Steve Wozniak on Samsung patent verdict: ‘I hate it and I don’t agree with it’ • Hacker News Board

Re: Steve Wozniak on Samsung patent verdict: ‘I hate it and I don’t agree with it’

#51

Post by Steko » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 6:39 PM UTC

cooldeal wrote: post #38

Steko wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what world does Apple not focus on the quality of their products? Maybe they're the biggest public company in the world because Woz has never been in charge?

It's not about the quality per se but I think their problem right now is that users' choice is overwhelming them and the one-size-fits-all approach of the iPhone has diminishing returns after a point. The variety, choice of screen sizes and price ranges of the competition is only getting better by the day. A new iPhone is released only once a year, so it better be very good with a lot of new technologies, features, n…

I think Apple is aware that they only make one phone and the trade offs that result.

iPhone Q3 sales lagged more than the year before because global rollout is faster and in 2011 they had the midyear CDMA and white iphone launches to buoy Q3.

The Galaxy S3 may have outsold the 4S some months and some devices surely will in the future but the claim that it did so in July/August was not supported by much data.

Re: Steve Wozniak on Samsung patent verdict: ‘I hate it and I don’t agree with it’

#52

Post by SquareWheel » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 6:43 PM UTC

rimantas wrote: post #34

mycodebreaks wrote: post #24

Turn-by-Turn navigation came on Android way earlier than it came with iPhone 5 yesterday. How fair it is for Apple complain about stealing ideas?

Are you trying to say, that Apple was not aware about the thing called turn-by-turn navigation before Android? > How fair it is for Apple complain about stealing ideas? How about spending some time and finding out what the trial was really about?

    "Are you trying to say, that Apple was not aware about the thing called turn-by-turn navigation before Android?"

Are you trying to say that Google was not aware of universal search?

http://www.google.com/patents/US8086604

Re: Steve Wozniak on Samsung patent verdict: ‘I hate it and I don’t agree with it’

#53

Post by BenoitEssiambre » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 6:44 PM UTC

Wise man. The way I see it, Apple had a case regarding "trade dress". Some Samsung devices, for example the Galaxy Tab 10.1, do look too much like Apple products. However, the rest of the patents were ridiculous. If the bar for patent validity is going to be this low, most software developers will not be able to do a day's work without accidentally infringing on something. Every piece of software I've seen being built most certainly uses methods that are described somewhere in patents, especially if it is leading edge in terms of communicating, collecting, syncing or displaying information through the web or mobile devices. If court decisions keep going this way, it is going to become impossible to code legally without the costly burden of acquiring a patent war chest and a team of layers to defend your organisation. We might as well shut down the industry to newcomers.

Re: Steve Wozniak on Samsung patent verdict: ‘I hate it and I don’t agree with it’

#54

Post by magicalist » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 6:50 PM UTC

ForrestN wrote: post #46

ericdykstra wrote: post #7

I hope he's right that this gets reversed. Apple makes a lot of best-in-class products (and I know some people that think everything they make is best-in-class). Do they think they need to do this kind of litigation to keep making products people will buy? Are they trying to discredit Samsung as copycats? Or is it just a case of "if it costs us $100m to pursue 10 lawsuits with a 5% chance of any one of them getting u…

For the dozenth time: this is not some radical choice Apple made. Apple is, as a public company, responsible to act in its own interest within the current economic system. The system is screwed up, but that doesn't mean that any single company has a responsibility to unilaterally disarm.

Yeah...that's silly. If that were the case, you'd see a lot more patent trolls and Captain-Planet-villain-style polluting, for just a start.

Being a public company means there is pressure on you to be profitable (and pressure for other dumb things...see: minority shareholder demands when Steve Jobs was sick), yes, but the power shareholders and charters wield aren't that strong. People actually talk about this wrt Apple all the time when they talk about all the crap products Apple doesn't release and markets Apple doesn't enter to make sure they do right by what they do release and serve the markets they do enter.

Even if you take a simplistic view of "businesses exist to maximize profit", there are a ton of secondary effects you need to worry about (dilution of brand, perception by the public, narrative for the media, the momentum your workforce feels, alienation of partners, etc, etc, etc). You're basically talking "maximize short term profits", which Apple has already shown they're willing to somewhat forgo in exchange for (massive) longterm gains.

Re: Steve Wozniak on Samsung patent verdict: ‘I hate it and I don’t agree with it’

#55

Post by bane » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 6:50 PM UTC

Steko wrote: post #41

bane wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at the iPhone 5, and when Apple started to go litigation crazy I think a couple factors have combined to force them to go this way. 1. The iPhone 5 is an incremental update to the iPhone 4 template. It doesn't mean it's a bad product, it actually looks like it's a very very nice device. But it isn't the leapfrog over the competition that people have come to expect and Apple has built its smartphone business a…

1. How does the iphone 5's feature set make them file litigation in early 2010? 2. Android started to outsell Apple in 2010 not "in the past year"

1. I'm just guessing, but my feeling is that the 5 was well into its design and testing cycle well before 2012. I don't know how long Apple's cycle is but I've hard that just getting network approval from some carriers can take as long as 12 months. It wouldn't surprise me if they had working near complete prototypes as far back as 2010.

2. I think it's specific manufacturers, not the aggregate community of makers. It makes it easier in some ways to target the largest builders instead of every random builder of cheap handsets one at a time.

Re: Steve Wozniak on Samsung patent verdict: ‘I hate it and I don’t agree with it’

#56

Post by wissler » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 6:50 PM UTC

ForrestN wrote: post #46

ericdykstra wrote: post #7

I hope he's right that this gets reversed. Apple makes a lot of best-in-class products (and I know some people that think everything they make is best-in-class). Do they think they need to do this kind of litigation to keep making products people will buy? Are they trying to discredit Samsung as copycats? Or is it just a case of "if it costs us $100m to pursue 10 lawsuits with a 5% chance of any one of them getting u…

For the dozenth time: this is not some radical choice Apple made. Apple is, as a public company, responsible to act in its own interest within the current economic system. The system is screwed up, but that doesn't mean that any single company has a responsibility to unilaterally disarm.

It is their moral responsibility not to initiate attacks. They can morally use patents only defensively.

Re: Steve Wozniak on Samsung patent verdict: ‘I hate it and I don’t agree with it’

#57

Post by robomartin » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 6:54 PM UTC

I am not taking sides. Don't have all the data. I'll just say that there's a huge difference between "Research & Development" and only "Development". The first is far more time consuming, risky and expensive. The second is a clear and guided roadmap that you simply follow to completion.

I used to be an idealist. I bought the whole idea of "just build a better product" without question. And so I did. Many years ago I embarked in the development of electronic products for a specific industry while trenching new territory and bringing new ideas to the user base. I opted not to file for patents because, well, they were expensive and I was going to just beat them with a better product. Or so I thought.

The first product took about a year and a half in R&D. Lots of work. Lots of problems to solve. Lots to learn. It finally got out and we did really good business right out of the gate. Hundreds of thousands of dollars per month. Eight months later competitors came out with devices offering about 60% of what we were doing at half the price.

It nearly killed the business. A six month month run with a hardware product isn't enough to recoup your R&D. Our competitors had the advantage of only having to do the "D" part because they copied and stole as much as they could. Never mind the fact that they did not have to trench new territory and actually test to see if there was a market there.

The lessons I learned during this period were invaluable (and very painful). Patents do have reason to exist and should not be ignored. People will cheat and steal in business the first chance they get. It takes a special kind of person to honor an agreement without the threat of serious financial harm through litigation if violated. People will violate NDA's and use them to get your ideas and insight under all kinds of pretenses.

Business is war. I was an idealist. An idiot. Live and learn.

I don't know about the Apple vs. Samsung issue. Frankly, I don't have the time to dive into the details. Even if it did, it would be a huge waste of my time as I have nothing to gain from such an exercise. Not taking sides, here's hoping that the courts get it right.

Re: Steve Wozniak on Samsung patent verdict: ‘I hate it and I don’t agree with it’

#58

Post by ajross » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 6:55 PM UTC

ForrestN wrote: post #46

ericdykstra wrote: post #7

I hope he's right that this gets reversed. Apple makes a lot of best-in-class products (and I know some people that think everything they make is best-in-class). Do they think they need to do this kind of litigation to keep making products people will buy? Are they trying to discredit Samsung as copycats? Or is it just a case of "if it costs us $100m to pursue 10 lawsuits with a 5% chance of any one of them getting u…

For the dozenth time: this is not some radical choice Apple made. Apple is, as a public company, responsible to act in its own interest within the current economic system. The system is screwed up, but that doesn't mean that any single company has a responsibility to unilaterally disarm.

Aggressive product-killing patent suits are not the norm, nor are they part of "the system" or "the game" as it's traditionally been practiced. Tech patents have been used to drive revenue: invent stuff, file patents, find infringers, negotiate for a royalty, sue if you can't come to agreement and eventually settle for whatever royalty you end up with.

Apple isn't the only bad actor in the mobile space right now. And other companies (c.f. Rambus) have been much worse in the past. But it's just not correct to argue that they were "forced" to act this way by their obligations to their shareholders. Don't make excuses.

Re: Steve Wozniak on Samsung patent verdict: ‘I hate it and I don’t agree with it’

#59

Post by ajross » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 7:01 PM UTC

robomartin wrote: post #57

I am not taking sides. Don't have all the data. I'll just say that there's a huge difference between "Research & Development" and only "Development". The first is far more time consuming, risky and expensive. The second is a clear and guided roadmap that you simply follow to completion. I used to be an idealist. I bought the whole idea of "just build a better product" without question. And so I did. Many years ago I…

OK, the problem with your argument is this bit: "Eight months later competitors came out with devices offering about 60% of what we were doing at half the price. It nearly killed the business"

If the HTC G1 "nearly killed" the iPhone 3G, then you might have an argument. Though it would depend in sensitive ways on things like whether or not Apple had made back its R&D costs over the year of Insanely Great iPhone sales. (The fact that that phone wasn't made by Samsung seems kinda important too).

Needless to say, Apple made out sorta OK under the Google/HTC onslaught of '08/90. So why cite something like this as a related anecdote when it clearly doesn't apply? The kind of damages you posit don't exist, so why sue to recoup them?

Re: Steve Wozniak on Samsung patent verdict: ‘I hate it and I don’t agree with it’

#60

Post by doktrin » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 7:07 PM UTC

ForrestN wrote: post #46

ericdykstra wrote: post #7

I hope he's right that this gets reversed. Apple makes a lot of best-in-class products (and I know some people that think everything they make is best-in-class). Do they think they need to do this kind of litigation to keep making products people will buy? Are they trying to discredit Samsung as copycats? Or is it just a case of "if it costs us $100m to pursue 10 lawsuits with a 5% chance of any one of them getting u…

For the dozenth time: this is not some radical choice Apple made. Apple is, as a public company, responsible to act in its own interest within the current economic system. The system is screwed up, but that doesn't mean that any single company has a responsibility to unilaterally disarm.

Perhaps I'm being idealistic, but that rationale does not sway me.

Having an obligation to shareholders is not an obligation to pursue profits by any and all means not expressly prohibited by law.

If I'm wrong, and that this is in fact what having shareholder obligations truly should mean, then we have a much bigger problem than the patent wars.