If you have a smartphone, you've probably used the slide-to-unlock feature to make a call or check your mail. This week, Apple (AAPL 0.00%) won the patent for that feature.
Slide-to-unlock is an elegant, useful feature, and it's been copied by many other companies. The Android software by Google (GOOG 0.00%) uses it, as does the new Windows 8 lock screen from Microsoft (MSFT 0.00%). (Microsoft owns and publishes Top Stocks, an MSN Money site.)
So what will happen now that Apple owns the feature? Well, it's pretty clear that any devices using it could be sued for patent infringement. Time Magazine thinks we'll see a substantial drop in the number of devices offering it from now on.
No issue at all, how about three taps. I hate apple and the stupid patent games they play, sad thing is I am buying my wife an ipad today, she really wants one
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As much as I dislike Apple's suit happy attitude, it is hard to blame them. They spend billions making fantastic user friendly devices only to have other companies blow in and copy every minute detail. It has been a copy game since day one, now the other companies will actually have to innovate.
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No issue at all, how about three taps. I hate apple and the stupid patent games they play, sad thing is I am buying my wife an ipad today, she really wants one
Apple should stick with marketing gadgets to 13 yr olds instead of suing everyone in sight. They started all this how many years ago when people wanted to sell Apple clones? That's when I started using PC's and never looked back. Where did that get them? They have no desktop business. They sell PC's ported to run their OS to people who are willing to pay a premium. That is a niche market at best.
Apple should stick with marketing gadgets to 13 yr olds instead of suing everyone in sight. They started all this how many years ago when people wanted to sell Apple clones? That's when I started using PC's and never looked back. Where did that get them? They have no desktop business. They sell PC's ported to run their OS to people who are willing to pay a premium. That is a niche market at best.
Where did it get them? It got them to be the largest, most influential, technology company in the world. It's true, they have no desktop business—but the desktop business is dead. Home desktops…talk about a niche market at best. That's for old people. What are you, 65? Hell, even old people have iPads now instead.
Notebooks and mobile devices have completely killed the home desktop market, and continue to beat on its dead corpse.
The idea of "the desktop" only exists for gamers and in the enterprise—and even the latter is being challenged with things like PCoIP.
Last edited by ImaNihilist; 01-18-2012 at 03:10 PM.
Your right there were only 352 million PC's shipped in 2011 in the middle of the worst global economy in recent memory. Why bother with 352 million units, might as well stop selling that product. The point was suing everyone is generally bad for your business long term. Perhaps my point was too subtle? As for my personal computing needs, I find mobile devices pretty much useless. The only time I don't have a computer in front of me is when I'm driving. I don't have any use for a mobile device besides being able to call or text someone. Unlike the average teenager, I have no need to update my facebook every 5 minutes.
Your right there were only 352 million PC's shipped in 2011 in the middle of the worst global economy in recent memory. Why bother with 352 million units, might as well stop selling that product. The point was suing everyone is generally bad for your business long term. Perhaps my point was too subtle? As for my personal computing needs, I find mobile devices pretty much useless. The only time I don't have a computer in front of me is when I'm driving. I don't have any use for a mobile device besides being able to call or text someone. Unlike the average teenager, I have no need to update my facebook every 5 minutes.
Desktop PC sales only make up about 20% of Dell's revenue. The margins are all ****. IBM got out of the business all together, because it was a shrinking business with declining profit margins.
Apple has been suing companies that are effectively infringing on their trade dress. It doesn't even really have to do with technology.
Your right there were only 352 million PC's shipped in 2011 in the middle of the worst global economy in recent memory. Why bother with 352 million units, might as well stop selling that product. The point was suing everyone is generally bad for your business long term. Perhaps my point was too subtle? As for my personal computing needs, I find mobile devices pretty much useless. The only time I don't have a computer in front of me is when I'm driving. I don't have any use for a mobile device besides being able to call or text someone. Unlike the average teenager, I have no need to update my facebook every 5 minutes.
Plus more and more businesses are switching to Apple.
Forrester Research estimates that Apple will sell $9 billion in Macs and $10 billion in iPads to corporations this year, up 50% from 2011. Forrester anticipates spending on PCs and tablets made by other companies will decline by 3% to $69 billion.
Whether you like them or not they are the most successful PC company in the world and everyone copies them. I applaud their patent efforts and hope they rip Samsung a new one. People who buy Samsung products should be ashamed to support such a blatant ripoff artist. At the very least they should offer their products for $50, like the fake Rolex you buy on the street. It's not like they have a lot of R&D costs. At most the few hundred dollars it costs them to buy a new iDevice and copy it outright.
There is the theory of the moebius. A twist in the fabric of space where time becomes a loop.
Apple should stick with marketing gadgets to 13 yr olds instead of suing everyone in sight. They started all this how many years ago when people wanted to sell Apple clones? That's when I started using PC's and never looked back
Hahaha love it. Apple products have always become a bit hipster-ish. Maybe ms's ethos of crushing the competition by monopolising the market rubbed off on them when gates jumped aboard?
I just wish ms and apple would spend less time worrying about piracy and infringement and instead innovate and make their products better. Some Chinese clone for instance may come out, but if you price your authentic product reasonably and give people a reason to buy your product, you will always have faithful customers.
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HTC and other android phones have come under fire, especially with Germany trying to stop sales. There are supposed to be more claimants than just Apple ....
Typically, the only time a product will be "banned" is for gross infringement that would cause a consumer to mistakenly purchase one product over another. This is doubly true in the EU, where patent law is not quite as draconian as it is in the US. Patents, particularly software patents, just provide a legal ground work for big companies (it's very different when big companies sue small companies) to essentially sue other ones for infringements against "likeness". Or at least that's what it almost always comes down to at the end of the day.
It is very difficult to make the case the Apple intentionally copies features that would result in a consumer being "tricked" into accidentally buying an Apple product when they intended to buy something else.
The only company out there right now who is brutally guilty of patent infringement is Samsung. Samsung is the one really fueling that patent war, and everyone is worried that all the other players will become Samsung. They are copying Apple products down to specific dimensions, and even resizing their ads so that their products are the same size as Apple's. Apple started showing their phones like this and then Samsung basically said, "In all our marketing materials, we now show our phones with the same colors and same dimensions just like this."
If HTC and Samsung decided to say, "**** Apple. We aren't going to use any of the colors Apple uses in our palette," it would all go away. If they used a different aspect ratio it would all go away. If they didn't show their phones in every marketing shot with 4 dock icons at the bottom, it would all go away.
Look at Nokia. They don't give two shits about Apple. All their phone look unique. They come in colors and the new Windows Phone 7 UI isn't a direct copy of the iOS. They don't copy the slab design. Everyone laughs at Nokia, but they aren't spending retarded amounts of money on lawsuits compared to everyone else. Elop gets a lot of flak, but at least he has some dignity.
Last edited by ImaNihilist; 01-13-2012 at 02:45 PM.
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