

Good job Apple. You fucked the world... - manuw
http://www.baekdal.com/opinion/good-job-apple-you-fucked-the-world/

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threepipeproblm
This is why I don't buy Apple products in the first place... their ethics as a
company are not exactly news. Don't be surprised at what happens when you give
money to a tyrant.

Since I'm probably about to be downvoted out of existence by Apple fans, it
was nice knowing you HN.

~~~
thedrbrian
So it's ethical to copy and deceive but not to defend your own ideas?

~~~
thirsteh
"Patents are okay when it's Apple getting them."

~~~
batista
All companies, including Samsung, have sued others for patents, including
trivial patents, including in this very issue. So it would hypocritical for
Samsung to cry because it lost the trial.

Now Samsung has to either make a different enough phone, or pay Apple a cut.
In any case, it's not like we're loosing much as consumers. Even if we are to
absorb the extra costs of patenting some phone tech. A $20 more expensive
phone? Big deal, that's less than the monthly phone bill. If anything, we
might get some original UI concepts by Samsung in their effort not to fork for
Apple patented concepts.

That said, there is a field, were patents are literally killing people, either
by illness or by starvation, by technically inflating the cost of medicine and
agriculture. Talking about Big Pharma and Monsanto patents. How about some
outrage for those?

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smallsharptools
Apple did what they had to do and Samsung did not just try to solve a
usability problem, they willfully copied Apple even when they knew there were
patents on these features. The reason Microsoft is exempt is because they
licensed rights to these patents and agreed to steer clear of the aesthetics
of the iPhone which they did with Nokia's version of Windows Phone. And I
think the Metro UI is creative and innovated while Android and what Samsung is
actually devoid of creativity and innovation.

Given all the years that Samsung has been making phones they could have come
up with these solutions but they didn't. If tap to zoom was so obvious why
didn't they do it? Why was Apple the first to do it?

Apple has been screwed before. And mostly by Microsoft copying features and
putting them into Windows while marginalizing Apple just enough to keep their
market share small enough so they were not a threat, but big enough so they
could survive and create new features which Microsoft could "borrow" time and
again. Innovation is a process and Apple does a good job of doing it
incrementally with each OS X update. The original OS X did not have gestures.
They worked on the iPad and iPhone for 6 years before releasing it. They
carefully worked out the gestures, which the Open Source community was
experimenting with but was completely ignored by Microsoft. Now Apple's OS X
relies on a solid trackpad with lots of gestures in Mountain Lion and
Microsoft is jumping in with many similar features in Windows 8 to make it a
tablet-friendly OS. Without the patent protects Apple would continue to be
marginalized and since they are known as a strong innovator I think it is best
for them to defend their work as much as possible.

Consider what The Oatmeal's review or Telsa's contributions and how Edison
took advantage of him because Tesla did not protect his work with patents
while Edison leveraged the system as much as possible for his personal
benefit. Tesla felt his work should benefit the world. The result was that
Edison won, for now.

<http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla>

Apple's second act under Steve Jobs has been to fight to protect the hard work
done by it's employees and continue pushing the envelope.

This is not the end of creativity and innovation for other companies. It is
insulting and disgusting to suggest that. Copying Apple is not innovation. The
likely result here will be more unique offerings from the Android OEMs who
will be forced to blaze their own trail just as Microsoft has done with
Windows Phone.

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thirsteh
The level of Apple fanboyism on Hacker News is really evident in comment
threads like these.

~~~
batista
So, you preemptively assume that anyone defending Apple in this thread or
others cannot be a rational individual with valid arguments but surely a
"fanboy".

In other words, yours is the only stance that can ever be right in this issue.

Am I getting this right?

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tluyben2
It's 'just business'. Agreeing or not doesn't really matter and the 3 people
here not buying Apple products because of it also doesn't matter. Apple makes
(in my opinion) great hardware: I haven't found a better iPad-like or Air-like
or even Macbook-like. I like the Lenovo t420 but I like my Macbook more; I
really don't care at all about looks or brand; it's just nice to work with
IMHO.

This kind of 'practice' has been going on for a looooong time. All 'younger'
people should read about MS in the 80s & 90s. You didn't see it and maybe you
think they are great now and Windows 7/8 is so much better than mac/lin etc;
read up on the history. They used to be hardcore evil. If HN was around in
those times, there would be stories of disgust and misery on the frontpage
every single day. It's nothing new.

Companies defend their backyard in any way possible and they just add power-
points to their company by taking this kind of action. If they didn't take
this action or they would've lost, maybe Samsung could just 1 to 1 copy their
products and get away with that. Would that be good for consumers? I don't
think so. I am against patents and i'm actually against all patents; I don't
believe they are for the greater good of humanity. If you cannot get your
'invested research money/time' (which is bullshit for most patents) back by
execution, maybe you should just sell the entire research to a company that
can and not try to peddle it yourself.

But as long as this kind of shit exists, don't worry about it. It doesn't
affect you nor 'the consumer', Samsung has to say that as 1000s and 1000s of
companies did before them who lost. In reality Samsung just pays something per
infringing product sold to Apple and that's it. Hopefully cases like this will
have companies fighting harder against patents and make pacts to open up
patents for the real greater good. Not sure if I'll see that in my lifetime
though :)

~~~
Nerdfest
It's not just those of us who won't buy from them. It's about how many people
we tell who come to us for hardware and software advice, and it adds up very
quickly.

~~~
tluyben2
True. But the thing with that is (i don't know how it works out for you of
course); I don't want people to turn up on my doorstep expecting help because
I advised that product. With Apple I had that 0 times. My Macbook with which
i'm typing this right now, is on top of a Windows laptop and next to another
Windows laptop which I (in a moment of craziness?) advised. I'm fixing them;
reinstalling Windows 7 because they messed it up by installing a trillion
illegal games/apps and now 'its so slow' 'its broken' etc. I know you can do
this on Mac OS X easily as well, but people just, well, don't. I think it's
the price point (cheap cars dent easily not because they dent easier, but
because people don't care as the cars are cheap) and the OS which just doesn't
have the quadrillion shit apps coming out for it. Limiting even the illegal
installs.

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norswap
There has been a lot of things (and a lot of nonsense) written about patents
recently.

To me, this piece was spot on. A simply expressed reminder of why patents (at
least, some) are evil.

~~~
Nerdfest
The worst part against software patents specifically, is that it's a patent on
the idea, not the solution. Even if you come up with a vastly superior
implementation of the same idea, you're 'infringing'.

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Terretta
Good job Apple?

All your complaints are about the patent system. Good job Congress. Good job
Representatives. Good job voters. Good job you.

Focus calls for change where the change is due.

~~~
kapuzineralex
Good point, came here to say the same.

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Sambdala
"Rectangles with rounded corners are everywhere! Just look around this room!"
-Steve Jobs

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DigitalSea
No company should be able to patent a grid of icons, a pinch-to-zoom gesture
or shape of a phone. Fair enough I do agree to an extent that Samsung
infringed, but the incompetence of the jury in this case will make for a
delicious appeal and halt the celebrations.

Some of the solutions like pinch-to-zoom, etc would have mostly been solutions
another company would have eventually come up with anyway.

------
JacksonGariety
"The things that Apple has highlighted are not inventions. It's simply
solutions to common problems."

Name a consumer innovation that isn't a solution to a common problem.

Don't hate the player, hate the game. And if you really don't like the game,
go change the game.

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dazzawazza
All this energy complaining about Apple in the law courts is ridiculous. Of
course Apple shouldn't own the market using the law courts. But it is a
legitimate business practice to protect yourself in the courts because if they
don't they tacitly approve of every other company 'copying them'.

Everyone does it, (google bought motorola for their patents). If you don't
like it talk to the WTO, congress, parliament, UN and lobby to get it changed.

Every company, I am sure, would rather spend their time and efforts creating
great things, no one more than Apple spends their time creating things of
beauty. CEOs don't get in to CEO-ing so they can pay hoards of patent lawyers
to sit in court all day.

~~~
pytrin
Apple builds beautiful products on one hand, but on the other tries to stifle
competition using patent laws instead of with their products.

The problem is with the system that allows patenting obvious solutions such as
rounded corners or click-to-call and not with Apple itself. Heck, even my Game
Gear from 20 years ago had rounded corners. Luckily for Apple, Sega didn't
think about that patent then. Apple is just the symptom, patent laws need to
be completely overhauled (or at least the system for examining existing
patents and new patent requests).

~~~
dazzawazza
Why didn't Samsung use the game gear as prior art and undermine the patent?

~~~
pytrin
I guess they're not into video games ;-) I'll send them a note for their
appeal

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derekerdmann
Every invention solves a problem, or else it has no reason to exist. Patents
are supposed to protect the person who found a particular solution first; this
isn't new.

I'm sure it was wrong of Eli Whitney to patent the cotton gin, too, since
that's clearly the only way to quickly separate cotton seeds and fibers.

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ggchappell
Let's not blame Apple for a court's decision. Blame the court.

~~~
Nerdfest
The judge and jury were both very poor at their jobs, but Apple gets at least
half the blame. Just because the system is broken doesn't mean it's meant to
be abused. They started this 'patent war', and I hope in the end, someone else
finished it. I'm hoping for a 'SeaWare/PkArc' sort of conclusion to it, but
consumers of their products are far less informed that they were at the time
of PkArc.

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shimsham
Whoa, cowboy! It's all just swings and roundabouts. Stop, count to 10 and
breathe. Then remember what's really important; family and friends.

~~~
EliRivers
This ruling is going to harm family and friends.

