Apple vs Samsung: Another Win for Apple?

[Jamstruth]

It seems that Apple have won yet another significant victory in their ongoing "patent war" against Samsung.

After winning another injunction against the Galaxy Tab 10.1 earlier this week Google's flagship phone has met the same fate. A US Judge has granted another injunction after reviewing the 4 patent infringement claims put forward by Apple. Of these patents one was taken by the Judge as being the most serious cause for concern and the main reason for the injunction to be granted. The patent (US No. 8,086,604) pertains to a search feature which can be used to check multiple sources from a single interface. As this is touted as a major draw of the Android 4.0 software and a core feature of the OS the Judge ruled that there may be irreparable harm caused to Apple through this infringement. The other 3 claims related to the “slide to unlock” feature (a recurring claim by Apple), actionable linking (after reviewing the patent I had very little understanding of this), and finally the touch screen word suggestion interface.

With this ruling as soon as Apple ponies up the money for the bonds to give Samsung monetary compensation should they eventually win the case the sale Nexus devices within the USA will have to be ceased.

Further information can be found in the source below

Source


My opinion:-
These claims seem very broad and vague for patented concepts. Apple basically own using a touchscreen to unlock a device (except maybe a virtual button), the ability to search both locally on a device and on the web, and using a touchscreen to select words. I'm not even kidding. After this I would not be surprised if Google take an offensive and sue Apple based on their own mobile notifications patent which Apple have clearly infringed with the inclusion of the "Notification Centre" in iOS5+. I hope there are no lasting repercussions from this and that Samsung manages to appeal successfully. The loss of the flagship Android phone would certainly send a chill down the spine of any perspective hardware designers looking to make an Android device.
I sort of understood Apple's earlier suits against Samsung. Their devices did look very similar and the drawer of TouchWiz looked very much like the iOS screen before the inclusion of background wallpapers but these are suits against a device which is only similar in the market it is aimed at. Apple seem to be out to destroy the competition by any means necessary.

 

[chyyran]

Steve Jobs is dead, let it go Apple.

Go get'em Google



Someone has to sue Apple for anti-competitiveness

 

[the_randomizer]

Steve Jobs is dead, let it go Apple.

Go get'em Google

Someone has to sue Apple for anti-competitiveness

Apple is trying to be like Microsoft as far as becoming a monopoly. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure anti-competitiveness is illegal. Plus they're the ultimate patent and copyright trolls.

 

[triassic911]

Steve Jobs is dead, let it go Apple.

Go get'em Google

Someone has to sue Apple for anti-competitiveness

Apple is trying to be like Microsoft as far as becoming a monopoly. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure anti-competitiveness is illegal. Plus they're the ultimate patent and copyright trolls.

It will never be a monopoly. Apple has it's competitors and it still has overpriced shit. To be honest I don't know how Apple is successful. I guess Apple sure knows how to build a fanbase.

 

[the_randomizer]

It will never be a monopoly. Apple has it's competitors and it still has overpriced shit. To be honest I don't know how Apple is successful. I guess Apple sure knows how to build a fanbase.

Well you can't spell "fanaticism" without "fan".

 

[AceWarhead]

This is ridiculous...
Apple need to get off their high horses...

 

[Deleted-236924]

To be honest I don't know how Apple is successful.

Fanboys.
Fanboys everywhere.

 

[Jamstruth]

Well you can't spell "fanaticism" without "fan".

Well considering that the word "fan" comes from "fanaticism" I'm not surprised.

 

[Urza]

To be honest I don't know how Apple is successful.

It helps to make a product that's better than everything on the market.

Then do it again.

 

[Foxi4]

To be honest I don't know how Apple is successful.

It helps to make a product that's better than everything on the market.

Then do it again.

It's pretty easy to keep on-top of the things when you stall your only real competitor with petty lawsuits.

 

[Deleted_171835]

To be honest I don't know how Apple is successful.

It helps to make a product that's better than everything on the market.

Then do it again.

It also helps to have an obsessive consumer base that will buy every goddamn thing they make.

Apple products being better than everything else on the market is very arguable.

 

[Janthran]

It will never be a monopoly. Apple has it's competitors and it still has overpriced shit. To be honest I don't know how Apple is successful. I guess Apple sure knows how to build a fanbase.

Well you can't spell "fanaticism" without "fan".

Where do you think the term "fan" came from? >_>

 

[the_randomizer]

It also helps to have an obsessive consumer base that will buy every goddamn thing they make.

Apple products being better than everything else on the market is very arguable.

Exactly. Their laptops....oh, sorry, *ahem* Macbook Pro and Air series have some very serious heat dissipation issues. The hardware specs in those machines aren't nearly as good as my current laptop, and I paid $800 for this.

 

[chavosaur]

To be honest I don't know how Apple is successful.

It helps to make a product that's better than everything on the market.

Then do it again.

It also helps to have an obsessive consumer base that will buy every goddamn thing they make.

Apple products being better than everything else on the market is very arguable.

I totally agree soulx. Dont get me wrong, there are plenty of idevices in my household (imac,ipad3,iphone4) but to say theyre the best of the best is so not true. Samsung galaxy was revoloutionary, htc phones continue to grow better support wise and entertainment wise (Beats is the best thing to hit music in awhile) and overall power of android OS continues to grow and rival that of IOS. Im not an apple hater, but i hate their buisiness tyranny.

 

[Urza]

I'm referring specifically to two products: the original iPhone, and the iPad.

When the iPhone was first released, smartphone interfaces were garbage. I had an HTC Hermes at the time, which was top of the line. Apple came out with the announcement of the iPhone at Macworld, and watching how insanely good it looked, we all knew. This was how phones were going to look from now on. That was the first (and currently only) Apple hardware product that I regularly use.

Although we have great Android (and WP7) handsets now, it took several years for the OEMs to get anything remotely comparable out the door. iPhone 3Gs vs... the HTC Hero? Not a hard choice. The first Droid was within a stones throw hardware-wise, the software was another story. 2010 gave us the Nexus One, and led into the summer of the "super-phone", giving us devices that were actually better than Apple's offerings in relevant areas. During the entire time leading up to that however, Apple basically had free reign. There is a large base of people who have never owned a Mac, but bought the iPhone 2G or 3G or 3Gs, were enthralled by what an improvement it was over their WinMo or Blackberry garbage, and simply haven't seen a good enough reason to leave that ecosystem.

Part two: the iPad. Apple comes in and invents a new market. To this day the tablet OEMs still play catch-up each year. The Transformer Prime looks pretty swe... oh look, Apple released a new one with the best panel ever produced. This is not a huge surprise, considering it took about three years for them to catchup in the handset space, and even now we're seeing some fantastic (and price-competitive) Android tablets on the horizon. Suffice to say I've already pre-ordered the Nexus 7.

So no, I'm not saying that every Apple product is great. It does however only take a company knocking it out of the park one or two times and blind-siding their competitors to boost them into the financial echelons of oil companies.

 

[Deleted_171835]

Part two: the iPad. Apple comes in and invents a new market.

Yes, I know the iPad was more polished but Apple didn't exactly invent the market.

 

[Jamstruth]

Part two: the iPad. Apple comes in and invents a new market.

Yes, I know the iPad was more polished but Apple didn't exactly invent the market.

It revitalised it at least. Before the iPad tablets were extremely expensive, slow and clunky due to the desktop interface. Apple's touch based (albeit limited in computing) interface gave it a new use: As a casual browser and entertainment device.

 

[Urza]

Yes, I know the iPad was more polished but Apple didn't exactly invent the market.

I didn't say Apple invented the tablet. They created (invented was poor word choice) the market. Microsoft created a similar product, but the iPad ships to a completely different market which absolutely was not served by Windows' previous tablet initiatives.

 

[Foxi4]

I'm referring specifically to two products: the original iPhone, and the iPad.

When the iPhone was first released, smartphone interfaces were garbage. I had an HTC Hermes at the time, which was top of the line. Apple came out with the announcement of the iPhone at Macworld, and watching how insanely good it looked, we all knew. This was how phones were going to look from now on. That was the first (and currently only) Apple hardware product that I regularly use.

Although we have great Android (and WP7) handsets now, it took several years for the OEMs to get anything remotely comparable out the door. iPhone 3Gs vs... the HTC Hero? Not a hard choice. The first Droid was within a stones throw hardware-wise, the software was another story. 2010 gave us the Nexus One, and led into the summer of the "super-phone", giving us devices that were actually better than Apple's offerings in relevant areas. During the entire time leading up to that however, Apple basically had free reign. There is a large base of people who have never owned a Mac, but bought the iPhone 2G or 3G or 3Gs, were enthralled by what an improvement it was over their WinMo or Blackberry garbage, and simply haven't seen a good enough reason to leave that ecosystem.

Part two: the iPad. Apple comes in and invents a new market. To this day the tablet OEMs still play catch-up each year. The Transformer Prime looks pretty swe... oh look, Apple released a new one with the best panel ever produced. This is not a huge surprise, considering it took about three years for them to catchup in the handset space, and even now we're seeing some fantastic (and price-competitive) Android tablets on the horizon. Suffice to say I've already pre-ordered the Nexus 7.

So no, I'm not saying that every Apple product is great. It does however only take a company knocking it out of the park one or two times and blind-siding their competitors to boost them into the financial echelons of oil companies.

You must be joking, Apple's iPhone 1 was basically obsolete the day it was released - these were the days when XScale was sold to Marvell, the Snapdragons went into serious development and smartphones were close to breaking the 1Ghz boundry.

Apple released hardware that had no external memory slots, very limited Bluetooth compatibility with headsets, no MMS capabilities and... a flashy menu. Please, don't try to convince me that it was "amazing" because it really wasn't - it was hyped. The day Android reached the light of day, the original iPhone entered the realm of obscurity. As for the iPad, it's really just an iPhone on steroids - everybody knows that and everybody waits for tablets with proper full-blown operating systems to enter the market.

Products like The Surface or Project Fiona will blow Apple out of the water, and Apple has to prepare for that.

They are afloat and they are above their competitors, but not thanks to superior hardware but thanks to incredible marketing schemes. People didn't buy the iPhone "because it did stuff" - people bought the iPhone because "everybody else did" - it's an on-going trend, but trends pass and Apple realizes that. As of today, their hardware is a few steps behind the competition and by releasing only one model of their products, differentiated only by internal memory size, they're closing many roads for themselves for no reason.

It's been a few years and by now, they should've at the very least developed an external memory format for themselves - they haven't. Apple is doing their best to create All-in-One packages, but they fail at it because a mobile device simply can't do it all. They're trying hard, but before the 4G, I was pretty disappointed with their hardware. They're stepping their game up, and I'm anxious to see what happens next... but if Apple won't get their sh*t together before Windows 8 and i3,5,7 powered machines enter the market... they're in the sh*t. The A5 is *nothing* in comparison.

EDIT: Oh-em-gee, Grammar is Hard. >>;

 

[Jamstruth]

You must be joking, Apple's iPhone 1 was basically obsolete the day it was released - these were the days when XScale was sold to Marvell, the Snapdragons went into serious development and smartphones were close to breaking the 1Ghz boundry.

Apple released hardware that had no external memory slots, very limited Bluetooth compatibility with headsets, no MMS capabilities and... a flashy menu. Please, don't try to convince me that it was "amazing" because it really wasn't - it was hyped. The day Android reached the day of light, the original iPhone entered the realm of obscurity. As for the iPad, it's really just an iPhone on steroids - everybody knows that and everybody waits for tablets with proper full-blown operating systems to enter the market.

Products like The Surface or Project Fiona will blow Apple out of the water, and Apple has to prepare for that.

They are afloat and they are above their competitors, but not thanks to superior hardware but thanks to incredible marketing schemes. People didn't buy the iPhone "because it did stuff" - people bought the iPhone because "everybody else did" - it's an on-going trend, but trends pass and Apple realizes that. As of today, their hardware is a few steps behind the competition and by releasing only one model of their products, differentiated only by internal memory size, they're closing many roads for themselves for no reason.

It's been a few years and by now, they should've at the very least developed an external memory format for themselves - they haven't. Apple is doing their best to create All-in-One packages, but they fail at it because a mobile device simply can't do it all. They're trying hard, but before the 4G, I was pretty disappointed with their hardware. They're stepping their game up, and I'm anxious to see what happens next... but if Apple won't get their sh*t together before Windows 8 and i3,5,7 powered machines enter the market... they're in the sh*t. The A5 is *nothing* in comparison.

The iPhone still reinvented the smartphone market. It became more data centric, they added a centralised app store with active developers, they made a touch screen interface that wasn't a complete faff to use. Without the iPhone the smartphone market wouldn't exist as it is now. The fact that it was "obsolete" the day it released didn't matter. It gave the market the kickstart it needed. Maybe without the iPhone Android would've still released but I don't think it would have become as big as it is because it wouldn't have had a giant to compete against.