4 ms·

How? Because they have a large market share in certain product categories? I see that kind of out of the box thinking and pure passion in many of their most re

by deveac 14y ago

How? Because they have a large market share in certain product categories? I see that kind of out of the box thinking and pure passion in many of their most recent designs. The iPhone is a perfect example. Look at where that paradigm shifting product has taken them, and think about how that device is only 5 years old. I see the same transformative execution and design in their iPad, and now the rest of the OEMs are desperately trying to catch up instead of having delivered. Intel had to invent a new product category just to first describe, and then compete with the Macbook Air. When I try to imagine what that quote means for Apple, I always thought it meant designing the absolute best products for people, no matter what, -no compromises. That they have delivered beyond what anybody could have possibly expected is a realization of that quote, not a negation to me. But maybe you take it to mean something else? They've certainly changed the world...

mrich 14y ago
Because they are trying to use a broken patent system to corner the market, instead of trying to compete. They are the most aggressive in IT doing this, so in a way they are misfits.
- msbarnett 14y ago
  > They are the most aggressive in IT doing this [Citation Needed]
  - mrich 14y ago
    http://www.extremetech.com/electronics/132050-patents-werent-designed http://www.extremetech.com/electronics/132050-patents-werent... "Apple, which has been one of the most aggressive players in patent litigation..." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc._litigation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc._litigation "Apple is known for and promotes itself as an active and aggressive pursuer of enforcement of its intellectual property interests."
    - deveac 14y ago
      I guess I'm having a hard time seeing where either of the links you provided demonstrated that Apple is "abusing" the patent system lieu of competing like you claimed, unless you define competing as letting your competitors help themselves to your IP while you look the other way. Yes the patent system is broken, but a company choosing not to enforce or license their IP isn't the definition of abuse. Violating your own FRAND terms and suing someone for Frand is clearly abuse of it though. Nor are Motorala, Nokia, Google and others "abusing" the patent system when they protect their IP that they choose not to license. They are using the system for the exact purpose for which it is designed. If we don't like that, it's on us to change the system appropriately.
    - msbarnett 14y ago
      A citation is not backing up your fact-free assertion by pointing at other people's equally fact-free assertions. A citation is where you point at some, y'know, facts that back up your assertion. Like, and I'm just brainstorming here, number of litigation events per patent held, or offensive suits vs defensive countersuits, or really, anything other than "well extremetech said so and that's good enough for government work!". As it is your assertion doesn't seem to pass the smell test. Surely if we count shell companies, Intellectual Ventures is far and away the biggest litigant in the IT space. And if we're ruling them out, you'd be hard-pressed to beat the major baseband companies.
    - onedev 14y ago
      Did you really just cite other people's opinions?
- deveac 14y ago
  Can you cite that? I was under the impression that Apple only litigated on patents they legitimately held and did not want to licence. This in contrast to some of their opponents who are litigating against Apple on FRAND patents. I think your problem is with patent law itself (which would be legitimate). Apple is much better than the large players suing on FRAND or the active patent troll firms imo. You can't bring a butter knife to a gun fight, and as much as you might like any given company to take a principled stand and not protect their IP while other companies are aggressively doing so, for them to do so would actually be beyond naive.
  - mrich 14y ago
    For the cite see above. Yes, my main problem is the patent system itself and that it allows basic patents to be used to ban competing products. Notice that a patent itself is not bad, only the holder decides whether to use it destructively or defensively. Apple was sued originally by Nokia for the iPhone and they had to pay some money as a result. However, in the case of Android Apple sued first and has been continuing to be the aggressor. All the FRAND lawsuits were only brought later, although they were in response to years of Apple not paying any royalties as demanded by FRAND, the only vendor to do so. Now don't get me wrong: All other smartphone companies aren't saints either. Nokia wanted to protect their market share and the FRAND guys probably also didn't press for their royalties at first, thinking Apple might get into a cross-licensing agreement with regards to their patents. But Apple has been the lone company not willing to license their patents at all. As a customer, ask yourself: do you want to be dependent on just Apple for continued innovation? If you think they cannot do any wrong ask the early adoptors of Mountain Lion (especially power users).
    - shadesandcolour 14y ago
      Not this is on the topic of the article, but there are no early adopters of Mountain Lion. There are developers using beta software and people who aren't developers that want to use beta software. To be honest I hate the term "power user". There are users and there are people who consider their needs to be more than the rest. Aside from changing the way that spaces work (linear as opposed to grid shaped), changing expose (power users are all about the keyboard aren't they?) and a few other cosmetic changes at the hands of some features being hidden I'm not sure what else could bother you. Sure some of it is unnecessary for people, but we already know what the features are, its not a surprise. So go ahead and down vote or comment and call me an idiot or whatever.
- mark_integerdsv 14y ago
  As always during this particular debate, there comes a time when perhaps a distinction between Apple Legal and Apple R&D would enrich the discussion. Every rose has its thorns.
  - lloeki 14y ago
    > Every rose has its thorns. Every rose has to have thorns. Especially in a Mutually Assured Litigation game.
    - pilsetnieks 14y ago
      So when is the wall/curtain going to come down?
- rimantas 14y ago
  > instead of trying to compete. What? Please tell, did they have no competition in smartphone market when they introduced iPhone? There were no other companies making cell phones and smartphones?
  - mrich 14y ago
    The first iPhone was released in the beginning of 2007. The first litigation against Htc was 3 years later. I consider the original phone an innovation but since then Apple has not done much, and to the bystander it looks like they can only compete through the courts nowadays.
    - simonh 14y ago
      Whereas in reality those products they have managed to get rulings against were basically already dead anyway. Apple is using the patent system to kick people when they're already down, that's why it seems so unnecessary, but in reality their legal successes have had insignificant impact on the overall market.
    - pilsetnieks 14y ago
      It may seem to a casual onlooker that there hasn't been much going on since the first iPhone but if you'd compare the original and 4S, it's not even funny. It'd be the same saying that the Motorola's original brick phone was an innovation, the RAZR was just a small improvement and they've been coasting since the 80s.
- simonh 14y ago
  So all of Apple's success is due to patent litigation? Really? They're just doing that instead of competing?

by deveac 14y ago

mrich 14y ago

Because they are trying to use a broken patent system to corner the market, instead of trying to compete. They are the most aggressive in IT doing this, so in a way they are misfits.

msbarnett 14y ago
> They are the most aggressive in IT doing this [Citation Needed]
- mrich 14y ago
  http://www.extremetech.com/electronics/132050-patents-werent-designed http://www.extremetech.com/electronics/132050-patents-werent... "Apple, which has been one of the most aggressive players in patent litigation..." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc._litigation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc._litigation "Apple is known for and promotes itself as an active and aggressive pursuer of enforcement of its intellectual property interests."
  - deveac 14y ago
    I guess I'm having a hard time seeing where either of the links you provided demonstrated that Apple is "abusing" the patent system lieu of competing like you claimed, unless you define competing as letting your competitors help themselves to your IP while you look the other way. Yes the patent system is broken, but a company choosing not to enforce or license their IP isn't the definition of abuse. Violating your own FRAND terms and suing someone for Frand is clearly abuse of it though. Nor are Motorala, Nokia, Google and others "abusing" the patent system when they protect their IP that they choose not to license. They are using the system for the exact purpose for which it is designed. If we don't like that, it's on us to change the system appropriately.
  - msbarnett 14y ago
    A citation is not backing up your fact-free assertion by pointing at other people's equally fact-free assertions. A citation is where you point at some, y'know, facts that back up your assertion. Like, and I'm just brainstorming here, number of litigation events per patent held, or offensive suits vs defensive countersuits, or really, anything other than "well extremetech said so and that's good enough for government work!". As it is your assertion doesn't seem to pass the smell test. Surely if we count shell companies, Intellectual Ventures is far and away the biggest litigant in the IT space. And if we're ruling them out, you'd be hard-pressed to beat the major baseband companies.
  - onedev 14y ago
    Did you really just cite other people's opinions?
deveac 14y ago
Can you cite that? I was under the impression that Apple only litigated on patents they legitimately held and did not want to licence. This in contrast to some of their opponents who are litigating against Apple on FRAND patents. I think your problem is with patent law itself (which would be legitimate). Apple is much better than the large players suing on FRAND or the active patent troll firms imo. You can't bring a butter knife to a gun fight, and as much as you might like any given company to take a principled stand and not protect their IP while other companies are aggressively doing so, for them to do so would actually be beyond naive.
- mrich 14y ago
  For the cite see above. Yes, my main problem is the patent system itself and that it allows basic patents to be used to ban competing products. Notice that a patent itself is not bad, only the holder decides whether to use it destructively or defensively. Apple was sued originally by Nokia for the iPhone and they had to pay some money as a result. However, in the case of Android Apple sued first and has been continuing to be the aggressor. All the FRAND lawsuits were only brought later, although they were in response to years of Apple not paying any royalties as demanded by FRAND, the only vendor to do so. Now don't get me wrong: All other smartphone companies aren't saints either. Nokia wanted to protect their market share and the FRAND guys probably also didn't press for their royalties at first, thinking Apple might get into a cross-licensing agreement with regards to their patents. But Apple has been the lone company not willing to license their patents at all. As a customer, ask yourself: do you want to be dependent on just Apple for continued innovation? If you think they cannot do any wrong ask the early adoptors of Mountain Lion (especially power users).
  - shadesandcolour 14y ago
    Not this is on the topic of the article, but there are no early adopters of Mountain Lion. There are developers using beta software and people who aren't developers that want to use beta software. To be honest I hate the term "power user". There are users and there are people who consider their needs to be more than the rest. Aside from changing the way that spaces work (linear as opposed to grid shaped), changing expose (power users are all about the keyboard aren't they?) and a few other cosmetic changes at the hands of some features being hidden I'm not sure what else could bother you. Sure some of it is unnecessary for people, but we already know what the features are, its not a surprise. So go ahead and down vote or comment and call me an idiot or whatever.
mark_integerdsv 14y ago
As always during this particular debate, there comes a time when perhaps a distinction between Apple Legal and Apple R&D would enrich the discussion. Every rose has its thorns.
- lloeki 14y ago
  > Every rose has its thorns. Every rose has to have thorns. Especially in a Mutually Assured Litigation game.
  - pilsetnieks 14y ago
    So when is the wall/curtain going to come down?
rimantas 14y ago
> instead of trying to compete. What? Please tell, did they have no competition in smartphone market when they introduced iPhone? There were no other companies making cell phones and smartphones?
- mrich 14y ago
  The first iPhone was released in the beginning of 2007. The first litigation against Htc was 3 years later. I consider the original phone an innovation but since then Apple has not done much, and to the bystander it looks like they can only compete through the courts nowadays.
  - simonh 14y ago
    Whereas in reality those products they have managed to get rulings against were basically already dead anyway. Apple is using the patent system to kick people when they're already down, that's why it seems so unnecessary, but in reality their legal successes have had insignificant impact on the overall market.
  - pilsetnieks 14y ago
    It may seem to a casual onlooker that there hasn't been much going on since the first iPhone but if you'd compare the original and 4S, it's not even funny. It'd be the same saying that the Motorola's original brick phone was an innovation, the RAZR was just a small improvement and they've been coasting since the 80s.
simonh 14y ago
So all of Apple's success is due to patent litigation? Really? They're just doing that instead of competing?