Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android • Hacker News Board

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#71

Post by AllenKids » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 2:51 PM UTC

trotsky wrote: post #64

AllenKids wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Market is not fixed in place, when one factor changes, other numbers vary accordingly. For example 30% of a total 100M units sold is roughly the same of 19% of a total 150M units sold. IF APU stay the same, it makes no difference financial wise to Apple. But to achieve 30% of 150M units sold, Apple may have to branch out another line of more affordable phones, it may have to give more control to the carriers, it may…

Yet reports seem to indicate Apple is planning on rolling out a "budget" price point phone [1], so they probably are worried about market share after all. Apple is on a long term digital media dominance play. They want to be the one stop locked in shop for many people's music, software, video and books. Sure they'll continue to be interested in making good money on their hardware but their evolving iOS platform strat…

These kinda rumors are literally a dim a dozen. I'll believe it when I see it.

Of course it is a perfectly valid strategy and Apple successfully implemented just that with its iPod line. Still the timing and implementation are everything. Handset market is clearly more competitive and turbulent, Apple is treading extremely cautiously.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#72

Post by onemoreact » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 2:55 PM UTC

trezor wrote: post #38

berberich wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android the platform might be nothing like iOS, but Ir does appear that Samsung went out of its way to make their phones look like iPhones[1]. [1]: http://thisismynext.com/2011/04/19/apple-sues-samsung-analys...

To be fair, they look like any other smartphone which is black and has a touchscreen. Apple cannot be granted a patent on being black. Not even black with rounded corners. That's not how the world works. And if we dig deeper, behind the PR-piece which Apple seemingly is winning (here on HN at least), lets compare the iPhone to Samsung F700, introduced in 2007, before the iPhone. http://phandroid.com/2011/04/20/did-ap…

Umm, those are really not that similar.

IPhone does not have navigation elements at the bottom of the screen. It adds a text description under the elements vs. the top. It includes status information as ribbon across the top and does not plaster their logo on the screen anywhere. Also, none of the icons look similar, their screen is significantly diffrent shapes and even there buttons have different shapes. And most importantly I think the number of people that would confuse the two is tiny.

Not to mention one was released in Febuary and the other with a clearly better interface was released four months later.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#73

Post by berberich » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 3:01 PM UTC

trezor wrote: post #38

berberich wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android the platform might be nothing like iOS, but Ir does appear that Samsung went out of its way to make their phones look like iPhones[1]. [1]: http://thisismynext.com/2011/04/19/apple-sues-samsung-analys...

To be fair, they look like any other smartphone which is black and has a touchscreen. Apple cannot be granted a patent on being black. Not even black with rounded corners. That's not how the world works. And if we dig deeper, behind the PR-piece which Apple seemingly is winning (here on HN at least), lets compare the iPhone to Samsung F700, introduced in 2007, before the iPhone. http://phandroid.com/2011/04/20/did-ap…

But that's the thing - Apple isn't trying to prevent anyone else from using rounded corners. Apple's claims in that suit are pretty specific, especially if you look at the similarity of the icons.

There are countless ways to represent an idea on an icon. Google, HTC, and others chose to go their own route - For TouchWiz, Samsung copied Apple's icons with slight modifications.

Also, the story about the F700 is inaccurate. SlashGear debunked it, pointing out that it was, in fact, announced after the iPhone was revealed in January 2007[1].

Nilay Patel, an intellectual property lawyer, wrote about the F700 too[2]:

> In many ways, the F700 does nothing but underline Apple’s overall contention: that there are thousands of ways to design and package a phone interface, but Samsung chose drop its differentiated interface and instead lift elements of Apple’s style for TouchWiz. I don’t think anyone would use the F700 interface and think it’s an iPhone, and I don’t think anyone using the iPhone today is thinking about the F700. But do people see TouchWiz and think “oh, that’s an iPhone?” That’s the most important thing when it comes to trade dress and trademark: what brand does the average consumer associate with certain design elements, phrases, and words?

[1]: http://www.slashgear.com/iphone-samsung-f700-prada-phone-rum...

[2]: http://thisismynext.com/2011/04/20/talk-picture-samsung-f700...

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#74

Post by hackermom » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 3:08 PM UTC

Come on, man. Stop riding around on your inflated high horse. There's no platform war here for you to win, you ridiculous anti-Apple crusader wannabe. These actors all in the same boat, knee-deep in shitty lawsuits coming from all angles. And, remember, Apple fervently stressed the breadth of their IP portfolio of the iPhone long before Android showed up, along with promises to defend it.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#75

Post by tobylane » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 3:31 PM UTC

Android's need isn't Apple's fear. Android's need is high market share, Apple's need is user engagement/entertainment (not market, as flash and so on 'badly' prove). Apple do perfectly well with low market share, I wish they wouldn't bother trying getting any further but when you make something so good you can only do so much to keep it out of the hands of some people.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#76

Post by jsnell » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 3:51 PM UTC

illumin8 wrote: post #7

jordanroher wrote: post #3

Except Apple doesn't seem to care about achieving huge market share for the iPhone. They care about money, and by delaying the iPhone 5 they've managed to make even more money than usual. It must be habit that we go for the market share argument so often. A corporation's responsibility to its shareholders isn't to spread its logo across the land like a religion, but to return value (real dollars, not imaginary market…

With a market cap of 23.06 billion, Samsung isn't exactly a small company. I think Apple is going after companies where it believes it has a significant chance of winning. Whether you believe software patents are a bad idea or not (I certainly don't like them), Apple has aggressively patented a lot of key features in iOS and it seems that many Android handsets are infringing.

Are you sure their market cap is that low? I find it a very hard number to believe.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#77

Post by rrrazdan » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 3:52 PM UTC

illumin8 wrote: post #7

jordanroher wrote: post #3

Except Apple doesn't seem to care about achieving huge market share for the iPhone. They care about money, and by delaying the iPhone 5 they've managed to make even more money than usual. It must be habit that we go for the market share argument so often. A corporation's responsibility to its shareholders isn't to spread its logo across the land like a religion, but to return value (real dollars, not imaginary market…

With a market cap of 23.06 billion, Samsung isn't exactly a small company. I think Apple is going after companies where it believes it has a significant chance of winning. Whether you believe software patents are a bad idea or not (I certainly don't like them), Apple has aggressively patented a lot of key features in iOS and it seems that many Android handsets are infringing.

Well I think your figure is wrong. Samsung is huge. Samsung Electronics has a market cap of 253 trillion won or 240 billion dollars[1]. The group's 2010 revenue was 201 billion dollars or thrice as much as Apple. They aren't big, they are absolutely huge.

[1]http://thechinesenewsoflasvegas.com/business/market-cap-of-t... [2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#78

Post by notatoad » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 3:54 PM UTC

i'm assuming that the app store revenues are counted as part of the iphone and ipad revenues?

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#79

Post by epistasis » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 4:02 PM UTC

trotsky wrote: post #64

AllenKids wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Market is not fixed in place, when one factor changes, other numbers vary accordingly. For example 30% of a total 100M units sold is roughly the same of 19% of a total 150M units sold. IF APU stay the same, it makes no difference financial wise to Apple. But to achieve 30% of 150M units sold, Apple may have to branch out another line of more affordable phones, it may have to give more control to the carriers, it may…

Yet reports seem to indicate Apple is planning on rolling out a "budget" price point phone [1], so they probably are worried about market share after all. Apple is on a long term digital media dominance play. They want to be the one stop locked in shop for many people's music, software, video and books. Sure they'll continue to be interested in making good money on their hardware but their evolving iOS platform strat…

A "budget" price point phone would be better understood in terms of market segmentation rather than market share; i.e. getting money from people who have a lower maximum price, now that they've gotten money from those who are willing to pay more.

If they wanted market share, they would have just led with the "budget" phone.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#80

Post by fpgeek » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 4:06 PM UTC

illumin8 wrote: post #7

jordanroher wrote: post #3

Except Apple doesn't seem to care about achieving huge market share for the iPhone. They care about money, and by delaying the iPhone 5 they've managed to make even more money than usual. It must be habit that we go for the market share argument so often. A corporation's responsibility to its shareholders isn't to spread its logo across the land like a religion, but to return value (real dollars, not imaginary market…

With a market cap of 23.06 billion, Samsung isn't exactly a small company. I think Apple is going after companies where it believes it has a significant chance of winning. Whether you believe software patents are a bad idea or not (I certainly don't like them), Apple has aggressively patented a lot of key features in iOS and it seems that many Android handsets are infringing.

  Apple has aggressively patented a lot of key features in iOS 
  and it seems that many Android handsets are infringing.

Seriously? Did you consider spending maybe a few minutes looking at the patents Apple is asserting in these lawsuits before forming your opinion?

To take the current example that drives me nuts, the 2 (of 10) patents Apple asserted against HTC that were "upheld" (air-quotes specifically intended) as part of the initial determination at the ITC are from the 90s (94 and 96, IIRC) years before anything innovative meaningfully related to iOS was a gleam in anyone's eye.

Even better, as asserted by Apple, Hacker News is infringing on one of those "upheld" patents when it turns this text into a clickable link: http://www.google.com

Apple's lawsuits have only an accidental (at best) relationship to any IP that is part of iOS and nothing to do with any key features of iOS whose related IP Android handsets might allegedly be infringing. Instead, Apple rummaged around in their archives to find everything halfway-plausible that they could throw at their Android competitors. It may be understandable business and legal strategy, but it is also deplorable and the patent system needs to be fixed so that it is not exploitable in this way (as well as many others, of course).