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The Great Smartphone War
- amaks 12y agoimagine all that money they spent on lawsuits to be spent on research and charity?
- melling 12y agoImagine all the time wasted here that could be spent on research, charity, and product development.
- rayiner 12y ago> http://m.us.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303997604579242393615502208?mobile=y http://m.us.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303997604579242... Apple spent like $60 million on the Samsung litigation. Its a drop in the bucket compared to how much they spend on R&D (50-60 times as much).
- sillysaurus3 12y agoDoes Apple really spend $3B+ on R&D? That's interesting.
- sroerick 12y agoYeah, but the Samsung litigation is not the only patent affairs that Apple has. http://www.androidauthority.com/google-apple-spend-patents-120824/ http://www.androidauthority.com/google-apple-spend-patents-1...
- rayiner 12y agoI've seen that article and its bunk. It takes too completely different things and adds them together to say "Apple and Google spend $20 billion on patent litigation." For example they count the Motorola acquisition as $12 billion (IIRC) towards that amount.
- jolohaga 12y agoThe worthless iPhone argument
- jscheng 12y agoYeah, so worthless that it created an entire industry.
- g8oz 12y agoA very biased article - the only facts emphasized are the ones that support the Samsung is an IP thief narrative.
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- sillysaurus3 12y agoWhich reading would you recommend?
- hahainternet 12y agoI've never found a remotely balanced article about the history of smartphones. The best reading is Wikipedia.
- gress 12y agoIt's only 'bias' if you don't want to see it as true.
- hahainternet 12y agoNo it's biased because the article spends half its time talking about scandals in Samsung's history and praising Jobs/Apple as unbelievable visionaries brutally screwed by corporate Korea.
- gress 12y agoThe scandals characterize the behavior of the company. You can't pretend they didn't happen.
- hahainternet 12y agoI didn't say they didn't happen. I said the article is biased because it focuses on one side alone.
- robg 12y agoHas anyone had a good experience licensing to and/or working with Samsung? Any good experiences that turned bad?
- czhiddy 12y agoI've heard my chip designer friend mention in passing that the "Chinese wall" between the Samsung fab group and the Samsung design groups is occasionally porous.
- robg 12y agoI've heard multiple bad experiences. No good ones.
- plink 12y agoEven at the consumer level: go purchase a new Samsung TV and read their data-mining TOS.
- WildUtah 12y agoApple Computer Corporation has made hundreds of billions with Samsung as their main supplier of screens and CPUs for their most profitable product -- the iPhone. So there's at least one company that has had a great experience working with Samsung.
- hahainternet 12y agoThis is a terrible article that glosses over Apple's history of exactly the same sorts of actions including even taking the name of their product without proper authority. The Reality Distortion Field of 'ooh shiny' strikes again.
- Decade 12y agoThere's a major difference between when a revolutionary new product has the same name as a defunct product line (Linksys iPhone, which got revived specifically to cash in on Apple iPhone) or a local failing product line (Proview Shenzhen's iPad), and when Samsung produces rip-off products that have confusing similarities to Apple's successful product lines. Apple certainly is a terrible company, and I think many of their patents should not be patentable, but this is one area where I think Samsung is in the wrong. The most annoying part for me is that Samsung is winning with inferior quality. The Samsung devices that I've seen have annoying bugs and low build quality, and Samsung keeps stuffing Touchwiz onto their Android devices, and their own UX development always seems gimmicky. But, hey, it worked for Microsoft.
- hahainternet 12y ago> Apple certainly is a terrible company, and I think many of their patents should not be patentable, but this is one area where I think Samsung is in the wrong. For doing what? Producing a Smartphone? Using Apple's logic any majority touchscreen device with icons is an infringement upon their patents/trade dress.
- shasta 12y agoFor wholesale copying as many aspects of their phone as they did. Patent lawsuits (at least in this industry) usually hinge upon whether some small number of silly patents are infringed upon, when really those patented items weren't particularly more innovative than any other other myriad design decisions involved in the product. So our system tends to vastly overvalue those silly patented things and at the same time undervalue the totality of innovation in a product.
- o0-0o 12y agoThe pattern this article shines a light on is that American companies continue to innovate - while other countries can only follow. Imagine if no one copied each other and spent all that time and treasure on innovation.
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- freehunter 12y agoYeah, we'd all be better reinventing the wheel rather than improving on what already exists.
- ploxiln 12y agoThis article simplifies things to the point of being wrong. "Patented features such as “rubber-banding,” in which a screen image bounces slightly when a user tries to scroll past the bottom, were identical. Same with “pinch to zoom,” which allows users to manipulate image size by pinching the thumb and forefinger together on the screen." Jeff Han was doing pinch-to-zoom well before the iPhone was unveiled. I suspect that anyone that had access to a low-latency multi-touch screen would come up with it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqXPD7EHDto https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqXPD7EHDto "Under way since 2004, the effort constituted one of the biggest gambles in the history of the company: a cell phone with full Internet, e-mail functions, plus a host of unprecedented features." Actually, there were many smartphones with all the iPhone's features, and more, at the time it was first released. The original iPhone didn't have apps, it didn't have MMS, etc. What it did have was a fully-capable browser, and a well-done low-latency multi-touch interface. In any case, it really wasn't about "features". Quality of implementation, yeah, features, no. This article is just going to give lots of lay-people the wrong impression about the history of the iPhone.
- snowwrestler 12y agoPeople always bring up Jeff Han as a means of questioning Apple's multitouch patents. His famous TED demo was in 2006. Apple bought Fingerworks in 2005, a commercial multitouch company that was founded in 1998 based on research from earlier in that decade.
- XorNot 12y agoIf Fingerworks didn't patent the feature before then, then it was public domain by the time it was demonstrated. Though frankly, it would still be a BS patent.
- marv36 12y agoIt also makes it sound like Samsung created an operating system from scratch. I'd say large parts of this story are fiction.
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- q2 12y agoI read on the web that Steve Jobs wanted to go for full fledged war on Android ...etc, no matter of costs involved. But that was back when he was alive and both Android and ios are in fancy. It was an emotional burst. Steve Jobs was known for changing mind, if different options arise on horizon. So if he is alive, he may take different turn in this episode, rather than just fighting and fighting in the courts. But since it is well publicized that Steve wanted to battle Android at any cost, Apple's current leadership may not have space to back down because if they back down, share holders, press, loyal fans may feel as going against Steve's last wishes...etc. As article shows, Tim cook tried to caution multiple times, even when Steve was alive. In that sense, it is "reluctant war" on behalf of Tim cook and my guess is, he wants to settle the distraction/media glare and move on. I read somewhere that Steve wanted Tim cook to make decisions not as what Steve would do ...etc but based on current reality. Ordered penalty is just a drop in Apple's revenue. But the constant media focus, important supplier relationship with Samsung, Tim Cook's own reluctance (despite public utterances), antipathy to patent fights in tech world means there will be gradual burial of this issue over time and focus on battle through new products/improvements. I guess Steve also would do the same. He settled with Microsoft in the beginning to avoid distraction and focus on new products. There will be short term backlash but if they are right on roadmap, people see that as masterstroke ...etc. Note: This is my view/guess as an outsider based on what I read about Steve Jobs, Apple ...etc.
- IBM 12y agoIt's a repeated meme that Apple should "stop litigating and get back to innovating" as if the organization is incapable of doing both. I disagree that Apple should back down. Tim Cook's advice was given at a time when Apple was more dependent on Samsung as a supplier, and being in charge of operations that was his concern. Since then Apple has diversified away from Samsung (and continues to do so). It is most definitely not in Apple's best interest to let Samsung continue as they have throughout their history, in terms of IP infringement, without a cost. The alternative is to become a victim like the many other companies mentioned in the article.
- q2 12y agoAt the end of the day, these decisions have to be taken at CEO level. Apple may be big but it has only one CEO. This may not be the only issue Tim Cook is paying attention. There will be several such issues in any big company. Reducing some or optimization will always be an option at CEO level. Vendor relations are always based on cost, resources and so I guess, they will be in a flux always. So diversification away forever is not pragmatic choice, given the reliability of Samsung so far. I never mentioned not to fight but I mentioned not through courts. Smart guys at Apple can think several options and I am novice there.
- BorisMelnik 12y agoside note: the readability on vanity fair's blog is surprisingly awesome! also didn't see any ads at all.
- vfclists 12y agoSamsung seems to be a very 'American' company. Is there anything they do that a lot of big American companies don't do? Their only crime seems to be being big enough to beat an American company at its own game. If Apple wants to compete it need to do better than competing on 'rounded corners'. Lets face it the iPhone's cachet is rooted more in media hype than any meaningful reality.
- jscheng 12y agoYou seem to miss the article's points entirely. It's not just in America. Samsung has been caught with the same shenanigans in China and in Taiwan. The author is right about Samsung - it is the world's most dirty, unethical, and corrupt corporation, by far.
- vfclists 12y agoAre you serious? What planet are you living on? When did you get the idea that big companies play nice? So long as they can negotiate the fines that go with their misdeeds they will play dirty, assuming they get prosecuted in the first place. Why do you think the bankrupt TBTF banks are still up and running with their bosses earning their obscene bonuses as usual?
- vitaminj 12y agoA few comments are saying that the author is too harsh on Samsung, but I get the impression that he actually admires Samsung's unscrupulous, unethical though ultimately canny business practices - in a similar way that one would admire a drug dealer's ultra-efficient distribution system. After all, the Samsung presented in this article enters into new markets via wholesale IP theft. It then uses a suite of legal instruments to stall for time in order to build internal technical capabilities and intellectual capital. Samsung could stop here, but chooses instead to actually innovate and improve on the products using the knowledge and experience base it has accrued copying the product in the first place. It's a pretty shrewd, albeit completely unethical business strategy.
- sliverstorm 12y agoIt's also a song & dance we have seen before. Many Japanese companies played that game in the post-war era.
- r0h1n 12y agoSure, Samsung comes across as an utterly immoral and venal company in this piece. Unless you object to the specifics of any of the allegations (which seem based mostly on court papers), you can't fault the writer for being "biased". There are innumerable ways to skin the "smartphone wars" story, and Kurt Eichenwald has chosen one. Instead of some standard Apple-did-this/Google-did-this/Samsung-did-this story, he's chosen to focus it mostly on Samsung. Another reason why Samsung's behavior might seem egregious to many American/western HNers is because their economies have historically moved past the stage where such wanton copying & corruption was acceptable. Doesn't mean American companies haven't been guilty of equally venal - at times far worse - practices. But it would help to view Korean/Chinese companies trying to "catch up" on the global stage through relevant context. Again, I'm not justifying what Samsung does here, just saying if they hadn't done much of what the article lays out, we might not have had such a competitive and disruptive smartphone/consumer electronics sector globally.
- sremani 12y agoLet us not also forget that Samsung was one of the main suppliers for iPhone and to an extent still is. The real loss is not for Apple in here, they are just worried they could not monopolize the smartphone but the real victims are the Motorolas and HTCs which did not lets say "push the boundaries", and Palm and Microsoft which had a fresh take on Mobile OS. To say that Samsung is cornerstone for today's diverse market is a bit disingenuous, there would have been other players.
- praetorian84 12y agoThe lawyers feel like the only ones winning out of patent disputes.
- tdsamardzhiev 12y agoStupid war between two stupid 99%-marketing-based junk-producing companies. I really hope both lose the "war".