Call me naive, but of all people surely Apple can just... _buy_ the patent troll?
Apple is quietly replacing noise cancellation because ongoing patent lawsuit
11–20 of 24 posts
Re: Apple is quietly replacing noise cancellation because ongoing patent lawsuit
#12Hard to say anything meaningful without knowing more about the state-of-the-art in noise cancellation algorithims. Which I imagine involves a lot of closely guarded secrets.
If they patented, they aren’t closely guarded.
Re: Apple is quietly replacing noise cancellation because ongoing patent lawsuit
#13Extremely misleading title: A review site measured slightly worse noise cancellation performance after a firmware update. Nothing is being "replaced" (with what?), as far as I can tell. And is the source for this being due to patent lawsuits seriously a speculative Reddit comment?
They changed something within the ANC codebase, they confirmed as much. It's also not disputed that it's of a different / lower quality than before (if you can tell or not is up for debate). The APM already have issues with reliability as is so i'm sure this is only bound to make people more upset.
I don't doubt at all that something could have changed, or even that it changed for the worse, but the extraordinary claim ("Apple broke it intentionally or negligently because of a patent lawsuit") demands a bit more evidence than anonymous speculation on a web forum.
Re: Apple is quietly replacing noise cancellation because ongoing patent lawsuit
#14Very interesting. If true Apple's hope to keep this quiet is completely in vain.
Keeping things quiet is the point of noise-cancellation.
But if it is a patent violation, does changing it and saying they're not doing it anymore help?
Re: Apple is quietly replacing noise cancellation because ongoing patent lawsuit
#15Call me naive, but of all people surely Apple can just... _buy_ the patent troll?
I’d imagine if Apple made an offer the reply would be “double it” and then “double it again”
Re: Apple is quietly replacing noise cancellation because ongoing patent lawsuit
#16This type of "product gets nerfed after you buy it" happens a lot. Not enough people care about the crappy IoT devices this usually happens with, but Apple customers are relatively well organized, so I'd be disappointed to not see a class action lawsuit.
Re: Apple is quietly replacing noise cancellation because ongoing patent lawsuit
#17The biggest issue with this isn't even the nerfing, but just like with Adobe, it's the fact that Apple essentially forces all but their most savvy consumers to accept their anti-consumer updates.
If Apple simply stopped selling new devices that violated the patents and selling new nerfed versions, there would be no problem. The entire problem is forced updates.
Re: Apple is quietly replacing noise cancellation because ongoing patent lawsuit
#18Call me naive, but of all people surely Apple can just... _buy_ the patent troll?
That would cost too much money since they could name their price. Much cheaper to simply deal with the issue by degrading the products they sold. No refunds!
Re: Apple is quietly replacing noise cancellation because ongoing patent lawsuit
#19The biggest issue with this isn't even the nerfing, but just like with Adobe, it's the fact that Apple essentially forces all but their most savvy consumers to accept their anti-consumer updates. If Apple simply stopped selling new devices that violated the patents and selling new nerfed versions, there would be no problem. The entire problem is forced updates.
Force updating all devices Apple can argue in court there are no Apple devices infringing this patent in use thus they shouldnt pay as much.
Re: Apple is quietly replacing noise cancellation because ongoing patent lawsuit
#20The biggest issue with this isn't even the nerfing, but just like with Adobe, it's the fact that Apple essentially forces all but their most savvy consumers to accept their anti-consumer updates. If Apple simply stopped selling new devices that violated the patents and selling new nerfed versions, there would be no problem. The entire problem is forced updates.
Technically you are also violating the patent(s) merely by using an infringing product.
AFAIU, normally the patent rights holder couldn't recover damages from an infringer if the infringer didn't have notice. But I suppose it's possible that you now have notice, and therefore could be liable for statutory damages if you continued using the product, presuming Apple hasn't already updated your device.
(Also possible there's some other technicality saving you. I-am-not-a-patent-lawyer. But I know that with copyright such a scenario is possible even without actual notice. Copyright makes infringers out of everybody all the time. Not that people generally care or even should care. And not that it justifies automated systems that "helpfully" intervene. ;)