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.

Infographic: The #Samsung #iPhone 4?

It's no secret that Samsung manufactures the slender chipsets packed inside #Apple iPhones, but some might be surprised to know that 26 percent of Apple iPhones are comprised of Samsung parts.

The Economist took an updated teardown provided by iSuppli and turned it into the nifty infographic below. Turns out, 26 percent of the bill of materials for the iPhone 4 went straight to Samsung.

#Apple to build 26M fifth-gen #iPhones in second half of 2011

Apple is reportedly prepared to build a massive 56 million iPhones in the second half of 2011, with more than half of those being the new fifth-generation model.

Citing supply chain sources in Taiwan, DigiTimes reported on Monday that Apple has increased its iPhone orders for the rest of the year by between 12 percent and 13 percent. Originally, the company planned to build about 50 million of its hot-selling smartphone.

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.

#iOS Is Half Of New #Enterprise #Mobile Activations

#Apple just wins everything these days, it seems. A new report says that Apple mobile devices were half of net new enterprise activations since the launch of the iPhone 4. Android is behind with 30% of net new activations.

This is pretty eye-opening because Apple has been somewhat famous as never getting a foothold in the enterprise, despite building a beloved consumer brand and great products. Even back in the 1980s, the Macintosh failed in large part because companies went with the IBM PC.

#Android Accounts for 53% of Ad Impressions

#Google 's Android operating system accounted for 53 percent of advertising impressions in the second quarter, according to Millennial Media's latest report.

Millennial, the largest freestanding mobile ad network, said Apple's iOS posted a 27 percent share of impressions, growing 4 percent from Q2 2010. Millennial expects Apple to gain share next quarter with the launch of the iPhone 5 in the third quarter....

Overall, smartphones led the network's smartphone, feature phone and connected device mix with 67 percent of impressions. Connected devices, which includes tablets, MP3 players, gaming consoles and electronic readers, saw a 13 percent.

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.'

Gartner: #Smartphones boom, overall #mobile sales drop - Computerworld

Mobile phone sales floundered during the second quarter in the wake of the earthquake in #Japan. But smartphone sales continued to grow, as #Android extended its lead in the operating system race, according to market research company Gartner.

Overall sales of mobile devices to end users totaled 428.7 million units in the second quarter of 2011, a 16.5% increase compared to the same period in 2010, but a 4.4% decrease from the previous quarter, as the availability of components was affected by the earthquake in Japan.

#Apple Granted Key #IPhone Patents

The patent for the integrated touchscreen, which Apple originally filed in September 2009, describes a way to stack touch-sensitive circuits to the pixels of an LCD display, making phones that are 'thinner, brighter and require less power.' This could make it difficult for other companies, who came out with their own thin, bright smartphones in later years, to claim Apple stole their patents, since Apple has had its own patent for the technology pending for nearly two years.

Meanwhile, Apple's Steve Jobs and Senior Vice President Scott Forstall filed for the voice mail patent on June 28, 2007, just one day before the first iPhone launched. The patent details Apple's visual voice mail system, including the option to pick a voice mail message from a list and control its playback.

The voicemail manager system is part of several lawsuits that have been settled in recent years. Klausner Technologies sued not only Apple, but AT&T and Verizon over the patent, which covers selectively listening to voice mails. Apple, AT&T and Verizon all later settled with Klausner, and the company's patents are now listed in the newly granted patent's references section.

#Nokia Still Top #Smartphone Maker - #Apple, #Android

Gartner, which counts sales of mobile handsets to end users rather than units shipped by individual handset makers, said Nokia sold a total of 97.87 million smartphones in the second quarter compared with 111.47 million units a year earlier, and had a total market share of 22.8%, down from 30.3%. 

Apple Inc. was the world's fourth largest handset vendor and third largest smartphone vendor, with a 18.2% smartphone market share for its iOS operating system, up from 14.1% a year earlier. Smartphones running Google Inc.'s Android operating system more than doubled their market share to 43.4% from 17.2% last year. 

#Microsoft ’s biggest #mobile failure and success: #Android

Back in 2007, when #Apple released the first #iPhone, anyone could have told you it had the potential change the mobile business as we knew it. The intuitive, visual and app-centric platform was in stark contrast to the text-based, bland and bulky smart-phone systems from Nokia and Microsoft.

But Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, in an interview with CNBC (embedded below), laughed at the iPhone, balking at its $500 price tag and writing it off as a business option because it didn’t have a keyboard.

“Right now we’re selling millions and millions and millions of phones a year; right now, Apple’s selling zero phones a year. In six month’s they’ll have the most expensive phone by far ever in the marketplace. And, we’ll see,” Ballmer said with an amused grin. “Let’s see how the competition goes.”

http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/2011/08/10/microsofts-biggest-mobile-failure-and-success-android/

#Rovio, #EA Urge Court To Let #Apple Join #Lodsys Patent Suit

Electronic Arts and Angry Birds developer Rovio have submitted a federal court filing insisting that Apple should be allowed to intervene in a patent-infringement lawsuit against developers of iPhone applications.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/36490/Rovio_EA_Urge_Court_To_Let_Apple_Join_Lodsys_Patent_Suit.php

The fate of #mobile phone brands

The violence with which new platforms have displaced incumbent mobile vendor fortunes continues to surprise.

• Nokia’s Symbian platform has gone from 47% share to 16% in three years 

• Microsoft’s phone platforms have gone from 12% to 1% 

• Other platforms have gone from 21% to zero 

• Although far less dramatic, RIM’s decline from 17% to 12% is causing acute pain and anxiety 

This while entrants have grown share in spectacular fashion:

• Android from zero to 48% (A two year period) 

• iOS from 2% to 19% 

• Bada from zero to 4% (two quarters only)

http://www.asymco.com/2011/08/08/the-fate-of-mobile-phone-brands/ 

The accidental revolution: How #Apple 's #iPhone transformed enterprise IT

There's a good article over at Fortune about how Apple's iPhone -- always intended as a consumer device -- opened the floodgates for Apple's invasion of the enterprise with mobile devices.

This topic was covered in a March Network World feature that detailed the almost immediate impact of the iPhone on enterprises. As Chris Hazelton, mobile and wireless research director for The 451 Group in Boston, said at the time, "The iPhone enabled Apple to enter a door into the enterprise. But that door has been opened by employees already using the device."

http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/nsm/2011/080811nsm1.html 

#Apple Becomes Top #Smartphone Vendor For The First Time

In the rapidly growing smartphone market, where (almost) everyone’s a winner, Apple is currently the winningest of them all. According to research firm IDC, in the second quarter of 2011, Apple’s iPhone outsold all other brands for the first time.

Year-over-year, the smartphone market has shifted wildly and dramatically. Apple’s market share jumped from 13% to 19.1% to give it the top spot, but number-two Samsung actually grew by a far greater percentage, from 5.6% to 16.2%.

http://hothardware.com/News/Apple-Becomes-Top-Smartphone-Vendor-For-The-First-Time/ 

AppleInsider | Apple investigating inductive iPhone charging through headphones

AppleInsider | Apple investigating inductive iPhone charging through headphones:

Apple has shown interest in creating an inductive charging system, for portable devices like iPhones and iPods, that would involve using headphones to provide power to the 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.

Patent battles by tech giants a fuzzy midpoint in phoney war - The Irish Times - Fri, Oct 08, 2010

MOTOROLA THIS week began proceedings against Apple for what it claimed were violations of its patents. The patents – Motorola claimed these include innovations in 3G and Wi-Fi antenna design, wireless e-mail, proximity sensing and software application management – all revolve around Apple’s iPhone, which just happens to be a major competitor.

If you haven’t heard about this lawsuit, it may be because it’s one of approximately a bazillion patent battles in the mobile field.

On Tuesday, Microsoft sued Motorola over its Android smartphones, including e-mail, contacts and calendar synchronisation. In March, Apple sued HTC, another maker of Android phones. The creator of Android itself, Google, was sued by Oracle for patent violations in August. Nokia is suing Apple, Qualcomm, the LG Group, Hitachi, Sharp, Samsung, Toshiba, Hitachi and Motorola.

Motorola sues Apple for patent infringement

Motorola, just days after being targeted in a patent suit by Microsoft, filed complaints against Apple on Wednesday alleging that the iPhone, iPad and other products infringe its patents.

The Motorola complaints allege that Apple's iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and certain Macintosh computers infringe 18 patents 'which relate to early-stage innovations developed by Motorola in key technology areas.'