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Apple Said to Acquire Color

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Re: Apple Said to Acquire Color

#101

Post by newhouseb »

Lukeas14 wrote: post #88
ctide wrote: post #7

If you didn't think the patent system was fucked up before, you sure as fuck should know now.

According to this article and others those 6 patents are all still pending meaning they haven't yet been accepted by the PTO as valid patents. For less than $400 any of us can file a provisional patent with the PTO that would allow you to claim patent pending status. So unless Apple's lawyers are certain they'll be accepted they aren't worth much of anything right now.

You're correct, but in the case of patent acquisitions in many cases having a claim of priority (i.e. filing/invention date) is far more important than whether a patent is granted or not. In any patent litigation, the defendant will argue that a patent is invalid regardless of if it's actually been published.

In other words, when you look at a patent, you can concretely say a couple things: a) what prior art exists and b) what the priority date is. You would like to say c) is this a viable patent, but even if the USPTO grants a patent this is never set in stone (thanks to the court system).

Edit: sounds like the priority dates are all in 2011, which isn't particularly early, still a little dumbfounded.

Re: Apple Said to Acquire Color

#102

Post by tolmasky »

ryguytilidie wrote: post #96
alanh wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sarcasm? I’m an iTunes Match user, and while I love the dream, the reality isn’t quite there yet. The experience is pretty choppy, even confusing. (No, I’m not talking about buffering streams.)

Considering iTunes match is one of the best things I've ever used I'm going to say no sarcasm and that you're in the minority.

iTunes Match would have been the best thing I ever used had it come out one (or more) years earlier. Instead, it arrived after I had already tried Spotify, and by then I had tried something better.

Re: Apple Said to Acquire Color

#103

Post by zizee »

aresant wrote: post #62

Apple just jumped the shark if this is true. Bill Nguyen is massively talented at making things work for Bill Nguyen - his prior business bought by Apple for ~$80m, Lala.com, was lackluster at best. Under Jobs you could kind of, sort of get your head around $80m for essentially a talent acquisition in streaming / digital music which is/was an important revenue stream for AAPL. But even under Jobs the supposed golden…

bonch your account has been hellbanned. Looking at your comment history it has been for a while.

Update: Just to be clear, I don't mind hellbanning spammers or obvious trolls, but looking at bonch's comment history he/she doesn't seem to be either.

Re: Apple Said to Acquire Color

#105

Post by jdevonport »

If Apple has done this it would make me really consider their management's judgement.

Color has never been a successful business or even an innovator in its space.

From what I can tell they never even considered how to monetize the company, on that basis it should be allowed to go bust.

I can't see what value there is there apart from the team, and that isn't worth a blockbuster sum.

Re: Apple Said to Acquire Color

#106

Post by k-mcgrady »

lawrence wrote: post #73

I would downvote this story if I could. Color operates in a parallel bizarro world that most of us will, thank god, never know. $40M in funding and no users? Check. Three months off to Hawaii as founding CEO? Check. CEO who says he would pivot if he was back in the office? Check. Move along, there's nothing to see here.

So you would downvote a story because of jealousy? Whatever your opinion on Color it's still an important story and something other Hackers obviously care about. The fact someone can get funded so much money, completely fail, and then get bailed out says a lot about our industry.

Re: Apple Said to Acquire Color

#107

Post by k-mcgrady »

Apocryphon wrote: post #29
bradsmithinc wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Siri and Chomp both come to mind. So does LaLa.

I'm not sure if these were so wild, since they don't seem to be companies as high-profile or controversial as Color. Siri is somewhat wild insofar most people didn't expect that Apple was working on such a project. I'm talking more about the Apple will buy Twitter/EA/RIM stories. http://technologizer.com/2011/07/29/a-brief-history-of-apple...

I would say they are more high profile than Color. The only reason we think of Color as high profile is because it was a failure. Anyone outside of our bubble will never have heard of it. Siri and Chomp were both successful and had a lot of users. People actually cared when they were shut down. I doubt many people will care if Color gets shut down.

Re: Apple Said to Acquire Color

#108

Post by mattmanser »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #31
ChuckMcM wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To answer the question: "wtf just happened." If you have ever seen the TV show "House" [1] its the part where each doctor makes a different diagnosis and Dr. House keeps trying to fit all the pieces together to get to the real issue. Clearly Color is in a state of transition, I know of no company with an absent CEO, and no COO, that are stable. The tech "press" is in a feeding frenzy trying to be the first to 'diagno…

I'm more interested in what this story says about HN? How often does HN get wrapped up in personal stories without hearing the other side? Or get wrapped up in virtually meaningless drama like this such that we have THREE such major "stories" throughout the day distracting from things of legitimate interest or value to "hackers" (or their bossses, etc). I pay about as much attention to these stories as I do the stori…

This isn't the HN effect it's the future of news unfortunately.

Re: Apple Said to Acquire Color

#109

Post by grey-area »

tjogin wrote: post #97
aresant wrote: post #62

Apple just jumped the shark if this is true. Bill Nguyen is massively talented at making things work for Bill Nguyen - his prior business bought by Apple for ~$80m, Lala.com, was lackluster at best. Under Jobs you could kind of, sort of get your head around $80m for essentially a talent acquisition in streaming / digital music which is/was an important revenue stream for AAPL. But even under Jobs the supposed golden…

Jumping the shark means to have peaked and now being past ones former glory. But Apple never had any peak or glory as far as social apps go. My bet is that upcoming Apple products will continue to break previous records; the supposed acquisition of Color notwithstanding. Would you seriously bet against the next Apple product selling like hot cakes, based on this?

This isn't just about social apps. If this story is true it really doesn't reflect well on Apple's senior management.

Apple will continue to print money in the immediate future, just as Microsoft did in the 00's, but buying a startup which never had a viable product, business plan or assets for an inflated valuation like this is a good sign that Apple has lost direction and focus. Social is not their core competence, and should not be, and even if it was color is the last company they should buy. If color is failing, they could easily poach the best staff after it implodes, rather than buying the shell.

Re: Apple Said to Acquire Color

#110

Post by Terretta »

zizee wrote: post #103
aresant wrote: post #62

Apple just jumped the shark if this is true. Bill Nguyen is massively talented at making things work for Bill Nguyen - his prior business bought by Apple for ~$80m, Lala.com, was lackluster at best. Under Jobs you could kind of, sort of get your head around $80m for essentially a talent acquisition in streaming / digital music which is/was an important revenue stream for AAPL. But even under Jobs the supposed golden…

bonch your account has been hellbanned. Looking at your comment history it has been for a while. Update: Just to be clear, I don't mind hellbanning spammers or obvious trolls, but looking at bonch's comment history he/she doesn't seem to be either.

Isn't the point of this type of ban to avoid alerting the presumed troll in question?

I read with showdead, and have noticed we seem to often tell auto dead users about it, which seems to defeat the point. Perhaps I've misunderstood the whole idea.

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