Apple

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

So they're releasing that info because it's not being used in the case.... but why is osmething like that not being used in the case?

[deanb]

It's not being used in the case because Samsung don't own time travel devices and therefore the F700 at the very least can't be based on the iPhone because it was produced before the iPhone was a thing.,

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

I know, isn't that evidence against Apple's claims? Or does the way this trial works is that Apple presents everything and Samsung has to refute it?

 

I have no idea how patent cases work.

[deanb]

Yeah I'm gonna guess that Samsung would have to use that in a later counter case.

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

Man, this really is going to go on for years, isn't it? It won't even matter then. People already make jokes about the GSIII being tte first phone that was entirely designed by lawyers.

[deanb]

I dunno. Fair bunch of judges already told Apple n co to fuck off when making patent cases. I think currently US is one of the few places left that's entertaining the idea of these cases anymore, and in the grand scheme of things that won't matter because Apple have a somewhat decent-ish foothold in the US.

[TheMightyEthan]

Apple didn't have a press release, Samsung released the documents, and Apple is saying that they were trying to bias the jury by releasing information the judge had said they couldn't use.

[deanb]

At first I was like "I didn't release a press release, they were pissed that Samsung had". Then I scrolled up and turns out I did write Apple not Samsung for that part. Now corrected.

[Mister Jack]

Patent lawsuits really are just the worst kind of litigation.

[TheMightyEthan]

I'm confused as to why this is even a patent issue. Seems like it should be a trademark issue at most.

[deanb]

Design patent. I didn't know it was a thing either. But yeah Apple own the design patent on black rectangular touch screen phones. Hence the SIII being the "the first phone designed by lawyers".

 

 

Note how it goes from black rectangle to black rectangle to rounded off white rectnagle (also in blue) and a trapezium button. Funny thing is all the other Galaxy phones are black triangles. I wonder what the Note 2 will be like cos the Note 1 is jsut the SII but bigger.

[TheMightyEthan]

But iPhones also come in white!!!1!!!1111

 

White is ugly, I wish they'd just done away with the "one button at the bottom" instead.

[Eleven]

Just browsing around and saw this... how true is this? http://www.reddit.com/tb/kr14a

[TheFlyingGerbil]

it's as true as you want it to be.

[madbassman39]

I don't know about the store, but lets be honest, a wall plug can only look so different, the box design and packaging, while similar, can only be so different. How can you show what is in the box without putting a big picture of it on it?

 

Here are some examples of phones that use an identical packaging system:

 

Its a common practice for phone packaging.

 

The usb cables, while similar, aren't apple exclusive either

Creative Zen Vision M USB cable

Zune USB Cable

 

This is done for a reason, so you have to buy their overprice USB cables and so that even if you don't and buy third party cables, the companies own the design and they get some form of money out of it through patents. Its a selfish design that only benefits the company.

 

And lastly, voice recording using a microphone.... really? Its a pretty different looking microphone, what image should they use instead? A dogs face?

 

I know you didn't come up with it, but there are many other things that samsung could be called on and those things are really items (aside from packaging) that apple doesn't even care about.

[Luftwaffles]

Madbass has it right, and besides, the suit isn't even about stuff like the packaging or USB cable. I don't think Apple gives a shit about any of that, and even if they do, they've got bigger fish to fry.

[deanb]

Wait samsung use non-micro usb charging cables in US? I thought that (apart from apple who are special) phone makers had welcomed the EU standardisation and brought it around globaly because it made everything cheapet to make even if it meant losing out on proprietary cable profits(which I got think outweighed by savings)

 

Also apple icons are square, the samsung icons on here are kinda wiggly pinched in things(apart from a round one and metaphorical ones like diarys, messaging n notepad)

 

[TheFlyingGerbil]

i don't know about the cables but the packaging is included in the lawsuit.

[madbassman39]

Wait samsung use non-micro usb charging cables in US? I thought that (apart from apple who are special) phone makers had welcomed the EU standardisation and brought it around globaly because it made everything cheapet to make even if it meant losing out on proprietary cable profits(which I got think outweighed by savings)

 

Also apple icons are square, the samsung icons on here are kinda wiggly pinched in things(apart from a round one and metaphorical ones like diarys, messaging n notepad)

 

I believe that is only for the tablets, the phones still use micro USB

[deanb]

Ah reet.

[Eleven]

i don't know about the cables but the packaging is included in the lawsuit.

 

That's what I thought. I didn't think it was just the rectangle with buttons. I thought it was that, the packaging, design of the interface (probably the icons, which IMO is a copy).

 

But I'm not sure. I guess I'll go figure out what exactly they're suing for. That's not even the SIII.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

From The Register article about the US Apple/Samsung lawsuit.

Scott Forstall, Apple's senior vice president of iOS, "He did acknowledge that Apple bought phones from the competition and analyzed them, but said this was largely to sort out how to design antennas and avoid dropped calls."

 

So it's OK to copy decades of research and experience from other companies on a feature that makes a phone a phone and that a company could come up with a unique design for and is a genuine issue for users (and we know how they ballsed that up when they used their own design on the iPhone 4) but it's not OK for other companies to make a phone that uses something as ground-breaking as a rectangle.

[TheMightyEthan]

That's pretty awesome, but I think the distinction they would draw is that you can't see the antenna so unlike the overall phone design it's not going to cause confusion in consumers, whereas someone might mistake the Samsung phones for iPhones.

[Mister Jack]

Really, I find it humorous that Apple is suing ANYBODY for stealing ideas.

[deanb]

I've been retweeting about this past few days:

http://www.emptyage.com/post/28679875595/yes-i-was-hacked-hard

 

One of the Gizmodo writers had his iCloud account taken over and from there his iPhone, iPad, iMac all remotely wiped and due to stuff being associated with each other also had his gmail account deleted and twitter compromised. Didn't even require any fancy hacks, Apple Support handed over the account through a phone call by the hacker(if you could call him that).

http://www.forbes.com/sites/adriankingsleyhughes/2012/08/05/apple-allowed-hackers-access-to-users-icloud-account/

 

Why the hell a cloud storage service can completely wipe all your data (and not just the data stored in the cloud, I wouldn't want Dropbox cleaning out my PC or phone) is anyones guess. I'll guess it's one of those "made for humans" innovations Apple like to come up with. Streamlining process and services like that can make things easy to use, but it can make it easy to abuse.

 

This is both a good warning on:

1. Keep back-ups (something a Gizmodo writer shouldn't really need to be told tbh)

2. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

3. If you're an iCloud user may I suggest digging through whatever settings it may have and if possibly disabling the remote wipe features.