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The Tim Cook memo: line by line

jacquesmattheij.com

101–110 of 309 posts

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While lots of MacOS was taken from Xerox’s work it wasn't’t copied, it was licensed.

Right. They managed to get a licence from Xerox to the astonishment of many of the guys working in Xerox PARC. What´s your take on the morals of this?

The astonishment of the Xerox guys has a lot to do with the utter incompetence of their management.

But yes, Apple had a deal with Xerox

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#102
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…

> Then the magical aspect of patent law called "prior art" would come into play and it wouldn't be patentable.

I have difficulty taking the "prior art" system seriously. It's especially unbelievable with software patents (there are so many things where different patents exists on the same technology), but it leaks over into the whole patent system.

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#104
post #85
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…

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).

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#105
post #80
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…

> 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.

I had a Cingular 8125 (HTC Wizard) a year and a half before the iPhone was introduced and it was perfectly fine

No, it was not "perfectly fine." Otherwise they would have sold a hundred million of them.

Give credit where it's due, for Pete's sake. It is a fact that prior to the iPhone, cell phones sucked ass. It is also a fact that granting Apple a twenty-year legal monopoly on trivial "innovations" will hurt consumers as much as it will Apple's competitors.

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#106
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…

> Apple revolutionised the industry - before the iPhone we were using tiny screens with Nokia SMS interfaces or Motorla RAZR

Even if that were true, the problem for me is Apple didn't patent the iPhone. They patented tiny little implementation details, like pinch-to-zoom and slide-to-unlock. The iPhone was revolutionary not because of rounded rectangles and a regular grid of icons. It was revolutionary because it was a phone that people actually enjoyed using. Did pinch-to-zoom and whatnot play a role in that? Possibly, but this whole case hinged on a handful of tiny implementation details and that's what I'm disappointed about.

It's like blocking the sale of a car because someone had a patent on having the indicator paddles on the steering column. Are there other places to put the indicator paddle? Sure, but it's only a tiny detail in a hugely complex system.

Having said that, I'm happy Samsung got done for the trade-dress stuff, because that was pretty obviously blatant copying.

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#107
post #65

I wish I could back in time and convince Steve Jobs not to do the iPhone and (Butterfly Effect style) return to present day and see what phones were like. I'm guessing we'd be viewing the web scrolling up and down on a Blackberry's nipple :D

Unlikely that there's a difference. It wasn't Apple (or Steve Jobs Himself[tm]) that invented the capacitive touch screen and made it available in large quantities (ie. mainstream compatible). There were prototypes at many (probably all) mobile vendors exploring the capabilities unlocked by that technology. Apple "merely" was boldest - but then they hadn't to consider how a new HCI impacts the brand, since they had n…

"but then they hadn't to consider how a new HCI impacts the brand, since they had no old mobile HCI that mattered."

And that's the BS that Apple ignores and that it makes them go forward.

They should consider how shipping crappy products impacts their brand (are you listening Motorola)

There is a reason I don't even look at the prices for Motorola products anymore.

"Funnily, Android/Google was in a similar position as Apple, ... and they seemed to prefer the old style for now."

That's what happens when you only have engineers making decisions.

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#108
post #22
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…

> Either way, the consumer loses, and for what?

If you take the lawsuit for what it is, namely that only Apple can have pinch-to-zoom et.al, yes the consumer loses.

But if this lawsuit makes vendors keep a little more distance between each other, I'm all for it. As a consumer, I'd rather have a wide array of choices rather than one cash cow and its copycats, and I'd argue that this is what most people would understand as innovation. (And this is the opposite of innovation: http://allthingsd.com/20120807/samsungs-2010-report-on-how-i...)

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#109
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).

I guess you misread my comment. I was criticizing the comparison of feature phones with the iPhone not comparing iPhones with smartphones. It's a big difference. If the iPhone would have been the first smartphone you could probably call it revolutionary. But you can't. Evolution ok, Better as the competition at the time of release ok. I'll grant you that already. Still a big difference.

The first iPhone didn't even support 3rd party apps (and afaik in the beginning Steve Jobs never intended to support native apps). Other smartphones had native apps for ages, though.

People should just stop to pretend that apple invented phones with big screens, it's ridiculous.

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#110

Wow Jacques, I usually love your posts and your comments here are valuable - but I think you are so off the mark with this post. For starters, the reality is that Apple's revenue streams are quite diversified and their product portfolio is very strong. From iMac, to iTunes to iPods/iPhones/iPads. So the notion that Apple would launch into litigation "just for the money" seems misguided, at the least - if only for the…

Really well said- for all of Jacques great posts, this opinion piece isn't well supported and doesn't go very deep considering its length.
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