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The Tim Cook memo: line by line

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Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#141

Post by FrojoS »

writetoalok wrote: post #72
csallen wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because something makes you money doesn't mean it's inherently good or useful, and it doesn't mean it should be protected by law. Every time a company's competitors catch up to it, and every time technology makes a company's business model obsolete, they turn to the law to try to wipe the competition/technology out of existence. And, quite frankly, it's bullshit. You're right, the entire basis of patents was to…

> Just because something makes you money doesn't mean it's inherently good or useful, and it doesn't mean it should be protected by law. Are we talking about patentable innovations, or something else? A lot of patentable innovations do not make anything, a lot things which are not patentable make boat load of bucks. Your comment seem to have clouded this distinction. It seems to me that you are questioning the basis…

> Imagine if someone discovered and invented a principle and device for unlimited cheap source of energy.

First of all, this imaginary genius could still choose to not disclose his innovation. Patents are optional. Take for instance the Coca Cola recipe. Its kept as a trade secret [1]. But consumers can still choose to drink Pepsi and co. instead.

Second, I doubt a case like this, an truly important innovation that only one person will come up with, has ever occurred or will ever occur. If you look at the history of science and innovation, there is apparently always multiple people or groups working independently on the very same innovation. Famous examples are the first piloted flight [2] or the discovery of calculus [3].

For me this is the strongest case against, today's, patent law. We overstate the importance of the supposed single genius that humanity depends on. And yes, I question the the basis for any monopoly.

In the Apple vs Samsung case though, it was _also_ about consumer confusion. Samsung did not only use Apples innovation like pinch-to-zoom, which in my opinion should be fine, but tried to fool buyers into thinking that they got an iPhone by copying Apple's look and feel. You could say, that any idiot would see the difference. There is no Apple logo or iPhone label on Samsung products. But, I argue, thats just our geeky perspective. My grand parents or even parents wouldn't be able to tell the difference, unless I write them a note with 'A P P L E' on it. I could live happily with this problem, but I can agree that this is a grey area.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola_formula [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_early_flying_machines#C... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculus#History

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#142

Post by ZeroGravitas »

eftpotrm wrote: post #94
capkutay wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple just added shiny icons and took away the keyboard and stylus. BFD. I actually think that is a BFD. If it had a keyboard, the whole idea of dynamic UI's would not exist. Would anyone think that angry birds is cool if we had to play it with arrow buttons on the keyboard?

Windows CE 'Pocket PC' handhelds had retracting soft keyboards 10+ years ago. Handspring Treos were dedicated touchscreen-based phone-PDA hybrids not much later. PalmOS had grids of icons for its screens from day one. Apple's primary innovation wasn't technical, it was marketing. They tied a few pre-existing ideas together slightly better, made them more shiny and used the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field to convi…

They can't hear you.

Look at the recurring pattern in this thread and elsewhere.

Apple fanatic: Apple deserves a 20 year government enforced monopoly because they did it first. Everyone else stole it, and are thieves, who deserve to pay.

Member of the reality-based consensus: small portable computers existed before the iPad/iPhone and every individual part that you could name (or patent) had been done before by others. Concrete factual example A, B, C...

Apple fanatic: But Apple did it better and make more money! Therefore it doesn't matter who did it first. People who build on the innovations of others and provide them to consumers are what is important here.

You could spend all day trying to get them to face up to their conflicting logic, but they'll resist with all their might.

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#143

Post by twoodfin »

csallen wrote: post #22
timmyd wrote: post #17

Hmm - i really dont agree with this. Apple revolutionised the industry - before the iPhone we were using tiny screens with Nokia SMS interfaces or Motorla RAZR. Apple frankly blew the industry apart. "These are not patents on innovation, they’re patents on simple ideas and features that you didn’t even think of first but you were the first to patent." Then the magical aspect of patent law called "prior art" would com…

Just because something makes you money doesn't mean it's inherently good or useful, and it doesn't mean it should be protected by law. Every time a company's competitors catch up to it, and every time technology makes a company's business model obsolete, they turn to the law to try to wipe the competition/technology out of existence. And, quite frankly, it's bullshit. You're right, the entire basis of patents was to…

Weren't the guys that Apple bought to get multitouch "little"? In a world where such "obvious in retrospect" designs aren't protected, why doesn't Apple just copy their work?

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#144

Post by swah »

DiabloD3 wrote: post #41
onedev wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think Apple cares about a measly $1b? Think about it, the company itself is worth 600+ billion dollars. They did this more out of principal and to defend their products than anything else.

Why would the company be worth $600b? I haven't seen them do anything that I can't buy from another company cheaper, or in some cases, years before Apple "invented" it (ex: the iPad was a decade late to the tablet market). I'm not trying to be snarky here, but what is it that Apple can actually sell me that no one else can?

I can see how Facebook could loose its value in a couple years, but Apple, no way. They can market and sell stuff with a great profit margin.

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#145

Post by beedogs »

veeti wrote: post #117
beedogs wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hmm - i really dont agree with this. Apple revolutionised the industry - before the iPhone we were using tiny screens with Nokia SMS interfaces or Motorla RAZR. Apple frankly blew the industry apart. What? No, we weren't. I had a Cingular 8125 (HTC Wizard) a year and a half before the iPhone was introduced and it was perfectly fine. Apple just added shiny icons and took away the keyboard and stylus. BFD.

If you can not see the difference in the touchscreen UI between the Wizard (or any other pre-iPhone device) and the iPhone, you have to be blind. Until the iPhone, touch-screen phones were slow, clunky and unresponsive. They had shitty resistive screens that were a total pain to use. (LG actually released a capacitive phone before the iPhone, but the software was the same shit we had for ages so it didn't change a th…

It seems like you're walking back the claims of the guy I responded to for him: "Oh, well, okay, Apple didn't have the first touchscreen phone, but they had the first good one."

Well, I don't even agree with you on that.

I got five years out of my "unenjoyable" HTC smartphone. I could tether it to my laptop without forking over extra money. I could run whatever apps were available (which is more than could be said for the iPhone on launch day, because there weren't any). I had a full keyboard, a web browser that supported SSL, a music player, and Pocket PuTTY -- should I have given a shit about smooth scrolling?

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#146

Post by thomasilk »

jwr wrote: post #121
thomasilk wrote: post #66

Almost every single founder would go crazy if someone copied their interface or device design in the same way. Yes the same people that are now claiming that Apple is a threat to innovation. The jury's decision is the best thing that could've happened to the industry in the long term. I hope we don't really need to discuss the fact that Smsg's devices and Android at least started as clones.

Exactly. I find it amazing that people suddenly start applying a different set of rules once it's about Apple. If I was a startup founder who designed and developed the iPhone, and then saw the blatant rip-off by Samsung, I would go nuts with rage. And HN would likely rage with me. But hey, it's Apple, so no bullying, and anyone is allowed to copy whatever they do, right? Also, I view this whole trial as "a way" for…

It's a question of intent not of rounded corners. Smsg and Android had the clear intent to copy Apple, so there should be no discussion about their guilt.

I totally agree on your view on patents.

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#147

Post by sharjeel »

eftpotrm wrote: post #94
capkutay wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple just added shiny icons and took away the keyboard and stylus. BFD. I actually think that is a BFD. If it had a keyboard, the whole idea of dynamic UI's would not exist. Would anyone think that angry birds is cool if we had to play it with arrow buttons on the keyboard?

Windows CE 'Pocket PC' handhelds had retracting soft keyboards 10+ years ago. Handspring Treos were dedicated touchscreen-based phone-PDA hybrids not much later. PalmOS had grids of icons for its screens from day one. Apple's primary innovation wasn't technical, it was marketing. They tied a few pre-existing ideas together slightly better, made them more shiny and used the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field to convi…

If Windows CE had everything well before iPhone came, why didn't Microsoft patent the stuff then?

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#148

Post by tcbawo »

silvestrov wrote: post #135
nikic wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because you can, doesn't mean that you have to. Look at Google. That's a nice company, which keeps the patent trolling down.

Oh, so now that Google has bought Motorola, they've stopped Motorola suing Apple?

I would not be surprised if suing Apple was a pre-condition of sale for Motorola.

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#150

Post by Joeri »

sjwright wrote: post #104
buster wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stopped reading after "Apple revolutionised the industry - before the iPhone we were using tiny screens with Nokia SMS interfaces". Clearly you are very misguided. You are comparing featurephones with smartphones (the ones with screens and stuff). Smartphones existed way before the iPhone. It makes me extremely sad that the marketing lies of Apple are taken for truth. Apple may have invented the vendor lock-in, tho…

Name one pre-iPhone smartphone that you'd be willing to pit against the iPhone. Oh, and Apple's vendor lock-in is still a damn sight better than the telco lock-in it replaced (in the US).

> Name one pre-iPhone smartphone that you'd be willing to pit against the iPhone.

The iphone was not a smartphone when it was released. It lacked the ability to install ANY third party software. It was essentially a very snazzy feature phone.

Its success did not come due to its smartphone credentials, which are still heavily inferior to its competition. It's wholly owned to its design and usability.

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