Apple's fruitless patent fight with Samsung

The media was quick to declare victory for Apple in it's case in Germany to ban the sales of Samsung's Galaxy smartphones:

The patent wars in the handset business intensified Wednesday when a Dutch court banned the shipments of three Samsung smartphones to Europe, based on a lawsuit filed by Apple.

 The judge said the Galaxy S, Galaxy S II and Ace smartphones — Samsung's flagship Android handsets — infringed on Apple's photo management patent. The ruling did not apply to the Galaxy tablet, though Apple also included that product in its legal filing.

 There's only one small problem with Apple's "victory", Thom Holwerda explains it best:

The judge has ruled that Android 2.x violates Apple's 868 patent which covers scrolling through photos on a touchscreen. Only this one patent is violated - the complaints about two other patents as well as the design patents has been thrown out. In other words, the judge did not agree with Apple that Samsung is copying Apple's design. The injunction only covers the Galaxy smartphones, since they run Android 2.x; Android 3.0 does not violate the patent in question, and hence, sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 can continue.

 In fact, only the Gallery application violates the patent in question, and Samsung has already stated it is going to replace this application on all new Galaxy smartphones from now on - sales won't even be interrupted.

In other words, after all this bluster and litigation, Apple's victory amounts to making Samsung update it's photo viewer software: was it worth it?  Of course all this is likely to end with a cross-licensing deal between Apple and Samsung that may eventually cover the enormous costs of patent litigation.  Just in time for another patent battle over some new emerging technology.

Samsung couldn't have paid for a better publicity campaign than Apple's numerous lawsuits against it.  After all, if Apple is to be believed, the Galaxy tab and phone are just like the iPad and iPhone but cheaper...no wonder Apple is worried!  I'd bet anything that the Galaxy tablet and phones will now sell more than if Apple had never sued, not that we'll ever really know.

I'd also bet that Samsung's Galaxy line doesn't sell anywhere close the number of iPhones or iPads Apple will.  Apple can't seriously expect to maintain its mammoth two-thirds share of smartphone profits and three-fourths of the tablet industry and if Apple somehow managed to do so, would it be because they they sued their Android competitors or made the best product?

Apple will never admit it, but it's a better company and the iPad and iPhone are better products because of the competition from Android.  Instead of fighting fruitless legal battles with Samsung, Motorola, and HTC Apple should focus on making the best product and letting the markets decide, and it often decides in Apple's favor. I know that sounds a little cliché, but it's true, why not focus it's legal efforts fighting Lodsys and Intellectual Ventures instead of Samsung and HTC?

The Big Blog - #Skype #WiFi - now available on #iPhone, #iPad or #iPod Touch

Skype WiFi (formerly known as Skype Access) is coming to iOS. We've just launched a new iOS application that's free to download from Apple's App store.

With the new Skype WiFi app, you can go online on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch (running iOS 4.1 or above with multitasking) at over 1 million WiFi hotspots around the world, including hotels, airports, train stations, convention centres, bars and restaurants. And with Skype Credit you only pay for the minutes you use. So, there's no need to buy an hour or day WiFi voucher if you're only looking to check your email or make a quick Skype call.

iOS devs pay $50,000 for collecting children's info in apps

The parent company of Broken Thumbs Apps—a prominent iOS app maker responsible for games like Zombie Duck Hunt, Truth or Dare, and Emily's Dress Up—has today settled with the Federal Trade Commission over its apparent collection of children's personal data in its iPhone and iPod touch apps. Though the FTC has gone after other companies for similar violations, this case is the first focused on mobile apps.

#Apple reportedly kills plans for new #iPad this fall due to Retina Display issues

Backing up a TiPB report from last week, Digitimes reports that Apple’s plans for a Retina Display iPad launch this fall have been terminated; if they even existed in the first place. According to the report’s sources, Apple’s initial plan was to produce 1.5-2 million units in the third quarter and 5-6 million in the fourth quarter of a new iPad, but these orders have apparently been cancelled.

#Apple Offers Flawed Evidence in Lawsuit against #Samsung

But it appears that Apple has failed to provide the German judge with accurate evidence. At least one of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 pictures that Apple provided as evidence in the German case is either wrong or manipulated. Photographic evidence submitted by Apple, found on page 28 of the German complaint, shows two pictures: the iPad 2 and the alleged Galaxy Tab 10.1, accompanied by Apple's claim that the 'overall appearance' of two products is 'practically identical.'

Comparison of the images submitted to the German court by Apple with an image of the actual Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 -- illustration compares aspect rations, does not compare actual dimensions of the products.But the picture Apple submitted of the Tab is inaccurate and does not match with the real Galaxy Tab 10.1, Webwereld discovered. Further investigations have verified this assessment. The Galaxy Tab due on the European market is taller and more oblong than the iPad 2. However, the shape of what Apple's claims to be a Tab 10.1 resembles the iPad very closely.

Updated #Apple 's #iOS device and OS version stats

The biggest differences from five months ago:

• The #iPad 2 has sold incredibly well, with its numbers now almost identical to the iPad 1’s among my customers. It wouldn’t surprise me if 40 million iPads have sold already.
• iPad usage has grown from 47% to 56% of my customers.
• Adoption of iOS 4.3 has jumped from 65% to 82%.
• Adoption of iOS 4.0 has risen from 98.1% to 98.4%. I expect this to increase significantly in the next few months as a lot of iPhone 3G owners upgrade to the next iPhone.

Innovation: #iPhone 5 release date, #iOS 5 based #iPad 3 reject #Android

Even as Apple is within minutes of announcing the release date for the iPhone 5 with iOS 5 and the only real mystery is whether the iPad 3 will come with it, Apple’s legal department is quietly carrying out a scorched earth policy in which the Android platform is rapidly in danger of disappearing from store shelves. In some nations it’s already happened. With so many Android-based phones and tablets sporting hardware designs which have borrowed generously from Apple’s iPad and iPhone (here’s more on the iPhone 5 release date), Apple has had a fairly easy time of taking Android manufacturers like HTC and Samsung to court and walking away with crushing rulings. Various governments have joined the fray, including that of the United States, elevating it from a corporate dispute to an international trade issue.

And yet even as Apple attempts to lay waste to competing products which were built with what it says is stolen technology, some skeptics, even among Apple’s user base, have cried foul. It’s not that Apple isn’t right in protecting its innovations. It’s that they feel Apple needs the competition from Android, or from some other competing platform, so as to keep Steve Jobs and company on their toes with each new model. I say bullshit.

ANALYSIS-Apple going after Google in tablet spats? | Reuters

The maker of the iPad and iPhone has sued three of the largest manufacturers of Google's Android-based devices -- Samsung, Motorola and HTC -- for multiple patent infringements across multiple countries, pointing out "slavish copying" of design and "look and feel."
While the lawsuits don't take direct aim at the operating software -- yet -- many of the features under contention are connected to and enhanced by it. Apple CEO Steve Jobs once referred to the software as being the soul of any device when he introduced the company's iOS 5 system in June.

Brian Marshall, an analyst with Gleacher & Co, said Apple is starting to flex its patent muscle with some early success but its real battle is with the Android software. 'Apple doesn't really care too much about the actual OEMs.'

#Apple targets #Motorola Xoom in patent battle

Apple’s legal complaint against #Samsung, which resulted in the Korean company’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 being hit with a Europe-wide injunction, also mentions a legal complaint against Motorola over its Xoom tablet.

The iPad maker has also made a complaint about JAY-tech, a German manufacturer, according to intellectual property analyst Florian Muller. JAY-tech’s tablet, though smaller than the iPad at 7-inches, looks very similar to Apple’s device.

That $7.8b Apple-Samsung Deal isn’t as big as you might think - The Digital Reader

That $7.8b Apple-Samsung Deal isn’t as big as you might think - The Digital Reader:

The hot story today is about the deal that Samsung and Apple are about to sign. Over the next year, Samsung will provide $7.8 billion worth of components for the iPad and iPhone. this deal would make Apple the single largest customer of Samsung.