. No touch based operating systems before the iPhone had it, and I can think of several alternative ways of unlocking that don't involve swiping but Google didn't try to innovate, they just magically ended up with the exact same solution Apple invented.

    Prior to the iPhone, there weren't any smartphones like it on the market. Afterwards, everyone wanted to get in on the act and many of them just copied Apple instead of trying to be innovative (oddly enough, I think MS were genuinely innovative with Windows Phone 7 and deserve a lot of credit for forging their own path). While it might not be illegal, Google clearly copied iOS when they came up with Android.

    I never used to be an Apple fanboi, the iPhone 3G was my first Apple device. It was a fantastic gadget and a huge joy to use after years of Windows Mobile. I just think Apple deserve the credit for inventing the template for the modern smartphone and for coming up with all the ideas that Google, Samsung, HTC, Sony, etc are now profiting from.

    I never had a problem with Android, but the Android fanbois who think Android is the best thing ever really need to admit to themselves the reason they're always so insecure about iOS is because Android really is just a clone. It's the similarity that causes all this fanboyism, because deep down all Android fanbois know that there's very little difference between iOS and Android, which is why they have to fall back on petty insults whenever iOS is mentioned.

    1. Turtle

      Re: This isn't really about Samsung

      That's a pretty insightful post.

      One little caveat, though. I am pretty sure that Page decided to buy Android. Some people must not recall how Schmidt was on Apple's board, how they had a "gentlemen's agreement" (even though no actual gentlemen were involved) to not poach each others staff and personnel so as to keep salaries and employee compensation down, and how Steve Jobs said that Google's slogan "do no evil" was "bullshit" - because Google decided to compete with Apple in the mobile phone market. Anyone whose idea of "evil" is so self-absorbed can only be described as a pig. Oh, wait, that's an insult to pigs, isn't it?

      The world is a better place now that he's dead. Really.

      1. David Simpson 1
        FAIL

        Re: This isn't really about Samsung

        So if industrial espionage was actually involved then why was Schmidt not in court ? Why was Jobs seen having coffee with Schmidt right up too his death. The whole IT industry has been moving toward mobile for years as chip size and power requirements have shrunk - Stop acting like it was such a huge surprise.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: This isn't really about Samsung

      "Let's be honest, this isn't really about Samsung is it? It's about Steve Jobs and his belief that Eric Schmidt sat on Apple's board, followed the development of the iPhone and then copied it with Android and broke into a market Apple had forged for themselves."

      What market did Apple forge? The smartphone market was already there long before Apple; by about at least a decade. App store? Nope, Apple was not the first either. Phone with a large touchscreen? Nope, not the first either. So what market did Apple actually forge?

      1. Charles 9

        Re: This isn't really about Samsung

        "What market did Apple forge? The smartphone market was already there long before Apple; by about at least a decade. App store? Nope, Apple was not the first either. Phone with a large touchscreen? Nope, not the first either. So what market did Apple actually forge?"

        They made the smartphone appealing to the masses. IOW, they expanded the market beyond its usual boundaries. They took the "siren-like" (as in, you're drawn to it no matter how you feel) appeal of their iPods and extended it to mobile phones, and the result is a lot like what happened when Nintendo came out with the Wii: everyone AND their mother AND their daughter wanted it never mind the price. And this was in the cotton-picking USA where the mobcos pretty much had their subscribers by the balls and were content with trickle-feeding feature phones to them at exorbitant prices, thus why smartphone penetration was low in the US at that time. The iPhone changed that tune significantly since its siren effect skewed the market. Demand was so high it allowed Apple to dictate terms to eventually AT&T, not the other way around,and AT&T couldn't push back too hard for fear Apple would take the iPhone ball to another provider.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: This isn't really about Samsung

      "Eric Schmidt sat on Apple's board, followed the development of the iPhone and then copied it with Android and broke into a market Apple had forged for themselves"

      Umm, Android was in development before the iPhone was released and Google bought it, they did not develop it based on the iPhone.

      "I'd owned several Windows Mobile and Nokia devices and they were fiddly and basic.I'd owned several Windows Mobile and Nokia devices and they were fiddly and basic."

      Fiddly I agree with, basic no, functionality wise the iPhone was playing catch up. I got a bit bored reading in the middle because you're coming across as a fanboy but I skipped to your last paragraph: "Android fanbois who think Android is the best thing ever really need to admit to themselves the reason they're always so insecure about iOS is because Android really is just a clone."

      Did iOS's new and magical pull-down notification system give you that gem? I'd just rather everyone stopped suing everyone over stupid shit. If Google had patented that, Apple would be getting sued, it's ridiculous.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: This isn't really about Samsung

      Linux was on mobiles before iPhone was dreamt up, Android has a history (October 2003) that predates Google's purchase and Apple's iPhone (2004). Android was inevitable. No, iOS wasn't copied. Slide to unlock was done by a Swedish company before Apple (Neonode N1m). Oh my, mobile Linux also had app icons. Oh wait, don't feature phones (way before Apple) even have icons? So, you're wrong, Android would still be where it is today without Apple. You give too much credit to Apple and ignore what was done before (Apple or Android). It's funny how you complain about Android and its fans, but you are behaving in the same way you describe, but about Apple.

    5. David Simpson 1
      FAIL

      Re: This isn't really about Samsung

      Android fans love Android because it is free for them to use on any device they put it on - WAKE UP !

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

        Re: This isn't really about Samsung

        "And I can think of several alternative ways of unlocking that don't involve swiping but Google didn't try to innovate, they just magically ended up with the exact same solution Apple invented"

        And this is bad how?

        It's how things work - good ideas are shared and become commonplace.

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: This isn't really about Samsung

      'I really don't believe that (for example) if Apple hadn't put slide to unlock on their phone that Google would have independently come up with it. No touch based operating systems before the iPhone had it, and I can think of several alternative ways of unlocking that don't involve swiping but Google didn't try to innovate, they just magically ended up with the exact same solution Apple invented.'

      Except my o2 XDA which was released nearly 3 years before the original iPhone had slide to unlock, so im pretty sure apple didn't think it up all by themselves.

      'For example, Apple recognised that with screens as small as the ones found on smartphones it was pointless having multi-tasking; it drained the battery, it hogged the CPU and it filled up the RAM. The first iPhone focused on just doing one task at a time and doing it well. It was elegantly simple, to the point they thought copy/paste wasn't needed (the idea being that links and phone numbers could be tapped and routed to the appropriate app). Of course that didn't work out as well as they thought, but I think that was just a sign of how people were using the phone for much more than just phone calls.'

      Again my o2 XDA had multi-tasking and my phone lasted between 5 days to a week and it had copy and paste which i could use at any time and copy into any app that i had downloaded if needed.

      Apple have just made a phone for people who didn't know how to use a real smartphone, the iPhone should have never been classed as a smartphone as it doesn't have half the features a real smartphone does.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Apple PAID TO LICENCE Xerox's technology and then build on it significantly. That's all they were, quite reasonably, asking Samsung to do. Samsung refused and decided to blatantly rip off Apple's designs, and they have now been punished accordingly because they didn't play fair.

    Seriously, this is a terrible article. I can't believe people can get paid for having rubbish like this published.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      How many times has Apple used IP of others and they had to sue to get their royalties? Some of these were basic GSM and 3G patents, so Apple clearly knew they had to pay royalties but waited until asked. Then still they didn't want to pay. So clearly Apple is known to blatantly rip others off.

      1. Brangdon

        re: basic GSM and 3G patents

        If you mean the patents Samsung just sued over, Apple did pay for them. Specifically, they paid the chip manufacturers, who in turn had deals with Samsung. Samsung was effectively trying to get paid twice for the same tech, apparently out of spite because Apple was suing them and they wanted to sue back. The jury threw it out of court because it had no merit whatsoever.

    2. David Simpson 1
      FAIL

      So why did Apple try to sue Microsoft for using the GUI if they themselves had licensed it from Xerox ? Surely Xerox should have sued Microsoft - when in fact the court threw out Apple's claims based on the fact that Apple had copied Xerox from the start.

      1. Steve Todd
        Stop

        Why did Apple sue MS?

        Because the bits of the GUI that Apple had invented (and weren't part of Xerox's design) somehow found their way into Windows. Xerox thought that they could get on the bandwagon by suing too, and were told by the courts to get lost.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Apple are evil. I've said it for years.

    Apple have never innovated, ever. Neither the iPod, the iPhone, nor the iPad have a single feature that hasn't been lifted from somebody else. Apple are just the proof that in today's world, marketing triumphs over everything. You can take products that are less functional, and more expensive than similar products, but as long as you can brainwash people into thinking that if they own one, they'll be one of the cool kids, you can sell more than anybody else.

    Apple fans terrify me. The iPhone 5 could be covered in poisonous spikes and cost a thousand pounds, and they'd still be queueing up to buy them.

    The patent system is so utterly broken. Apple have been allowed to patent so many things that should never have been patentable. Instead of competing directly, Apple are using a corrupt legal system to prevent their competitors' products reaching the market.

    Are the identities of the jurors in this case known? I wouldn't be at all surprised if most or all of them have suddenly come into money.

    Steve Jobs was one of the nastiest people who ever lived and the world is a better place now that he's dead.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Apple are evil. I've said it for years.

      " I wouldn't be at all surprised if most or all of them have suddenly come into money."

      You are even more crazy than the US software patent system. I didn't know that was possible.

    2. Jonathan White
      WTF?

      Re: Apple are evil. I've said it for years.

      "Steve Jobs was one of the nastiest people who ever lived"

      Just when you thought the internet couldn't get any more dumb. Seriously, you need to question your levels of perspective. A cursory look at the history books would find a hundred people who make Jobs look like Tinkerbell.

      1. croc
        Big Brother

        Re: Apple are evil. I've said it for years.

        @ Jonathan White:

        Could you please name a few? I mean a few worse personages than Jobs. I tried, but gave up when I realized that Genghis Khan was only worse in scale, not in kind.

        1. Jonathan White
          WTF?

          Re: Apple are evil. I've said it for years.

          what? You serious? Mass murderers are only worse than Steve Jobs 'in scale'??

          You're a looney.

    3. Philip Lewis

      Re: Apple are evil. I've said it for years.

      What an appalling diatribe.

  19. cduance

    quote

    Good artists copy great artists steal - Steve Jobs

    So according to him Samsung must be a great artist

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: quote

      I think only copying was involved, not stealing.

      Your post also shows that you're too shallow to understand a Picasso quote.

      1. John H Woods Silver badge

        Re: quote

        isn't it Igor Stravinsky?

      2. This post has been deleted by its author

        1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
          Facepalm

          Re: Picasso

          > I think only copying was involved, not stealing.

          If you steal a great artist, that's called "kidnapping" and frowned upon.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Apple are like any other company

    But I like the stuff they make, it's well designed, reliable, doesn't require too much shepherding from the user, is made up of rounded rectangles, and gets idiots frothing at the mouth over personal purchasing choices that are none of their business. In an ideal world, Apple will destroy all its competitors with ridiculous profits and IP suits, then take over enterprise, centralise control of systems and negate the need for annoying IT dept banana republic fiefdoms that spend about as much time impeding and patronising people as they do enabling them. Of all the wicked companies out there, Apple gets my money because their products are reliably good and they signal a bright future where IT depts diminish in number and influence. Oh, and a world in which the idiots have frothed themselves into drowning on their own spittle. Go Tim Cook!

    PS: None of the above is a joke. It's not sarcasm. If you think I'm dumb for buying Apple products (I mean, some of you dimwits actually think the JURY in this trial reached their verdict due to sheer stupidity), I might as well wish you the worst. Tired of stupid people who are convinced they're smarter than I. And as it happens, quite conveniently, Apple holds several keys that might open the doors to a worse world for you. Or at least a far more annoying one. An iPhone everywhere you turn! Just imagine. And they can do it all by making me nice shiny walled gardens. Let's GO.

    PPS: yes, I am trolling you. I don't care. Why should I, when all of your opinions are basically a troll of people you mistakenly consider to be your intellectual inferiors?

    1. John H Woods Silver badge

      Re: Apple are like any other company

      The essential contradiction inherent in your post is simultaneously taking people to task for mistakenly believing others to be their intellectual inferiors, whilst clearly doing the same thing yourself.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Apple are like any other company

      'Reliably good'. ROFLMAO. (laughing my antennae off)

    3. John Sanders
      Linux

      Re: Apple are like any other company

      I wish you and Apple: Death by Linux.

      I wish the same to most of the IT industry.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Now that Apple are getting all this extra money do you think they will be able to afford to stop selling unlicensed music illegally through iTunes ?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      unlicensed music illegally on iTunes?

      "Now that Apple are getting all this extra money do you think they will be able to afford to stop selling unlicensed music illegally through iTunes ?"

      I have never heard about this, and being a musician, I kinda follow the subject maybe just a tiny bit more closely than most. I'd like to see some references or citations please, or, as they say, "it didn't happen".

      1. David Simpson 1
        FAIL

        Re: unlicensed music illegally on iTunes?

        As a musician you follow news about iTunes ? That sounds a bit ridiculous !

        1. Turtle

          @David Simpson 1: Re: unlicensed music illegally on iTunes?

          "Re: unlicensed music illegally on iTunes? As a musician you follow news about iTunes ? That sounds a bit ridiculous !"

          Why is that? They're the biggest music retailer in the world. Considering that a musician wanting to make a living would pretty much be compelled to use iTunes, I would expect that musicians as potential iTunes clients would be expected to follow news about iTunes - as news about iTunes could relate to their ability to earn a livelihood.

          I'm trying to understand why it's "ridiculous" but am failing completely.

      2. Efros

        Re: unlicensed music illegally on iTunes?

        http://bit.ly/PSD5BV

        Rap so music moniker may be subject to argument.

        1. Steve Todd
          Stop

          Re: unlicensed music illegally on iTunes?

          Looks like a case of suing the wrong party. Apple only ever sell music as middle men. A record company provides them with a batch of tracks and says "sell these for this price". The artist in question is claiming that the record company didn't have rights to these tracks. Must be all Apple's fault right?

  22. John Tserkezis

    Yikes.

    When Apple make Microsoft look good, well, yikes.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Apple do innovate

    Come on guys - the iPhone was pretty damn revolutionary. Maybe most of the ideas weren't new - but so what - Apple pulled them together and produced the first product of its type. Sure it all seems really obvious now we're all familiar with the iPhone and iPad, but good ideas / application of ideas frequently do - however it really was leaps and bounds ahead of anything else before it (e.g. quality hardware and great usability).

    I suggest you take a look at what Android looked like before the iPhone came along - and what Samsung phones looked like as well. Then tell me why Apple shouldn't be more than a bit pissed off with the pair of them (and I agree with one of the previous posters - even if the more open nature of Android appeals to many in the tech community, Google are far from angelic).

    That said this does feel like a Steve Jobs vendetta that Apple felt they had to see through. Also I do think the US software patent system is a joke and it's hard to feel too much sympathy for Apple whilst they are making such big profits and continuing to push the boundaries with their products to maintain a lead. Competition is indeed healthy, but then again blatant copying, especially from two companies extremely close to Apple would piss me off as well.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Apple do innovate

      I think we disagree on the 'innovate' term more than anything. I don't think pulling together a lot of pre-existing stuff is innovating no matter how well done it was. Yes, the iPhone was well done and it did attract a massive following. It also raised the bar for all other smart phone manufacturers. But I still wouldn't say Apple innovated anything in bringing it to market.

      Software patents, I agree are properly bent, and the Galaxy S was a blatant attempt to be an iPhone which should have been resolved with copyright law, not patents.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Apple do innovate

        Yeah maybe the term innovate is a bit vague here, but I do maintain the iPhone did raise the bar significantly compared to all smartphones before it and produced a small, sexy, and really easy to use device (and I used to have several Symbian phones (P800/P900 (not bad at all) and Window phones prior (utter unstable crap)).

        The fact is no-one else had produced such a device with such an easy to use interface (no stylus and really obvious) before the iPhone. So whilst it may be an assembly of existing ideas (iPad type devices have featured in Star Trek and even 2001 A Space Odyssey let's face it) - they did it first and no-one else was showing any signs of producing anything similar. So I'd call that innovation.

        Hell my 16 month old daughter can turn on our iPad / unlock it / scroll between the launcher pages / launch programs within groups just fine and perform actions in simple programs. So you've got to respect Apple for coming up with a UI that's so intuitive that a toddler who obviously can't even read yet and can barely feed herself without spilling it everywhere, can operate it (the only problem is restricting her time on the iPad as she absolutely loves it - although does get a bit frustrated - so we limit her to 20 mins a day).

        Yeah software patents should be eliminated - as most of the ideas are so damn obvious it's ridiculous. Very glad we don't have them in the UK.

        I will add I love the Ubuntu Android edition they are punting. That's very cool - your phone can be docked to become a fully fledged desktop computer. That would almost sway me to move to Android - can't see Apple doing something similar.

        1. Philip Lewis
          Paris Hilton

          Re: Apple do innovate

          Way back in my youthful and formative years, Alan Kay gave a talk to the professional staff at my place of employment. I cannot remember precisely when, but I am guessing early 1985. Amongst the things that were shown during the presentation, was a film of a toddler (5yo IIRC) manipulating objects in the paint program on a Lisa. Despite the "fact" that reversible actions were "known" not to be within the reach of a 5 yo mind, this charming little lass added, changed and removed objects at will, apparently having figured it all out by herself. Let's face it, it's not like she could RTFM or anything. Understanding the reality of this event, and how stunningly important it was, is critical in understanding how Apple designs things.

          Unlike most software nerds here at The Register, Apple has, from its very earliest days understood something that has been fundamental to their success. The focus is not customers/users - it is homo sapiens. Understand the psychology of humans, and as Steven Pinker might say, "understand how the mind works". What escapes most of the people in the forums here is that UI design is not about pixel density or which flavour of the month IDE is used to create it. It is about understanding the job to be done at the most simple level, but it is also very much about the science of optics, of how humans perceive light & sound, and not least the psychology of how and why humans behave the way they do, and from there constructing something that is intuitively obvious to the human species. Apple perhaps aren't the only company that has understood this - but in their market space they are clearly the best at it because it pervades Apples corporate culture.

          Apple, have elevated the task of taking primary science and applying its understanding to hardware & software design to an art form. Pip pip I say!

          The anti-Apple folks here, are for the most part completely incapable of understanding the relevance of all this, and I shall be soundly punished for it no doubt. But the fact is, a child without verbal skills from any culture can figue out and manipulate an iPad. That folks, is one of the most stunningly successful events in software design history.

          Disclaimer: When the Lisa came to Australia, of the first 2 that lobbed at the Apple office. 1 of them took up residence in our loungeroom, when not being displayed/demoed to customers. I was gobsmacked at the time.

          Paris: Because she has elevated herself to an art form

    2. David Simpson 1
      FAIL

      Re: Apple do innovate

      Android had both a touchscreen interface and a blackberry style one, surprisingly enough iFans only post blogs about the blackberry style one since that plays up to their nonsense - it was only 5 years ago most adults can remember that far back especially when we were using the development tools they gave away.

      Nokia/HTC/Samsung/LG/SonyE were already releasing both touchscreen and keyboard phones.

      1. Hugo

        Re: Apple do innovate

        You're not doing yourself any favours using terms like "iFans". It makes you come across as a teenage kid. There are plenty of us who are capable of being objective about these things you know. At the end of the day there are plenty of good and bad things about Apple products and the same with competing products.

        You make it sound like all of us blindly rush out and buy Apple kit simply because they are blinded my marketing or something.

        So what if Android had a touch-screen interface already - the point is what was it like? Did it require a stylus, was it easy to use/reactive/intuitive. We've already said Apple's trick here wasn't about inventing anything new as such, but pulling together a bunch of ideas into a product and polishing the heck out of them.

        1. JEDIDIAH
          Linux

          Re: Apple do innovate

          > You're not doing yourself any favours using terms like "iFans". It makes you come across as a teenage kid.

          Don't get your pretensious tight ass panties in a buch. It's certainly not the worse thing people could come up with. It's no worse than net.this and net.that and is very much in line with Apple's own naming conventions.

          If anyone has some growing up to do, it's you.

          1. This post has been deleted by its author

          2. This post has been deleted by its author

          3. Hugo

            Re: Apple do innovate

            @JEDIDAH - Huh? You're missing my point I think - sure we all generalise - but his use of this phrase made it come across like people who buy Apple kit aren't capable of being objective and aren't conscious of the negatives of doing so. Actually I don't think he meant this - which is why I think the use of the phrase didn't do him any favours.

            Never mind - your totally off the wall reaction suggests you're not capable of being very objective.

          4. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            @JEDIDIAH

            "> Don't get your pretensious tight ass panties in a buch. It's certainly not the worse thing people could come up with."

            That's "pretentious", "bunch", and "worst". Although I am willing to consider "buch" a typo, as opposed to a result of a low level of literacy.

  24. tkioz
    Trollface

    I would if it would be legal for a bunch of tech companies to simple say "no, not going to licence any of OUR IP to Apple anymore, piss off", given Apple's statements that they aren't interested in licensing "their" patents.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      All companies have that right, except for FRAND patents.

      Apple is not that bothered about licensing their unique stuff, because they like to keep their innovations to themselves. Fair play to them.

      1. tkioz
        FAIL

        What "innovations"? The iPod? prior-art. The iPhone? prior-art. The iPad? prior-art.

        They are masters at spin and marketing, but they haven't actually innovated since Woz left.

      2. Thorne

        "Apple is not that bothered about licensing their unique stuff, because they like to keep their innovations to themselves. Fair play to them."

        Yeah like slide to unlock and rounded corners. Truely innovative shit and not some dull obvious patent club to beat competitors senseless with...

    2. Brangdon

      But Apple do licence their stuff. Microsoft licensed a lot of the UI stuff that Samsung just got stung for. Apple offered to license it to Samsung too, but Samsung refused to pay. (It would have been expensive, but not as expensive as the damages.)

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Vote with your wallet

    Any company that employs Chinese slave labor so Tim Cook can reap $700 Million per year in compensation, will not get a dollar of my disposable income.

    1. Turtle

      Re: Vote with your wallet

      Does Cook get 1 million shares every year? If not, then it is a bit inaccurate to say that he is reaping $700 per year unless is really is getting that year after year. Wikipedia says "In early 2012, he was awarded compensation of 1 million shares, vesting in 2021". Now I might well be misunderstanding what this means, but if those 1 million shares are a sort of bonus that will he will receive if he remains CEO for the next 9 years, then that's not really his yearly compensation - unless, as I said, he gets that year after year.

      Cook by the way is also on the board of directors of Nike. Now there's a bunch of scumbags. It was so... characteristic of someone like Phil Knight to be aggressively defending Joe Paterno - although he seems to have since opined as to how possibly Paterno was in some way a little bit imperfect. $300 for a pair of Lebron James sneakers - what can one possibly say? Irrespective of his record on the basketball court, how many people have ever gotten paid more for doing less. But then, I guess we could say that about any highly-paid athlete.

  26. Alan Denman

    Apple simply beats the whole world at their own game.

    Apple were good at what they did.

    Becoming the most evil company in the world is just another accolade for them. Shareholders will obviously approve cause that's what they also do.

    As REM said " It's the end of the world as we know it"

  27. Alan Denman

    "Pretty hard to sell a phone that can't make calls "

    Apple walks on water. The iPhone was comparatively useless at calls so A T & T got the blame.

    It actually took Consumer Report to step into the fray to fix it for the infatuated kids.

  28. wayne 8
    Mushroom

    Kudos to the author

    This story says something no USA financial media will ever point out:

    "As a result, Apple is now the most valuable company on the planet (in part thanks to the declining value of the American dollar)"

    In the USA Apple is a symbol of a vital economy. No one in the mainstream dares speak of the declining dollar that makes stock prices go up and food, gasoline, go up as well.

    1. Tom 7

      Re: Kudos to the author

      What is this shit about apple being the most valuable company on the planet - many companies have accounting errors larger than apple.

      1. JEDIDIAH
        Linux

        Re: Kudos to the author

        It's all about stock valuation.

        That's the new yardstick: How absurd is your PE ratio?

        1. Steve Todd
          Go

          Re: Kudos to the author

          Apple's PE is in the middle of the normal range (you expect a companies PE to be between 10 and 20, Apple's is 15.59) and less than Google's (20.11). What were you saying again?

          1. Steve Todd

            Re: Kudos to the author

            And why are comment icons broken? That should have been a "FAIL"

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Kudos to the author

            But isn't one supposed to be a "manufacturer" and the other a "software and services company" ? There should be some differences ;)

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Kudos to the author

        "What is this shit about apple being the most valuable company on the planet - many companies have accounting errors larger than apple."

        Examples?

        1. Rukario
          Big Brother

          Re: Kudos to the author

          Most valuable public company. Saudi Aramco and State Grid Corporation of China are far from public!

    2. Efros

      Re: Kudos to the author

      Valuable, but only employ 50000 people in America.

    3. Turtle

      "Declining Dollars"

      "As a result, Apple is now the most valuable company on the planet (in part thanks to the declining value of the American dollar)"

      Someone is going to have to explain to me exactly what effect the exchange rate has. I can think of ways that the exchange rate would make the company more valuable, or less valuable. But they don't seem realistic in either case.

      After all, with a floating exchange rate, the *value* of the company remains the same, it is only the value as expressed in a specific quantity of any given currency that changes. I.e. because of the declining exchange rate, Apple's value is equivalent to a lesser number of dollars than before - when measured against a foreign currency, but it will at the same time be worth a larger number of Japanese yen, or euros, or renminbi. Which one is going to be your "inertial frame of reference" in this highly relativistic system - and why?

      Now, of course the value of Apple's products sold "abroad" (i.e. not in the US) might drop - but it could go up too! After all, I am sure that Apple is heavily into arbitrage - and I would expect that it is possible for Apple to conduct their manufacturing operations from start to finish abroad, and to do so in such a way that they never have to spend their "declining-in-value" dollars, spending their "overvalued" foreign currencies instead.

      Well, I can't make heads or tails out of it. Just like the guy who wrote the original article that we are all commenting on, it seems.

  29. Phlip
    Headmaster

    Sir Ive?!

    Sir Jonathan, surely

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Tablets?

    Eveyone seems to have overlooked the fact that Microsoft had initiated the true GUI tablet, with pen-sensitive touch-screen some 10 or 12 years ago. For some reason much of the world was not enthusiastic enough about these, but nonetheless they were out there long before the first ipad appeared. So there could be an argument that Apple simply copied the concept from Microsoft.

    BTW the recent patent case said that Apple used two samsung patents but Samsung used only one Apple patent. Why then was the fine against samsung so much bigger. Have people also forgotten that Apple was convicted of using 12 Nokia patents not long ago.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

    3. hodma727
      Boffin

      Re: Tablets?

      "Eveyone seems to have overlooked the fact that Microsoft had initiated the true GUI tablet, with pen-sensitive touch-screen some 10 or 12 years ago. For some reason much of the world was not enthusiastic enough about these, but nonetheless they were out there long before the first ipad appeared. So there could be an argument that Apple simply copied the concept from Microsoft."

      Go back over a decade before that and you'll see Apple's "true GUI tablet with pen-sensitive touch screen". They started development in 1987 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_%28platform%29). That's not long after they produced the first GUI based computers outside of a research lab.

      I owned several Microsoft based phones and they were garbage compared to Apple's very first offering.

      Those of us that have been around and seen the technology evolve have a somewhat less willfully biased or ignorant understanding of Apple's impact on computing.

      1. JEDIDIAH
        Linux

        Re: Tablets?

        > That's not long after they produced the first GUI based computers outside of a research lab.

        So? That research lab is prior art.

        The fact that something is hidden from you laymen doens't mean it hasn't been invented yet.

        Also, anything from 1987 should be well expired by now patent-wise.

    4. Philip Lewis
      FAIL

      Re: Tablets?

      Convicted??????

      I somehow doubt that. I do not think patent infringement has been elevated to a criminal offence just yet.

  31. localzuk Silver badge

    Appeal

    Only outcome of all this will be an appeal. There are plenty of grounds to, for example the limited time to put cases across, and the refusal to allow evidence to be presented etc...

    This case isn't over, I wouldn't be surprised if it carried on going for another 5 years at least.

    1. Steve Todd
      Stop

      Re: Appeal

      Samsung's own lawyers agreed to the limited time. They were told they could have a separate trial of their own case vs Apple if there wasn't enough time and they said it wasn't a problem.

    2. 2Fat2Bald

      Re: Appeal

      Yep. Absolutely. And they can both afford the lawyers, so I bet it plays on for so long that it becomes irrelevent.

      I get the distinct impression that it's more above excluding a rival from a market place whilst you gain a dominant position. So if you can keep it going for years, you can ensure they "win" long after "winning" has become completely immaterial.

      Reminds me rather of the whole "Internet Explorer Vs Netscape Navigator" debacle. The only people who did well out of that were the Lawyers. And I suspect the same will happen here. Eventually.

  32. Jay Holmes
    Flame

    Its all Bollox!!

    Im getting sick of all the fan bois from either side, Apple, Android or Microsoft. If people cant be arse to be objective about something then whats the point?

    The Apple fanbois seem to think the jury walk on water because they gave the "right" verdict! Everyone else thinks 3 days to review a case of this size is no where near enough and the link to the jurors comments (http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/25/us-apple-samsung-juror-idUSBRE87O09U20120825) just show that they wanted to punish Samsung and they could speed up the process because there were a few engineers and legal experts on the jury!!! 3 days is still too short in my opinion, but then opinions are like arseholes we all have one!

    The Android fan bois seem to think that Apple is this evil entity trying to take over the world, it isnt (that was Steve Jobs lol) no matter what you think all companies do something like this its just the reporters go where the action is and at the moment that is the smartphone/tablet world. I never particularly cared for Steve Jobs or the way he did business, but saying that the world is better off now he is dead grow up and get a clue if you honestly believe that someone deserved to die in any way just because you dont like the way they do business then the world would be better off without you.

    The Microsoft fanbois, are not escaping either. Im just biding my time with you guys sitting in the corner watching the fight go on lol and occasionally throwing a bit of petrol on the flames!!

    And as it was with the PC world, IBM were first in the smartphone world back in August 1994 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Simon

    And before the heady days of iPhone in 2007, I owned an O2 XDAII (HTC Andes) which was release in Nov 03 and an O2 XDA Exec (HTC Universal) which was released in July 05. So the iPhone came late to the party and yes they did make the smartphone look all shiny. But I will stand by what I say that Apple do not really innovate they just take ideas from all over the place, wrap them all in a shiny package then pass them up to the real evil MARKETING, and if Apple really excel in anything it is design and Marketing!!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Its all Bollox!!

      'but then opinions are like arseholes we all have one!'

      A friend of mine didn't. But then, she exploded more than 30 years ago, so for all I know it's a truism now.

      But, jeez...if you think jaundice is bad!...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Its all Bollox!!

      > Im getting sick of all the fan bois from either side, Apple, Android or Microsoft. If people cant be arse to be objective about something then whats the point?

      Totally agree. Unfortunately it seems most Internet forum posts/article responses are from hot headed testosterone fuelled males who are barely out of university and have very little actual experience but lots of cock sure opinions on everything.

      1. Jay Holmes

        Re: Its all Bollox!!

        Agreed and this comes from one of those testosterone fuelled males although I never went to college or university, I got a job instead!!

  33. Rimpel
    Joke

    jury selection

    " The jury, who were carefully screened to make sure no-one with technical knowledge got on the case"

    I.e. the jury were all iphone owners

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: jury selection

      Recruited from the antenna development team? ;)

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    People resent success

    Did Apple develop on top of concepts created elsewhere? Of course they did, everyone does. Did they rip people off or patent troll to the same extent as Microsoft? Not even close.... Whenever any company is successful, there will always be a million people out there resenting them for something... if they can't find anything substantial, they will make something up (e.g. Apple makes a lot of money). I don't use Apple product, primarily because they are expensive. However, Apple won, for the large part, by just making much better products than their competitors.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  35. Jonathon Green
    Facepalm

    A sane company would have put a reasonable value (i.e not in the tens of $ per device range) on their UI/UE patents, cross licensed against the mountain of radio related etc stuff required for the phone bit in a smartphone, and picked up the odd few cents per device (which in the quantities this kind of thing ship in woud actually be Quite A Lot of Money) rather than seeking to use FRAND licensing requirements to gain an unfair commercial advantage by valuing the (questionable) IP it brings to the smartphone party at an unrealistic level while paying a pittance for the standards mandated stuff developed by competitors. I can't help thinking that when the principle of FRAND licensing for standards related patents was mooted using it to walk off with your competitors crown jewels for pennies while either asking ridiculous amounts for licensing or (withholding altogether) your own IP wasn't exactly what the originators of the concept had in mind...

    As it is I fear that Apple may turn out not to be a sane company, that having got a judgement against Samsung they'll move on to the next page of the classic patent troll's playbook, start working their way down the chain through Sony, HTC, Huawei, Motorola et-al attempting to use the Samsung judgement to either remove products from the marketplace or extract extortionate license fees against the threat of lawsuits, and before you know it they'll have de facto control over two entire classes of device (tablets and touchscreen smartphones) and it will be impossible to produce a touchscreen controlled device acceptable in the marketplace as usable without either paying a lot of money to Apple or risking an expensive court battle with an uncertain outcome. This would almost certainly end in a massive antitrust battle but it still wouldn't be good news for anyone except the lawyers.

    In a way it would actually have been better if they'd got a judgement purely on the aesthetic stuff (rectangle with rouned corners etc, although how you could copyright/trademark/patent minimalism defeats me - the idea that an item infringes by sharing the absence of extraneous features, say by being packaged in a plain white box with a picture of the contents on it, seems kind of bizarre...) rather than the technical stuff. As it is Apple now seem perilously close to being able to assert ownership of an entire interaction paradigm regardless of the packaging, and that's not going to end well for anybody...

    Typed on an iPad 2 with a Samsung Galaxy SII charging on the bedside table. Haven't mistaken one for the other yet...

    1. Steve Todd
      Stop

      You're assuming that a sane company

      Would want to hand a competitor the rights to copy their non-standards essential designs. The high price was Apple saying "we really don't want you to do this" and Samsung's other option was to engineer them out (which Google have for the most part done with stock Android). Samsung went out of their way to infringe here.

  36. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Any word on how much damages Apple are going to have to pay for losing to Samsung and HTC in the UK this summer?

    Did they manage to avoid having to print the full-page apology to Samsung in the newspapers the judge wanted?

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-18/apple-must-publish-notice-samsung-didn-t-copy-ipad-judge-says.html

  37. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The biggest difference we can make

    ...we non-Apple users, is if we all change our surnames to Jones.

    Heh heh heh.

  38. Wang N Staines

    The jury found Samsung copied Apple does not mean that other tablet/phone makers will be affected too.

    According to the foreman, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-25/apple-samsung-jury-foreman-says-google-e-mail-persuasive.html, that what undone Samsung's case.

    Other manufacturers whose tablets/phones look distinctively different may fight with different strategies, e.g., will try to invalidate Apple's patents etc... This case had already shown that tech companies had privately demoed technologies to Apple which shortly turned up in Apple's patents a few months later.

  39. Chris Donald

    I like, but I hope...

    Their iPad 3 and I'm using it now, but I hope they take a sharp downfall, just for a while. Because this is arrogance and worse. It's a dire day for freedom of competition and no one should have this much commercial power. It's the extreme end of capitalism where it is actually a bad way to do things.

    We will all pay for this in a various ways, our technology culture will be poorer and less innovative for it and arrogant secure companies dictate far more than they innovate. For these reasons, Apple needs to tumble, but only long enough to realise that this is bad for the future. Then wake up and focus on doing good stuff again, minus the vulture pack of lawyers and bullshit.

    This isn't a comment on quality but of ethics.

  40. John Deeb
    Linux

    It appears like the infamous reality distortion field also works very well inside courts and even without Jobs.

    Fascinating!

  41. blamblamblam

    terrible crisis for digital freedom

    Great piece. It's a terrible crisis for digital freedom. For the first time ever, one company owns an entire category of internet access device, controlling both hardware and software. It was bad enough before, this judgement make things worse. It's as if IBM had a patent on the PC, preventing anyone else from making one, and also made the software. Tragically the journalists and pundits who ought to be shouting right now about digital freedom remain convinced that Apple = liberty, therefore everything's fine.

  42. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Umm, so which is it?

    The Register:

    "The jury, who were carefully screened to make sure no-one with technical knowledge got on the case, spent less than three days considering its verdict..."

    Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/25/us-apple-samsung-juror-idUSBRE87O09U20120825

    "He [jury foreman Velvin Hogan] said jurors were able to complete their deliberations in less than three days - much faster than legal experts had predicted - because a few had engineering and legal experience, which helped with the complex issues in play."

    I understand that they could be engineers of, well, anything, but if their engineering skills "helped with the complex issues in play" that implies they're engineers of something relevant - which I thought wasn't allowed.

    1. Handle This
      Boffin

      Re: Umm, so which is it?

      Contrary to what seems to be a firm belief in forums, there is no law or even rule against the placing of jurors in a panel with relevant experience with the issues in the case being tried. The general preference of trial lawyers (both defense and plaintiff) is to have a blank slate upon which to write their own opinions and facts, and not have to worry about a juror realizing that there is more to an issue than they are being told, or that the party (or attorney) is not telling them the truth. Having said that, such a preference is obviously not always practical - you have a limited pool of people from which to pull jurors, and even in a case like this a judge will not allow unlimited peremptory (without cause) removal of a prospective juror. The determining factor is whether a juror can be fair with the knowledge presented at trial, based on that juror's own life experience, not whether a juror will put aside his/her own real experience and indulge in accepting only the arguments presented while ignoring what they know to be true in the "real world." Given that, it is not unusual to assume that both technical knowledge, economic experience and basic common sense all found their way into the jury room for deliberations. Even given a lawyer's preference for a jury having minimal opinions of their own, no one wants a bunch of idiots making decisions for their clients. (I realize this is a great set-up line - swing away!)

      You can argue with a jury's decision based on a lot of factors, but you should be able to count on a certain amount of garden-variety common sense being applied. If it doesn't appear to have been so, I would suggest looking a little closer at the arguments and exhibits permitted or denied at trial or the jury instructions presented to the jury. That is usually the source of the public's true disagreement with trial results. Of course, it is always possible for juries to mistake instructions and misinterpret evidence or argument, but again, it sometimes depends on the perspective of the observer or comment.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Umm, so which is it?

        Thanks for the response, I'm sure I'd read in another article (there's way too many from this case for me to want to go hunt for it) that they'd removed all "experts" from the jury deliberately.

        Personally I agree that experts are more relevant than non-experts in a case like this. But IANAL, just an amazed spectator.

  43. kit

    Better Products, not accusations

    Does anyone who process a pc would accuse hp,or dell for stealing the design of ibm. or anyone who is using ms excel for stealing the design of lotus123. For goodness sake, for those who bought samsung 's smartphones, is simply the fact that they are better than apples's.

  44. Sean Timarco Baggaley
    FAIL

    "The company itself got its start from copying the GUI system developed at Xerox PARC."

    Aaaand that's where the article writer's ignorance, bias, or flagrant link-baiting kicks in.

    Seriously? This mythical "They stole it all from PARC" bollocks again?

    Apple paid Xerox for access to the work at PARC in the form of shares! There was no "copying" here, unless you sincerely believe "paying Xerox for the right to develop some of the GUI R&D at PARC" is "copying". If Xerox kept those shares, they'll have made hundreds of millions of dollars on the deal by now. Far more than they ever made by sitting on all that research and doing practically bugger all of any real use with it.

    Apple even hired many of the people working at PARC at the time—Xerox clearly didn't mind as they didn't turn around and sue anyone—including the likes of Jef Raskin who went on to be very influential in GUI design over his lifetime; iOS owes more than a little to his "zooming UI" concept.

    Also, Apple existed long before they developed their Lisa and Mac designs. Their Apple II series had precisely sod all to do with PARC's work. None. And it, too, was very successful. In fact, it provided the financial cushion needed to keep the Mac on the market long enough to make any real impact. (The first Macs weren't a roaring success; it took them a couple of goes to hit the right technology : cost ratio.)

    Either you knew this, and deliberately revived that long-disproven myth to get a rise out of your readership—in which case, it clearly worked—or you didn't, in which case, why the hell are you writing about a topic you know so little about?

    Apple are not perfect. They have made many missteps over the years—even Jobs and Ive got it wrong on more than one occasion ("G4 Cube" anyone?)—but "copying PARC's research" isn't one of them, and never was.

    The Register has been many things, but it seems to be rapidly turning into the IT world's equivalent of FOX News. You could be so much better than this.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Paris Hilton

      > "copying PARC's research" isn't one of them

      But it is. That's what they did. They went in (paid Xerox for the privilege, and why not), went out and copied what they had seen.

      Maybe they could have developed the basic ideas themselves, but why bother?

      Was the Xerox stuff patented? No. Patents on software and mouse/screen interactions didn't exist.

      Was the Xerox stuff copyrighted? No. Copyrights on UI design elements.

      Was it stolen? Fanbois and assorted random faggots would says yes (if this weren't Apple). So no.

      Was it used as inspiration? Of course!

      1. Doogie1

        @Destroy All Monsters

        " Fanbois and assorted random faggots would says yes"

        You hear pig organs talking to you?

    2. JEDIDIAH
      Linux

      Re: "The company itself got its start from copying the GUI system developed at Xerox PARC."

      It doesn't matter if they "stole it" or they "paid for it".

      They took someone else's work and used it as the basis as their own. It's exactly what they are accusing Samsung of. They just had the benefit of a less well developed legal framework around computing technology.

      Otherwise Apple might not even exist today.

      You might be luck to get to use MS-DOS.

      1. Doogie1

        Re: "The company itself got its start from copying the GUI system developed at Xerox PARC."

        "It doesn't matter if they "stole it" or they "paid for it"

        It's good to see your years at law school weren't wasted. Are you one of Samsung's lawyers?

  45. john devoy

    I think what galls most people is the rank hypocrisy of Apple. A company that exists due to seeing other peoples ideas and copying/adapting them. Now that they're on top they want this ability stopped for others.

  46. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    "Lost" it's soul?

    "Lost" it's soul? Apple has ALWAYS been a HIGHLY litigous company. They've tried again and again to sue for things whether Apple had anything to do with them or not -- the infamous "look and feel" suit of the 1980s for example, where Apple tried to sue for the very concept of a desktop GUI, despite the fact Apple ripped large portions of it off from Xerox. They sue people over product leaks, they throw out cease and desists against people merely discussing hardware flaws (even if they are working on a workaround rather than just slagging off Apple!), the list goes on and on.

    I think (while we're talking about the so-called "soul" of a company) that Apple is well-known for being perhaps the only firm in Silicon Valley that does not donate to any cause. To me it does seem silly for some hard-up Silicon Valley company that is on the verge of bankruptcy to feel they should still give that $10,000 to the local museum or whatever, but they do. Except Apple.

    1. Brangdon

      "does not donate"

      That has changed. According to Ars: "One of the first things Cook did after being named CEO was launch a charitable matching program for Apple's employees. In mid-September 2011, Apple began matching employee contributions to nonprofit organizations up to $10,000 per employee annually, dollar-for-dollar."

      http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/08/one-year-down-many-to-go-5-things-apple-has-done-since-tim-cook-took-over/

  47. Corbis
    Unhappy

    Bad for Apple

    Technically minded but currently owning an HTC that sadly is somewhat smarter than myself....

    My instincts are to believe that all the various players have brought something to the market, they wouldn't be selling their devices if they hadn't. Sure, a company might launch a unique and innovative red shining box with a single button on top but would customers recognise it as a smart phone? Isn't it more likely that to conform to customer's expectations a company will produce a device that is obvious, that looks like what it pretends to be... and therefore has the inherent risks that it looks similar to another product in that sector? Same too with the sliding, pinching, tapping figure waggling whatnots. There is only so much a human being can do with a finger and a small 3:4 screen.

    I'm not saying there should be a free-for-all. But these companies are fighting over quite modest percentages on top of the hundreds of billions they are making collectively... money that we're ultimately paying from our pockets. Frankly, its slightly obscene!

    Apple has embarked on a path it won't quickly abandon. This case isn't the first (Apple vs Apple for example) and its far from the last. They are proving adept at using the legal system to browbeat the competition or to rewrite previous agreements when it suits them. And they don't look good when they do it.

    Today, as a result of this case, I'm less likely to purchase an Apple product in future and I suspect I'm not alone. The US courts might yet do Samsung a favour if they ban their products from the USA. They would be free to concentrate on those markets they are doing well in like Asia and Europe (ie the rest of the world), leaving the US as an Apple saturated backwater.

  48. sleepy

    Apple is a very straightforward company, easy to understand and very professional.

    Apple does not give to charity, but does match employee charitable payments up to 10% of salary.

    The article and many comments offer opinions as facts, but provide no evidence.

    This is only one lawsuit out of 50 or so between Samsung and Apple around the world. It doesn't stop even Samsung from selling Android smartphones; it just makes slavish copying less worthwhile. How does preventing Samsung from copying the iPhone top-to-bottom inhibit innovation? It doesn't.

    Apple's business model does require some protected space to survive. Just look what happened when they licensed Mac OS; it nearly killed them. Software patents are stupid, but they are all Apple can use to defend the space in which they operate.

    Apple didn't just invent the iPhone; they figured out how to force the carriers to (a) offer reasonable data contracts and (b) get out of the way of providing services based on data. "Walled garden" tight control is what enabled them to negotiate deals that broke down barriers not just for iPhone, but for Android too.

    Without Apple and iPhone we would still be on Windows Mobile, with exorbitant data contracts and no significant Android market share. Like it or not, Apple innovation and control freakery has changed the world in desktop, smartphone and tablet computing.

  49. senti

    Jesus, humans are screwed

    I honestly can't believe that I am reading how making things pretty is now considered to be 'innovation'. As an engineer that spend most of his life actually innovating things, I can only spit on current state of humanity. Humans are definitely turning into brainless retards.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Jesus, humans are screwed

      I suspect Woz might agree with you too .....

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Jesus, humans are screwed

        I douibt he would. He worked for Apple, is still well connected there and seems to like collecting well-designed equipment.

        I trust you avoid all Linux GUIs; Not invented by you. Name one, significant invention you have made, from scratch, with no external forerunner, all out of your own few brain cells, that the rest of us clamour for and so made you a fortune.

        Personally, I think good interfaces and polished appearance require as much innovation, imagination and design as anything else, more perhaps than some "engineering". In fact, Apple are not bad at both facets and their genius is in putting the two together so that the user need not worry about implementation, just the task in hand. If, as an engineer, you do not appreciate the value of a properly researched, designed and implemented interface, with the analysis and innovation that that requires, you are not much cop as an engineer. Any engineer knows that the most difficult software concerns the human interface, with all its unpredictability and expectations.

        Remember, these devices are designed to be used without needing years of experience and opaque commands or sequences of actions to do the simple things. It takes innovation, skill and understanding to get that message, understand the end user and implement these.

        But then perhaps you still programme everything in assembler, sorry, bits (assembler is already too high a level) and or eschew the various CC flags and defaults in favour linking all libraries by hand, renaming a.out and so on. God forbid the use of make(1) or even a shell. No doubt you prefer to start your car with a crank handle and prime the carburettor manually.

        With your values, the wheel would not have been created, after all, nothing special, just a rolling log. Who on earth needs axles?

    2. Hugo

      Re: Jesus, humans are screwed

      Well "pretty'" is't the term I'd use - but yeah sure the physical devices themselves and their controls/GUIs should look good and be very polished, intuitive and easy to use and fast. Sure I appreciate the command line as much as the next geek, but I also appreciate great design and good looks and the need to appeal / make things accessible to the mass market.

      Again Apple may by and large pull together existing ideas and polish them - but I don't see may other companies with this obsessive attention to detail - and they up the game for everyone else.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Jesus, humans are screwed

      "honestly can't believe that I am reading how making things pretty is now considered to be 'innovation'. As an engineer ....."

      Engineers like you are the reason companies commission marketing studies. And hire patent lawyers - because you seem to have no understanding of them.

  50. crupted

    Imagine a world without ive-phone

    Wether it was original or copied, the format of pretty much all smart phones are now a derivative of the iPhone. What seems to have happened is all manufacturers are so scared of Apple that all they are willing to do it imitate the design - and if they are unlucky, pay the price in the courts.

    Remember the phone world before Apple? Sliders, flip phones, the bananna phone from Nokia, and even Sony-Ericsson coming up with some fun designs. And before iPad - there were tablets of sort, but Apple made them consumer friendly and a fashion accessory.

    Apple's superior product and almost religious following have got the industry on the run. Now almost every piece of consumer gagetery takes its design cues from the pen of Sir Ive. Apple have unwittingly (or by design) eradicated innovation from the consumer electronics industry and created an army of clones.

  51. RightPaddock
    Unhappy

    If IT&T went back to inventing products rather than than inventing patents we'd all be better off. Some of the US patents are ludicrous - 30 years ago they would have got beyond the the USPTO mail room.

    I see echo's of what happened to Financial Services over a couple of decades. They too became obsessed with themselves and one another.

  52. alarik

    Foolish article.

  53. 2Fat2Bald

    Is it just me?

    Or has the definition of what is patentable become somewhat elastic as of late?

    Seems to me that it used to be that you could patent a particular way of doing something, but not the whole concept of doing the job in the first place. Yes, maybe Samsung's phone *does* look quite a lot like an iPhone and maybe it does do a similar job in a similar way. But the same could also be said of an Astra and a Focus (cars) they're similar because they do the same job, I get the impression that if Apple's patent lawyers had been around at the invention of the Automobile we'd all be driving something like a 1910 Daimler, due to a court ruling that Henry Ford was infringing their patent by making a "stolen" horseless carriage that worked in a similar way to Daimlers's using similar technology. Whereas all Ford really had to worry about back then was not doing something that was a direct, functional copy of something that Daimler were making and had patented.

    1. Jonathon Green
      Pirate

      Re: Is it just me?

      "I get the impression that if Apple's patent lawyers had been around at the invention of the Automobile we'd all be driving something like a 1910 Daimler, due to a court ruling that Henry Ford was infringing their patent by making a "stolen" horseless carriage that worked in a similar way to Daimlers's using similar technology. Whereas all Ford really had to worry about back then was not doing something that was a direct, functional copy of something that Daimler were making and had patented."

      This comparison with the motor industry comes up quite regularly.

      What everybody seems to overlook is that one George B. Selden did indeed get a patent on a four wheeled conveyance propelled by an internal combustion engine at the back end of the 19th century. In association with one William C. Whitney, and despite it being technically a little shaky (Selden's patent specified an engine based on the Brayton cycle in which compression and ignition take place separately, more like the operation of a gas turbine than the 4 stroke Otto cycle where everything takes place in the same cylinder and as far as I know nobody was ever able to produce a working vehicle based on the Selden patent) he successfully defended the patent in the courts, and then through the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers succeeded in collecting a license fee of $15 per unit with a minimum annual payment of $5000 which was quite a lt of money in those days.

      Henry Ford eventually overturned the patent (although with only a year to run you'd have to say this was largely symbolic) but by then Selden and his associates had already made a (by early 20th century standards) considerable fortune, which, in a stroke of irony Selden managed to lose his share of through an unsuccessful attempt to establish himself as an automobile manufacturer...

      1. samlebon23

        Re: Is it just me?

        No, I would go even backward thousands of years and imagine the Apple Patent Trolls patenting the wheel and it's shape. How the hell could you build a cart or a truck, if you are not allowed to use circle-shaped wheels?

        1. Chika
          Alien

          Re: Is it just me?

          So THAT's the reason behind that square steering wheel in the Allegro!!!

          1. stuff and nonesense

            Re: Is it just me?

            @ Chika -- there was no good reason for the Allegro.... none whatsoever.. even with it's quartile wheel

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Is it just me?

        Do you have any idea how few people on this forum are capable of research, and worse, who actually do some prior to mouthing off with their bigotry? From your post, obviously not. The people here hate facts more than anything else. It offends their distorted reality. There are so many deluded individuals trying to prop up their broken version of reality that t is at times hilarious. Actually, it's hilarious every day.

        Thanks for your post, upvoted of course, as it's always good that someone manages to puncture 487 commentards in one fel swoop.

  54. Christopher Rogers
    Devil

    This statement shows Apple is just like every other firm...

    "...we have enough patent filings in the tablet and smartphone arena to make life difficult."

    READ: everyone has to come to us if they want to get involved in the tablet market. Kerching!

    "For us this lawsuit has always been about something much more important than patents or money. It’s about values".

    The values being that of each patient and how much it can bring in per device. Apple is a business. They have a social responsibility just like everyone else. They are not in any way particularly nicer or better people. They just happen to have had 2 very capable people on board in the shape of Jonathan Ive and the late Steve Jobs and a team of very capable lawyers. Some day the fanboi dream will end and millions of disillusioned Apple geeks will wake up and see that actually, these things are merely tools, Apple isn't a channel to heaven in the next life and actually Asus can make a useful product that does the same job but for less money...

  55. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The Reg never liked Apple to begin with...

    What is funny is that almost all of the assertions by Android fans are incorrect:.

    1. Apple didn't patent and stop Samsung from using rounded rectangles. Indeed, that one got thrown out.

    2. Apple actually offered to license Samsung key patents in 2010 and Samsung refused. That's why Apple sued. How is that stifling competition?

    3. Samsung can and does create phones that don't infringe on Apple property. As do many other companies. Take a look at Nokia, the Lumia series of phones are beautiful and well designed. Others too, like Sony, RIM, etc can design a phone that looks nothing like an iPhone

    3. Apple competes in the courtroom not in the marketplace. I guess that's why we have an iPhone 5 just around the corner, updates to iOS and new and innovative features being added to these products all the time like Retina Displays and so on.

    4. Pinch to Zoom, Rubberbanding, Tap to Zoom 'All Obvious" . This meme oft repeated by the Android fans is wearing thin. How is it so obvious that right up until Apple implemented it in the iPhone, nobody else thought of doing it? And then straight after, everyone else scrambled to use it?

    As for preventing everyone else from using it - Hello Microsoft? They seem to have got round Apple by, erm, cross licensing their technology! Therefore destroying one of the principle claims that Android fanboys like to repeaet. As for 'Prior Art', well, Apple bought Fingerworks, who invented the technology in 1999, well before the Diamond Touch display and other so called 'prior art' evidence Samsung brought up. Also those examples were nothing to do with what is implemented and patented by Apple!

    5. Samsung could have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt they didn't copy Apple by being allowed the refused prior art? Rubbish. Firstly none of it was from a working and released product. Secondly, it looked nothing like the iPhone. Closer to a Nokia N95 actually. It was considered irrelevant and late. Samsung's typical tactic in this case was to spread FUD and bring up tenuous examples of Prior Art.

    6. Samsung stated they weren't copying Apple at all, then tried to invalidate all the claims by bringing up such examples of Prior Art that weren't actually prior art. They either did copy and need to invalidate, or didnt ad therefore dont need to invalidate, which is it?

    7. The court were biased because they are from the US, and therefore would always award a US company in a case like this.

    Oh come on, how childish are you? Samsung vetted and vetoed anyone they thought might have undue bias. That argument might work in a forum of teenagers arguing over wether iOS or Android are better, but in the real world, evidence, fact and reality get in the way of such nonsense.

    8. IOS steals ideas from Android. Nonsense. How can you steal from a free, open source OS? It's also only been since Honeycomb that Android really started to carve out it's own identity.

    The fact is, Android fans are upset that the Appple fanboys got 'one over' on them and somehow this is just too irksome for them to tolerate.

    The reality is that any ban or fine will take years to come to fruition, Samsung are already working round Apple patents and have a bloody good phone in the S3 that isnt infringing on Apple patents. Most of the stuff Apple got Samsung for are Touchwiz UI features, and Android itself is quite safe.

    The end result will probably be that Apple gets a license fee from other Android makers that infringe, and that'll be the end of it.

    Symbian,, Windows Phone and Blackberry OS managed to not infringe on Apple IP for many years, so there's no reason to not expect Android to do so too.

    What wont happen is that companies like Google and so on wont take shortcuts to success by blatantly copying others innovations, and will instead have to spend money researching stuff themselves.

    1. Tom 7

      Re: The Reg never liked Apple to begin with...

      Re item 4 - the only bit you mention where you think Apple was innovating - I was doing similar things on computer some 30 years ago. Not exactly the same as we were using 4 button mice - which we could program to do gestures that triggered actions of almost any complexity you desired. Actions from clicking any of the buttons to writing letters or click and slide - you could make so many different 'gestures' that you couldn’t remember them all and multi-touch wasn’t required. We didn’t patent any of them because they were obvious, bleeding obvious, and a direct product of the technology available - to anyone with a positive IQ.

      30 years ago this was regarded as 'meh' technology. Very nice to have but to even consider patenting it would have resulted in a pat on the head and a severe pisstaking in the bar akin to that where someone got a simple addition wrong or walked the wrong side of a door.

      The reg may not like apple but anyone round computing 30years ago looks on most things apple innovate as either old hat or the emperors new interface. Support them all you like - pig ignorance is the new IT as far as I can tell, you may go far.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The Reg never liked Apple to begin with...

        Some thirty years ago you say? Just as Dos was introduced, and 2 full years before the Mac was released?

        Sure you did. Also touch screens were available long before Apple relased the iphone, even touch interfaces. It's just nobody thought to make them finger friendly from the ground up rather than replicating desktop computer paradigms.

        Yes, APple didnt 'invent' multi-touch directly, but it bought a company that did, and used it successfully with lots of other technology it either invented or bought. Like anyone who buys a product or company, they have the right to assert the technology or patents they bought therein. Otherwise why bother paying for a company that's up for sale?

        Everyone seems to forget the Newton that was doing much of what we see today, long before the iphone. Apple invented and patented that too you know. They used technology from that in the iPhone.

        Again, the "its bleedin obvious' - no it's not, and Apple made it the only way to do it by being good at what it does. Samsung, Google, et al, just copied.

        Just because you dont like the company that won doesnt mean that the result is any less just.

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

        2. Tom 7

          Re: The Reg never liked Apple to begin with...

          Yes 30 years ago. Before Windows and before Apple and before mice* - before toy computing.

          Like I say pig-ignorance is the new IT. Just because YOU never heard of it doesn't mean it didn't exist. Just because apple bought a company doesn't mean the company invented it.

          * I called it a mouse in the previous post - it was a 4 button cursor device for a large square tablet - if anyone gave you something like we had then on an iPad you would probably wet yourself.

    2. Carl
      FAIL

      Re: The Reg never liked Apple to begin with...

      "The fact is, Android fans are upset that the Appple[sic] fanboys got 'one over' on them and somehow this is just too irksome for them to tolerate."

      So let me see. BSD volunteers spend 20 years creating a rock solid UNIX OS. Apple grabs it for free and then tells everyone it's an innovator? It's the double standard that's irksome. We have a phrase. It doges like this.

      Don't p155 on my leg and tell me it's raining.

      Anyway.

      Samsung will appeal this, like, *forever*.

      The supremes will be munching on this 10 years from now.

      It remains to be seen if they will be as easily led by this "jury". I very much doubt they will.

      It is more cost-effective for Samsung to take this right to the top than to pay up.

      The lack of fairness from judge Koh is grounds enough for an appeal.

      Its only a matter of when, not if, Samsung file.

      1. Steve Todd
        Stop

        Re: The Reg never liked Apple to begin with...

        Except that OS X isn't BSD, it's Mach Unix with BSD user apps. The whole core OS is still open source and freely downloadable (go look up Darwin). The license that this is based on allows closed source extensions, which is what Apple did with their Coca GUI framework. It's that framework, modified for mobile work in Coca Touch, that is the innovation in mobile phones, unless you are saying that you can't innovate unless you build your own OS from the ground up (which limits the field rather).

  56. Hubert Thrunge Jr.
    FAIL

    Hang on...

    Apple patented the wheel in 1932, even though Steve Jobs thought of the idea in 639BC after discussing it with the second cousin of Ogg who decided not to continue with the concept but to carry on the development of the Ogg Super Pointy Stick (which later became the touch pen that was available for Windows with a pen in 1937)

    FFS Apple are building the Great Wall of Cupertino. How long before everyone else pulls out of the US market when every case around the world (outside of Apple's paid-for back yard) has deemed there to be no copying, and then only a few infringements of patents (which are often vague and should never have been allowed). AND for Apple to be found guilty of infringing other companies patents too. Apple's bully boy suits have no clout outside of litigation land - the place where common sense is illegal because it infers self awareness!

    There was a time when I liked Apple's products, but now they are build on the back of all this bullshit, I hope they follow Nokia into oblivion (perhaps they should employ Stephen Elop too)

    With regards to the verdict - the Anti-Nowhere League said it all.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hang on...

      And the great wall extends beyond the phone. You cannot manage any recent ipod using anything but iTunes , which has to run natively under Windows as it uses its own USB drivers, because they use signed keys and encryption to handle the play lists and audio files.... and they refuse to reveal those keys (and thus allow 3rd party apps to manage your ipod) because they want to keep you locked into their software and their music store.

    2. Steve Todd
      FAIL

      Re: Hang on...

      Patents have a limited lifespan. Anything patented over 25 years ago (20 in some counties, including utility patents in the US) is out of patent. The data detector patents that Apple used against HTC were filed back in 1996, they will expire in 2016.

      Other companies can innovate (find their own unique solution to the problem), licence the patent or wait for it to expire when they can use it for free.

  57. wrwalke
    Angel

    At some point, the features, shape, and button placement become what makes a car a car, and a smartphone a smartphone. At some point, the "unique and incredibly innovative value" becomes trivial. Really... rounded corners on a rectangular phone? Square icons with rounded corners? multiple pages of icons flowing left-right, or up-down? At some point, user behavior just demands that simple, stupid functionality and shapes come together. Nothing Innovative about that.

    Consider the car. Where is the horn button? No!! you can't put the horn button there, that was a Volvo invention! If everyone puts the horn button in the center of the steering wheel, they will be copying the innovative positioning of horn buttons from Volvo! So every vendor ends up with a horn button in a different place, on the edge of the wheel, on the door handle, on the head-liner... and next time you are in a random rental car and some idiot pulls out in front of you... you slam your fist into the center of the steering wheel (of your GM) and the windshield washers turn on.

    Yes, a too-simplified example... But really, looking at the stuff that this particular case was arguing over? Please. If you want to make a "smartphone", it is ok to be first to market with a unique "button that takes you home", or "swiping an icon to unlock the phone", or "answering the phone by shaking it vigorously in a counter-clock-wise circle (and I want royalties if that ever shows up)... But this is *all* derivative and evolutionary, and all competitors will adapt. Keep innovating (or evolving) and you will win. Stop evolving, (*cough* RIM, Nokia) and you will die.

    bill.

    1. Charles 9

      "Consider the car. Where is the horn button? No!! you can't put the horn button there, that was a Volvo invention! If everyone puts the horn button in the center of the steering wheel, they will be copying the innovative positioning of horn buttons from Volvo! So every vendor ends up with a horn button in a different place, on the edge of the wheel, on the door handle, on the head-liner... and next time you are in a random rental car and some idiot pulls out in front of you... you slam your fist into the center of the steering wheel (of your GM) and the windshield washers turn on."

      It may well have been the case decades before. Also, less internationalization may have had an influence back then. But the big difference between cars and smartphones is that cars are OLD technology. Most of the basic patents that involve what you put where have long expired whereas mobile phone tech is young and still with the scope of patent law (which unlike copyright still has a term of around 2 decades give or take a few years, after which it's open season).

  58. mrfill
    Alien

    Have they got a patent on the word 'innovate'?

    If the saintly Apple do not copy then I assume that the iPhone 5 will not have a large screen (been done lots of times) and that the iPad mini will have a screen the same size as the iPad. 7 inch tablets have been around a while and entry into this market will be just more slavish copying - err.... innovation

  59. Hubert Thrunge Jr.

    Finally how about....

    Samsung increase the cost of the parts that Apple use to build their phones & fondslabs to cover the cost of the California tax = Apple 1, Samusng 2.

    When you consider that Apple themselves don't actually make anything, they just badge engineer someone else's manufacturing output, they will always lose..... OK, they win in the court room, but they'll lose in the stock room, and eventually, it'll all become too much and they'll disappear up their own backside.

    I'm sure there are meetings going on in Korea and China right now to right this wrong!

    In fact Samsung make about 25% of every iPhone. The only thing Apple are responsible for are the design (that they copied from LG, and others) and the software. Not a lot really.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @Hubert Thrunge Jr.

      1) "When you consider that Apple themselves don't actually make anything, they just badge engineer someone else's manufacturing output, they will always lose..... OK, they win in the court room, but they'll lose in the stock room, and eventually, it'll all become too much and they'll disappear up their own backside."

      So the fact of Apple's incredible successes - and even an Apple-hater like me has to call them "incredible" - with the iPod, iPhone, and iPad, are just the result of Apple getting lucky, or something like that? A random fluctuation in the chaotic market system?

      2) "The only thing Apple are responsible for are the design (that they copied from LG, and others) and the software. Not a lot really."

      Oh yeah. "Design" and "software" - what could be more trivial?

  60. Sarah Davis
    Coat

    thank goodness no-one had Apples attitude and took out copyright on the mouse, the monitor, or the internet - if they had it would be a very different world.

    As far as I know, neither Apple nor Samsung have copyright of the rectangle, or the human senses of touch or sight, so using a tablet isn't illegal or licensed (yet).

    Neither Apple or Samsung have a spotless past and ultimately it's the customers who are paying (through the nose) for their hissy fits in the court - I boycott both brands :)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @Sarah Davis

      It's a good thing you posted, so that we can see how little you know about the situation under discussion. Luckily the situation can be explained in a very few words: this case was not about tablets, it was about whether Samsung can infringe Apple's patents. So you will glad to know that tablets will continue to be manufactured, but if someone wants a tablet with Apple's patented features or design, they will have to buy it from Apple, not Samsung. But there are and will continue to be a wide selection of tablets available for purchase.

      Hopefully I have decreased your ignorance a little. (Although I am sure that you have still plenty remaining.)

    2. Steve Todd
      Stop

      The mouse and the monitor WERE patented.

      Much of the technology in the Internet is also patented (everything from ADSL to undersea cabling technology). We seem to be surviving just fine thanks.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The mouse and the monitor WERE patented.

        "... Douglas Engelbart at the Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International) invented the first mouse prototype in 1963, with the assistance of his colleague Bill English.[5] They christened the device the mouse as early models had a cord attached to the rear part of the device looking like a tail and generally resembling the common mouse.[6] Engelbart never received any royalties for it, as his patent ran out before it became widely used in personal computers." Wikipedia

  61. samlebon23
    Thumb Down

    This is much much worst than Microsoft.

    I never bought Apple and I won't. Imagine if Android disappears, we'll be stuck with one expensive brand.

    I reiterated, I remember when people complained about Microsoft, this is more horrible . For fuck's sake, they patent rounded corner shapes and black colors. What's next? The alphabet? Smooth surfaces? The smell?

    This is utter madness. Maybe I suggest a class action lawsuit against Apple for using the name of the delicious fruit, and then if they want to cut a deal we'll agree on ROTTEN APPLE Inc..

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      One brand?

      The Linux crowd ...

      Meego

      Maemo

      Harmatten

      Tizen

      Bada

      Proprietary

      iOS

      Symbian

      WP8

      I gues there are more. Android is just one take on an OS based on Linux. Alternatives exist.

  62. dullboy
    Joke

    CEOs at Apple

    Steve Italian-Jobs and Tim Crook.

  63. k9gardner

    No Apple-beating here.

    "The company itself got its start from copying the GUI system developed at Xerox PARC for a small licensing fee." That's not copying. They saw the technology, Xerox was not visionary enough at the time (and still not) to see what to do with it, and Apple (well, the Steves) was. They bought the rights to use it. It was a gamble, as were many other innovations of Apple, which at various times in the life of the company have looked like they might not pay off after all. The fact that Apple did find a rhythm that worked and have been able to come out with bar-raising products time after time is attributable to many aspects of their culture; it's hard to say just which ones. The company is certainly not the devil, and as it is a really huge corporation, certainly not an angel either. But I'm guessing that each person who works at Apple is a reasonably well-intentioned person, and they are trying to do insanely great things. Not a bad mantra, I'd say.

  64. Highlander

    Hmmm.... let's see. 2001, Star Trek, Star Trek TNG, Yep they'll do

    OK, so I know the judge apparently ruled that 2001 could not be cited as prior art against the 'patent' of a computing device in a 'pad' format with a touch interface. My question is why? The patents in this case are so fecking trivial it makes your eyes water. And since when could someone patent the look and feel of a device?

    But, function over form please. Let's review. Patents are granted for truly new innovations that have no prior art (similar prior occurrence) and are non-obvious to a practitioner in the field.

    So, let's say you watched 2001 or Star Trek and so you already have the idea of a touch pad device. Further more you've watched innumerable other science fiction movies/shows where similar touch enabled devices appeared. On top of that you've worked with some of the early touch devices and track pads and now the technology has advanced enough that you can actually integrate a touch screen into a rectangular device less than an inch thick. What do you think you're going to produce? Oh, I know, a clam-shell designed laptop with a keyboard? Probably not, how about a touch sensitive device aka a tablet? since the controls are all touch based you don't have many buttons. The size of the device is pretty much decided by the size of screen. 100 different practitioners in the field would produce similar devices independently.

    I just don't get how Apple is winning these cases, their logic and reasoning is just a big pile of self serving shite. When you sit down and look at making a portable touch screen device that can act as a notebook, an e reader, a video viewer and a web browser, there are very few ways you can go with the design. The same is true of the GUI since everything is based on windows/icons and the ability to select by touch. There really are only so many ways to slice a potato, and that's what this and other recent Apple cases come down to.

    The standard I would always go back to would be the original Startac flip phones. They were the first real device that actually functioned as a communicator and even used the flip action to accept and end calls - just like the communicators on StarTrek. Can anyone honestly argue that Motorola came up with those concepts on their own? Sure, their hinge mechanism could be patented, but not the clam-shell design or open to answer feature. This is the same kind of thing to me, and this is what is killing the tech industry. Companies somehow being able to patent things that truly are obvious.

    Thanks USPTO you guys do such a fantastic job of rubber stamping applications. You rock! The amount of money that will be spent invalidating unreasonable patents is incalculable, and the amount lost to the economy thanks to their restrictive effect of patents is similarly uncountable - and all of that waste comes thanks to the USPTO and legal system.

    1. Steve Todd
      FAIL

      How about because

      You need a real, working device for prior art on a standard patent, and from a design standpoint non of the Star Trek devices were much like an iPad (don't forget that the jury decided that Samsung's wildly over-simplified "rounded rectangle" description wasn't what Apple's design covered).

      1. Tom 7

        Re: How about because

        And how do you make 'design' working? Trade dress doesn’t do anything. So any prior art would do - and there was plenty.

        1. Steve Todd
          FAIL

          Re: How about because

          Try reading what I wrote. A normal (non design) patent requires a working device. A design patent has to look like the prior art, and the jury said that Samsung's devices for the most part didn't look like Apple's so Star Trek props (which look nothing like either) have no chance of being counted.

  65. David Kelly 2

    IBM's tax

    "When IBM made the x86 PC platform popular and Compaq made it affordable, sensible minds decided neither could charge a tax on the development of the platform."

    Revisionist historians have forgotten how IBM applied their patent portfolio to extract fees from PC clone makers. The popularity of selling PC parts, motherboards without CPUs, originated by those looking to bypass IBM's license fees.

    Back in the days of Computer Shopper when this topic would occasionally be discussed the cloning license fee was approximately 5%.

  66. Local Group
    Unhappy

    @ Jim Booth "The evil here is the fuckwit USPTO."

    "If software patents were outlawed, these companies would ***gasp*** have to play on a level playing field."

    Blame the US Senate. They tell the Patent Office what to do.

    "During the early 1960s, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office faced a backlog of patent applications and a 4-year pendency for an application prior to issuance as a patent. The PTO and the patent system experienced further difficulties because of a limited budget and processing methods that could not adequately handle this volume of applications. As a result, the President’s Commission on the Patent System was established in 1965 to address these problems and suggest revisions to the Patent Act. Reflecting the policy concerns of the PTO, **the Commission recommended against patent protection for computer programs.** The Commission report stated:

    "The Patent Office now cannot examine applications for programs because of the lack of a classification technique and the requisite search files. Even if these were available, reliable searches would not be feasible or economic because of the tremendous volume of prior art being generated. Without this search, the patenting of programs would be tantamount to registration and the presumption of validity would be all but non-existent."

    http://itlaw.wikia.com/wiki/President%E2%80%99s_Commission_on_the_Patent_System

    The Government of the United States is the greatest threat to the United States. But we already knew that.

  67. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    IBM revisionism

    ""When IBM made the x86 PC platform popular and Compaq made it affordable, sensible minds decided neither could charge a tax on the development of the platform."

    Revisionist historians have forgotten how IBM applied their patent portfolio to extract fees from PC clone makers. The popularity of selling PC parts, motherboards without CPUs, originated by those looking to bypass IBM's license fees."

    Actually that started when IBM started producing Microchannel computers -- ISA-based systems were intentionally kept fully open. For the XT, IBM even provided the BIOS source code in a printed book (Compaq had to clean-room reverse engineer it though since it was copyrighted.)

    On an unrelated note, glad to hear Apple does donate something even if it's employee matching.

  68. lord_farquaad

    I have read carefully the article.

    The article is very poor.

    At the end of it, I have no idea why Apple has lost its soul (did it ever got one ?), and when.

  69. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    jury?

    jury without technical knowledge?

    in this day and age?

    must have been either geriatric or a bunch of backward unemployables.

    1. Peter Johnstone
      Joke

      Re: jury?

      or accountants!

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