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Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

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Re: Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

#81

Post by stcredzero »

CoryMathews wrote: post #35
pg wrote: post #31

If this had happened a day earlier I don't think I would have posted that RFS. Apple is inching ever closer to evil, and I worry that there's no one within the company who can stand up to Jobs and tell him so.

Apple has been evil since the first ipod when you had to use itunes to load music. They have locked people in with no cheap way out. Pure evil IMO.

My definition of Evil includes coercion. Apple doesn't coerce you into using iTunes. They market an iPod to you, which you buy voluntarily. It's only after that you have to use iTunes. And even then, you don't really have to, since there are alternatives for software.

If you can opt-out and just not pay for it, then it isn't evil. It still might be "shitty practice" but you can still vote with your feet.

Re: Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

#82

Post by stcredzero »

glhaynes wrote: post #62
pg wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historically the word "evil" has had a pretty broad meaning. Among tech companies the word has a new and fairly specific sense that follows from Paul Buchheit's slogan "Don't be evil." That's the sense I was using. It has a pretty low bar. It means, roughly, winning by taking advantage of people instead of by doing good work.

Maybe Apple succeeds most when they take advantage of people and do good work. :)

Which makes them better loved than Microsoft, which for long stretches got away with taking advantage of people and doing mostly mediocre work.

Re: Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

#83

Post by stcredzero »

bad_user wrote: post #59
raganwald wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aiding and abetting totalitarian regimes by censoring search results and turning over email correspondence is evil. Making shiny toys that don't do exactly what you want is not evil. Let's stop using "evil" as a synonym for "reprehensible."

Artificially limiting the capabilities of the hardware (people pay for) with the interest of keeping control, can't possibly be in the same league as "shiny toys that don't do exactly what you want". People also lose the perspective of scaling the current trends set by Apple and others to everything ... what would happen if all the documents within your computer would be DRMed? What would happen if all personal PCs h…

No one is forcing you to be in the iTunes store and write iPhone apps.

As for all personal PCs having only software approved by a central authority -- all electrical appliances are approved by UL. I don't see that as having resulted in much evil. To get to drive in the US, everyone is approved by their State. I don't see that as being very evil. The former is opt-in and arranged by insurance interests. The latter is entirely government. Neither form seems to necessarily produce evil when given central authority.

It's a question of how much power is involved, and how corrupting it is. Is DRM on all data really all that much power? It would be if it were ironclad. But I doubt such a thing will ever exist in an economy run by human beings.

Re: Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

#84

Post by stanleydrew »

ewjordan wrote: post #69
pg wrote: post #31

If this had happened a day earlier I don't think I would have posted that RFS. Apple is inching ever closer to evil, and I worry that there's no one within the company who can stand up to Jobs and tell him so.

It's a real shame, too - it's so easy to hate Microsoft when it gets hostile and starts abusing its position, because their software generally makes you want to scream. Apple, on the other hand, puts out stuff that is a genuine pleasure to use, but controls it in increasingly infuriating ways. What's a geek to do? On the other hand, I wouldn't be too quick to avoid iPad startups; even if it feels "wrong", your reason…

if must-have software starts showing up on Android, it would really help.

You mean like Google Voice and Google Maps Navigation? Unfortunately that doesn't seem to have helped much.

Re: Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

#85

Post by wvenable »

raganwald wrote: post #49
razzmataz wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If that's the case, why can't they drop OS X and iPhone and simply make clones, just clones with polish and attention to detail? Because OS X and the iPhone are part of that polish and attention to detail.

It was a rhetorical question! But responding to your explanation, if competitors are free to "adopt" Apple's innovations, why can't competitor's "adopt" OS X and iPhone by copying them feature for feature, polish for polish, detail for detail, simply changing logos and writing "Hello from Dreary Seattle" on the back? It is not obvious to me how "polish and attention to detail" are going to be a competitive advantage…

> Why can't competitor's "adopt" OS X and iPhone by copying them feature for feature, polish for polish, detail for detail

They can't copy the code for OS X because it's covered by copyright. They also can't make it look exactly the same because of trademark. What does that leave? A competitor could then still completely implement their own operating system, User Interface, related hardware, and put the effort into polish and attention to detail. And somehow that's a problem that requires legal recourse to prevent?

Re: Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

#86

Post by mbreese »

technomancy wrote: post #61
jlgosse wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't the last two patents basically give them the right to sue ANYONE who has ever made some sort of GUI application, including vendors in their own app store and people who write apps for OSX? Aren't these basically design patterns?

> Don't the last two patents basically give them the right to sue ANYONE who has ever made some sort of GUI application, including vendors in their own app store and people who write apps for OSX? Aren't these basically design patterns? Welcome to the world of software patents. Many of the other ones are probably also very basic and widespread, they're just not worded in such a way as to make it so obvious.

Read the claims, not the titles. The title of a patent means nothing, from a legal sense. So while a title can be broad, the claims must be very specific.

Re: Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

#87

Post by stcredzero »

technomancy wrote: post #61
jlgosse wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't the last two patents basically give them the right to sue ANYONE who has ever made some sort of GUI application, including vendors in their own app store and people who write apps for OSX? Aren't these basically design patterns?

> Don't the last two patents basically give them the right to sue ANYONE who has ever made some sort of GUI application, including vendors in their own app store and people who write apps for OSX? Aren't these basically design patterns? Welcome to the world of software patents. Many of the other ones are probably also very basic and widespread, they're just not worded in such a way as to make it so obvious.

Everyone needs to do a search through the patent database sometime. You don't really know how much of a cesspool that system has become until you see the prevalence of patent trolling.

The Signal/Bullsh#t ratio of our patent system is perhaps a little better than the Legit/Spam ratio for emails. Yes, it really is bad on a par with that!

Re: Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

#88

Post by projectileboy »

pg wrote: post #31

If this had happened a day earlier I don't think I would have posted that RFS. Apple is inching ever closer to evil, and I worry that there's no one within the company who can stand up to Jobs and tell him so.

Serious question: What would that person say? How could Jobs be nudged out of his reality-distortion field enough to realize the ways in which he's damaging their long-term credibility with their developer community?

Alternately, is their something we're not seeing? Is there possibly some beautiful universe that gets created when Apple controls the entire ecosystem?

Re: Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

#89

Post by stcredzero »

Kadrith wrote: post #60
bphogan wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing I can say in response to this is that I see that my dad uses his iPhone to surf the web much more than he uses his computer, and he's interested in a bigger screen to do so. He's in his 60s, and he's actually not buying another desktop computer (his is 11 years old) because his iPhone does what he needs, and more, plus he's tired of viruses and spyware. (Yes, we know it's not a target yet, but a closed…

How would your father update the iPad without a system running iTunes? That is the only major thing I do not like from what information has been released.

I am sure that if that started to be an issue, Apple could just address that in Software and let iPads exist independently.

Re: Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

#90

Post by tsally »

My next computer wont be a Macbook. :-/ Which makes me really angry because I love my current Macbook. And there goes the thought of buying an iPhone as well.

Unfortunately at this point I feel that I'm obligated not to buy Apple products. Walk with your feet, as the saying goes. Believing in patent reform can be damn inconvenient sometimes.

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