the new apple patent

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joescrivens

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so how do you think it will affect the market. I doubt that apple will force the competition out, it will end up making a monopoly and the patent will no doubt be scrapped.

So what will they do? License the features for a hefty fee or just restrict certain features so that the devices made end up being more limited in what they can do?
 
guessing games should be posted in oof
 
well it's about computers, websites and other technologies, so it's more relevant here, guessing game or not :thumbs:
 
i dont think it will change things, there isnt really any other way these touch screen interfaces can work (providing thats the patent you mean and not the ones about the iMac screen, mini DVI etc that have also been announced recently).

im surprised they managed it to be honest but lets face it, if apple could patent air they would :D
 
im not good at guessing games, what did apple patent this week?
 
neil_g said:
im assuming joe means the pinch etc gestures on touch devices
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I don't see how Apple get away with it, my Secretary has had Touch & Pinch for years (with haptic feedback)





;)
 
matty said:
im not good at guessing games, what did apple patent this week?
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yeah what neil said, the basic idea of a smartphone that has a capacitive touch screen using swipes and gestures to move through web media.

something along those lines sums it up although there is a much more detailed decription I don't get :shrug:

in laymans terms it basically means nearly all smartphones and tablets are in breech of apples patent. So the theory is that apple will basically just get a wad of cash from all manufacturers using the technology and pay them royalties much like Apple are paying to nokia for using 3g and other technologies.

Whether it will change anything to the user is yet to be seen, personally the only change i could see is the end user price of those devices, because unless the manufacturer is happy to soak up the cost and get a lower profit margin they'll have to spread that onto the product price
 
is that a valid patent they have or one they are applying for?
 
that will be why they are suing samsung for ripping them off then
 
No, they are suing Samsung because they claim Samsung's flat black rectangle with curved corners looks like their flat black rectangle with rounded corners. Oh yes and they 'own' that look.

They claim folk won't be able to tell them apart and will buy Samsung stuff thinking it's Apple :lol:

This will be the same innovative Apple who blocked 2 apps from the appstore and then 'ripped off' the very same things for iOS5. One of which does exactly the same thing, has the same name and a virtually identical icon. :nono:

Wait a minute isn't that what they are suing Samsung for :thinking:
 
scorpius said:
No, they are suing Samsung because they claim Samsung's flat black rectangle with curved corners looks like their flat black rectangle with rounded corners. Oh yes and they 'own' that look.

They claim folk won't be able to tell them apart and will buy Samsung stuff thinking it's Apple :lol:

This will be the same innovative Apple who blocked 2 apps from the appstore and then 'ripped off' the very same things for iOS5. One of which does exactly the same thing, has the same name and a virtually identical icon. :nono:

Wait a minute isn't that what they are suing Samsung for :thinking:
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what were the apps?
 
scorpius said:
The first one was this Wi-Fi sync http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/08/apple_copies_rejected_app/

The other one wasn't so much an App but the facility to use one of the Volume buttons as the shutter button for the camera.
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Who's to say they ripped those ideas off and didn't have them in development anyway already? I mean people have been asking for wifi sync since the devices came out, the idea is hardly original. As a customer I'd be pretty annoyed to have paid for a feature that was made free as a system update further down the line.
 
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Of course they did Apple being such an innovative company after all, they'd never lift someone else's ideas. Or even their icons, unlike that nasty Samsung ;)
 
scorpius said:
Of course they did Apple being such an innovative company after all, they'd never lift someone else's ideas. Or even their icons, unlike that nasty Samsung ;)
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But that's the point, there is nothing innovative about those ideas, people have been asking for the wifi sync from the beginning. If they had rejected an app with an original idea they then used I could see your point.
 
So when an software developer delivers a feature people ask for that is NOT innovative? My god - does that mean that software developers should only write code that no one wants?

Give me a break guys - if Apple did not have a feature in a product and there was a demand for it which was filled by a software developer (why else would you write code?) then they should either allow the app or they should BUY the app from the developer. In fact are we sure that is not what happened here?

Cheers,
Dub
 
dubcat said:
So when an software developer delivers a feature people ask for that is NOT innovative? My god - does that mean that software developers should only write code that no one wants?

Give me a break guys - if Apple did not have a feature in a product and there was a demand for it which was filled by a software developer (why else would you write code?) then they should either allow the app or they should BUY the app from the developer. In fact are we sure that is not what happened here?

Cheers,
Dub
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Look up the term innovative in the dictionary. You are confusing the word demand with innovation.

adjective /ˈinəˌvātiv/ 

(of a product, idea, etc.) Featuring new methods; advanced and original
- innovative designs
- innovative ways to help unemployed people

There is nothing advanced or original about these two ideas is what I am saying. Wifi sync is a very obvious idea that has been asked for since the start. I didn't say developers shouldn't develop things people want, I said they weren't original ideas.

The fact they arent original ideas means there is very little reason to believe that they were "stolen" - what's to steal? An obvious idea everyone wants and a very simple thing to implement.

If apple had it in the pipeline to do themselves then that's why they might reject an app - who wants to pay for something thats coming for free anyway?

Take the skyfire for example - an original idea, apple obviously have no intention of adding flash to the web browser so this one is approved.

Im not saying Apple don't steal things I mean the whole idea of the MAC OS was stolen, but the two examples in this thread are very dubious examples of features that have been stolen.
 
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I wasn't saying they stole anything, although I guess others were - i didn't read all of the posts end to end. Sorry if I took this discussion a different route. But..

"There is nothing advanced or original about these two ideas is what I am saying. Wifi sync is a very obvious idea that has been asked for since the start. I didn't say developers shouldn't develop things people want, I said they weren't original ideas."

The originality in this was the code they wrote - no one else had written it.

"The fact they arent original ideas means there is very little reason to believe that they were "stolen" - what's to steal? An obvious idea everyone wants and a very simple thing to implement."

If it was so simple to implement why didn't apple do it sooner and why was it in the 'pipeline' for so long?

"who wants to pay for something thats coming for free anyway"

A person who wants that feature now!!!

Anyway, I'm checking out of this. Apple seems to be a religion (both the pro camp as well as the against camp).

Adios,
Dub
 
dubcat said:
The originality in this was the code they wrote - no one else had written it.
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Apple wrote it in 2006 when they introduced AppleTV. That has had wifi sync since then. So the code would be different for an ipod touch or ipad etc - not by much

dubcat said:
If it was so simple to implement why didn't apple do it sooner and why was it in the 'pipeline' for so long?
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That just seems to be the Apple way, they like to hold off on features that people really want, I mean in all of their mobile devices each one that has come out lacks things that at the same time others include. I'm not privy to why they do this, but they do. When I first got my airport express 2 years ago I wanted to stream my music to it from my ipod touch without the need to have my mac on. Seemed simple and obvious to me - could you do it - nope. Everyone wanted it, it was an obvious thing to add but they just didn't add it.

Last year they introduced airplay - guess what, now I can do it.

Everyone wanted to be able to turn their iMac screen into a monitor for their macbook but you just couldn't, until last year.

Sometimes they release stuff, and other times they wait bloody ages to do it, but it's not because it's difficult to do. As above AppleTV had had wifi sync since it came out in 2006, so it's been possible to do this for 6 years, they just never enabled it.

I work for a company who go from product creation to release and I see the same things happening, you have a timeline to get a product out and not every feature can make it into each release due to timelines and budget. I think the difference with Apple though is that they sometimes add features that aren't as useful instead of doing the ones that everyone wants. Who knows why? Then they make a big fuss like it is the greatest new thing since sliced bread, the new lion OSX has been a huge demonstration of that
 
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Phone manufacturers are all suing each other, just as way to try and get each other to slow down the next new release. The actual patent is neither here nor there, but the time spent in a legal battle is time not spent on the next new phone, or so the theory goes.

The only company not involved in all the counter-suing is Sony Ericsson as the rest no longer think they are a viable threat to their own share of the market.
 
joescrivens said:
Apple wrote it in 2006 when they introduced AppleTV. That has had wifi sync since then. So the code would be different for an ipod touch or ipad etc - not by much

That just seems to be the Apple way, they like to hold off on features that people really want, I mean in all of their mobile devices each one that has come out lacks things that at the same time others include. I'm not privy to why they do this, but they do. When I first got my airport express 2 years ago I wanted to stream my music to it from my ipod touch without the need to have my mac on. Seemed simple and obvious to me - could you do it - nope. Everyone wanted it, it was an obvious thing to add but they just didn't add it.

Last year they introduced airplay - guess what, now I can do it.

Everyone wanted to be able to turn their iMac screen into a monitor for their macbook but you just couldn't, until last year.

Sometimes they release stuff, and other times they wait bloody ages to do it, but it's not because it's difficult to do. As above AppleTV had had wifi sync since it came out in 2006, so it's been possible to do this for 6 years, they just never enabled it.

I work for a company who go from product creation to release and I see the same things happening, you have a timeline to get a product out and not every feature can make it into each release due to timelines and budget. I think the difference with Apple though is that they sometimes add features that aren't as useful instead of doing the ones that everyone wants. Who knows why? Then they make a big fuss like it is the greatest new thing since sliced bread, the new lion OSX has been a huge demonstration of that
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They quite obviously hold off features because they know they have enough fanboys (and girls) who will buy their inflated goods anyway...and still buy the 'upgrade'.
 
Most companies have registered for patents about anything just in case :)
 
The23rdman said:
They quite obviously hold off features because they know they have enough fanboys (and girls) who will buy their inflated goods anyway...and still buy the 'upgrade'.
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lol, somehow I doubt that when the project managers are in the meeting deciding what will and won't be in the product release they all state this as their reasoning, it's more just stuff windows fanboys (and girls) make up,

also the iOS upgrades are normally free.
 
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Patents are their to protect R&D costs. If I spend millions doing research and development in an area and I place it in my product then im entitled to recoup my losses before anyone rips of my idea and the market gets saturated with cheap clones.

This is about the only part of patent law I agree with. Far to many patents are based on ideas or modifications of ideas that never or will never see the light of day so in this case they just hurt the consumer. They just sit on said patents until someone does something with the idea and then they wake up and sue. Their should be a lifespan on patents and to gain one you should have to prove you have a demoable product. Theirs not many software patents (in my opinion) that show any justification.

In this case however Apple ripped of a load or pre-existing technologies (no different their to what they do most of the time) touch and multi touch were out well before the initial iPhone was announced in 2007 (micorosft have Surface videos going back several years before that with pinch gestures) and the "idea" by hollywood years prior to that with films like Monitory Report and even SciFi like startrek.

If you look at it logically what else are you supposed to do with a screen that you can touch more than once? scale the idea down to a small screen and you get fingers. Apple did not invent this concept they were simply the first to mass market it. Apple being apple patented everything they could think of regarding it and the fact these patents have been awarded shows how flawed the USPO is. The fact they have also tried/have to trademark the term "App" that has been around since the 1980s as meaning "App"le and not "App"lication (jog on apple) by claiming they have populised the word is just another laughable look at their arrogant take on things.

Unfortuantly what apple did do is set the trend in their phones operating systems by doing what most smartphone makers weren't, which was was making UI that looked good, worked extremely well and was more importantly simple. Nokia did the same thing years ago when people laughed at them for creating Graphical Menus, Xpress on Covers and adding Snake to their phones. They stopped innovating in this area and now look at them. They have sold their soul to Microsoft to try and crawl out of the gutter.

Apple did one good thing for the Consumer and that was they forced the competition to wake up and play catch up. Unfortuantly for the cossumer they took their usual Arrogant approach and crippled it by monpolising the application market so they always get a cut and closing it down to "Only what we go says" stifling a lot of apps and technologies like flash on their device as they didn't want "free" or competing app stores.

Now we have a choice of devices that are open, do everything the iPhone does and more and are a lot cheaper. Apple is simply worried as they have lost their edge and I can see a lot more patent toys being thrown out of the pram. It's a shame the USPO have handed them this (which was totally undeserved) on a plate.

Personally im getting the popcorn out. The gloves are now on and im hoping Apple get's its smug arrogant arse handed to it on a plate in the coming years.
 
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unplugged said:
In this case however Apple ripped of a load or pre-existing technologies (no different their to what they do most of the time) touch and multi touch were out well before the initial iPhone was announced in 2007 (micorosft have Surface videos going back several years before that with pinch gestures) and the "idea" by hollywood years prior to that with films like Monitory Report and even SciFi like startrek.
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Not gonna disagree Apple don't steal ideas and monopolise on them, it's where their OS came from. But that's business and every credit to them for acting when others were flapping around. Business is all about being the first to market and you can't blame them for being successful at it when others sat back.

unplugged said:
If you look at it logically what else are you supposed to do with a screen that you can touch more than once? scale the idea down to a small screen and you get fingers. Apple did not invent this concept they were simply the first to mass market it.
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But that's the most important thing. they were the first, so because they were and filed the patent before others. The early bird catches the worm!

unplugged said:
The fact they have also tried/have to trademark the term "App" that has been around since the 1980s as meaning "App"le and not "App"lication (jog on apple) by claiming they have populised the word is just another laughable look at their arrogant take on things.
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What's that? App was a term around the 80's meaning apple? Personally I never heard of the word App until they developed the iphone and the app store.

unplugged said:
Apple did one good thing for the Consumer and that was they forced the competition to wake up and play catch up. Unfortuantly for the cossumer they took their usual Arrogant approach and crippled it by monpolising the application market so they always get a cut and closing it down to "Only what we go says" stifling a lot of apps and technologies like flash on their device as they didn't want "free" or competing app stores.
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That's not really true. They only monopolise on their own device, other devices have their own app stores which don't cripple anything. Also they all take a piece of the pie, Google don't let you have your whole app price either, they tale the same cut. It's a revenue generator and it's pretty standard that if you offer a service to people selling things you take a cut. What's the big issue there?

unplugged said:
Apple is simply worried as they have lost their edge and I can see a lot more patent toys being thrown out of the pram. It's a shame the USPO have handed them this (which was totally undeserved) on a plate.
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I'm not sure they are worried with a 115% market share growth in 2011 and a 50% growth predicted through the next 2 years. Im pretty sure they are exactly where they want to be - (well maybe not, i'm sure they'd prefer to rule the world!!!!)

http://www.loopinsight.com/2011/04/29/apples-iphone-market-share-grows-115-in-2011/

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-...may-continue-through-2012-on-mobile-boom.html

unplugged said:
Personally im getting the popcorn out. The gloves are now on and im hoping Apple get's its smug arrogant arse handed to it on a plate in the coming years.
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Tell us what you really think :lol:
 
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joescrivens said:
Not gonna disagree Apple don't steal ideas and monopolise on them, it's where their OS came from. But that's business and every credit to them for acting when others were flapping around. Business is all about being the first to market and you can't blame them for being successful at it when others sat back.
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Apple is as guilty of stealing ideas as everyone else. They have and are involved in their fair share of patent cases against them and wars between them have been long documented ;) iPods are/were seen as the inventor of the MP3 player but they were about a long time before apple dug it's claws into the market. Kudos for them in doing so as you say business is business however they havent sued many people for making competing products as they have no ground.

I completely agree with you on the OS point. They did charge in and kick the market into shape. It needed to be done and if not apple it would have been done (allbeit quite a few years later) by Google etc.

Very little of their innovations in the iPhone are actually their idea. If you take IOS4 for example practically everything they have done/did has been done before. I almost laughed with Steve Jobs (cant remember the version) got all excited over the ability to change the wallpaper on the device. I almost stared in amazement when I went to set a stupid sound effect as a message alert tone on my Iphone the other day and found out couldn't. Not only that but I could only use the preset ringtones. For a moment I almost thought I was back in 1992.

joescrivens said:
But that's the most important thing. they were the first, so because they were and filed the patent before others. The early bird catches the worm!
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And that's where it's wrong. Patents should not be awarded on vague ideas and descriptions that can be applied to thousands of different ways. Apple tried to sue for a patent of "Unlocking a mobile device by making a gesture on an unlock icon" stuff like that is simple logic and can be applied to a keypad screen, graphic text (slide etc) and backwardly applied to press and hold. This is where the Patent Office needs a massive overhaul particually when it comes to software.


joescrivens said:
What's that? App was a term around the 80's meaning apple? Personally I never heard of the word App until they developed the iphone and the app store.
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Apple have recently tried to trademark the term "App" now everyone knows that this stands for Application (or at least in Apples World) they laughable argued to the trademark board that it stood for "Apple" and therefor the should legally be allowed the exclusive right to the term App Store by stating that it referes to "Apple" and not "Application"

Basically they have populised a term and clutching at straws. Generic terms like that (or shortened buzz words) should not be eligible for Trademark and hopefully it will fall flat on it's face just like their iHavetheExclusiveRightstoUseAnythingThatHasAniInFrontOfIt has done several times before.

joescrivens said:
That's not really true. They only monopolise on their own device, other devices have their own app stores which don't cripple anything. Also they all take a piece of the pie, Google don't let you have your whole app price either, they tale the same cut. It's a revenue generator and it's pretty standard that if you offer a service to people selling things you take a cut. What's the big issue there?
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Google doesn't control (as far as I know) what you can develop. It also doesn't control where you can get binary's from. You pay Google for the tools and to have your app hosted and signed. From memory you can install apps without an app store and offer them to download elsewhere unsigned.

This is how an open market works. Apple cripples this by only allowing you to download FROM their app store. Your Application MUST meet their requirements and not compete with anything that will make them money. If they decide they don't like what your app is doing they simply take it off. I don't have any problems with the App Store but if I want to download an app from a developers site I don't see how that's any of Apples business and I can't do this without jail-breaking.

joescrivens said:
I'm not sure they are worried with a 115% market share growth in 2011 and a 50% growth predicted through the next 2 years. Im pretty sure they are exactly where they want to be - (well maybe not, i'm sure they'd prefer to rule the world!!!!)
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Tell us what you really think :lol:
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It will only take so long before people release that they can get everything the iphone does with practically the same featured for a lot less cash. This is the trap Nokia fell into. They monopolised the mobile market with the Series 40 handsets then switched to Series 60 and then just stayed a year behind the compitition (instead of a year ahead as they were before) and this is the position Apple will slip into if their not careful.

Theirs only so many minor changes you can make to the same idea before people get board and go elsewhere ;)

They wont worry yet. iOS 4 is fantastic (given its limitations) and I can only hope the iOS 5 has something a bit bigger than the usual minor upgrades or their market share isn't going to keep increasing for much longer
 
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unplugged said:
Apple have recently tried to trademark the term "App" now everyone knows that this stands for Application (or at least in Apples World) they laughable argued to the trademark board that it stood for "Apple" and therefor the should legally be allowed the exclusive right to the term App Store by stating that it referes to "Apple" and not "Application"

Basically they have populised a term and clutching at straws. Generic terms like that (or shortened buzz words) should not be eligible for Trademark and hopefully it will fall flat on it's face just like their iHavetheExclusiveRightstoUseAnythingThatHasAniInFrontOfIt has done several times before.
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Can you link me to this. I had heard that Apple were trying to trademark the term "app store" because they were the first to use it and are trying to sue amazon for doing the same. I've never seen anything that says they are trademarking the name app because they say it stands for "apple"

unplugged said:
Google doesn't control (as far as I know) what you can develop. It also doesn't control where you can get binary's from. You pay Google for the tools and to have your app hosted and signed. From memory you can install apps without an app store and offer them to download elsewhere unsigned. This is how an open market works. Apple cripples this by only allowing you to download FROM their app store.
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Android market allows you to upload whatever you want when you want. I'm an apple and android developer so I know a lot about how both markets work. It might sound great to you that android don't control anything but do you know what - I stopped developing for android because the android market is pretty pathetic to be honest. The search is rubbish, the design of the store is poor, there is so much carp on there because it is not restricted you get zero exposure of your apps. I released a FREE simple balloon popping app on both Apple app store and android market on the same day. To date (I think it is 3 weeks) I have had 1194 installs on android, in the same time on the Apple App store I have had 44,781 downloads. In fact I now charge 59p for that app on the Apple App store and I get between 10 and 20 downloads a day, I'm lucky if I get 5 downloads a day on android even though it is free. Don't be fooled, the android market is very weak, having all the freedom it has is making it a poorer store not a better one. Developers are turning away from android because it is just not built for us, it doesn't favor the developer at all. My overall revenue for android is £9, I haven't even recouped my membership fee of £15, my revenue on the Apple App store just passed £1000 yesterday.

Also Apple no longer restrict the development code you can use for your app development.

unplugged said:
It will only take so long before people release that they can get everything the iphone does with practically the same featured for a lot less cash. This is the trap Nokia fell into. They monopolised the mobile market with the Series 40 handsets then switched to Series 60 and then just stayed a year behind the compitition (instead of a year ahead as they were before) and this is the position Apple will slip into if their not careful.

Theirs only so many minor changes you can make to the same idea before people get board and go elsewhere ;)

They wont worry yet. iOS 4 is fantastic (given its limitations) and I can only hope the iOS 5 has something a bit bigger than the usual minor upgrades or their market share isn't going to keep increasing for much longer
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I have iOS5 and it does have some big ideas - namely iCloud, the whole concept is very forward thinking - again, it's not original, but they are the first to implement it so well.

The article I linked you to earlier, says the same thing though. The devices in their current form will only keep apple ahead for 4 years, they need to fill the space with something new.

I guess we'll wait and see if they do.
 
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