Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sun 26th Aug 2012 10:28 UTC
In light of the jury verdict in Apple vs. Samsung, the one-liners and jokes flew back and forth. One in particular, by Dan Frakes, has been copied and pasted all over the web, and it goes like this: "When the iPhone debuted, it was widely criticized for having no buttons/keys. Now people think the iPhone's design is 'obvious'." This is a very common trend in this entire debate that saddens me to no end: the iPhone is being compared to simple feature phones, while in fact, it should be compared to its true predecessor: the PDA. PDAs have always done with few buttons.
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RE[3]: How easy it is to forget...
by bouhko on Sun 26th Aug 2012 15:41
in reply to "RE[2]: How easy it is to forget..."
Member since:2010-06-24
I don't think I'me really and Android *fan* (I don't really give a shit about a huge corporation losing some billion dollars, be it Apple, Google or Samsung), but I'm an open source software supporter, so I prefer Android over iOS.
Now, given the state of the software and design patent laws in the US, I don't find the outcome so surprising or outrageous. This is because it seems there was some evidence (notably Google telling Samsung not to copy Apple) that Samsung was actually trying to copy the iPhone with their Galaxy line. Even the homescreens look the same, it's really f--king stupid. I mean Android vanilla homescreen is pretty different from iPhone's.
Now, most other Android phones I've seen are pretty different from iPhones. For example, I don't see Apple winning a case against Google's Nexus brand or against HTC (I've got an Evo 3D). The hardware isn't similar and neither is the software. Plus, Apple also copied some stuff from Android (notifications come to mind).
So in the end, the least innovative phone line in the Android ecosystem got punished.
That being said, I still think the whole patent system is broken, but that's another discussion.
Edited 2012-08-26 15:42 UTC
RE[4]: How easy it is to forget...
by some1 on Sun 26th Aug 2012 16:23
in reply to "RE[3]: How easy it is to forget..."
Member since:2010-10-05
This is because it seems there was some evidence (notably Google telling Samsung not to copy Apple)
This was not a legal advice, though.
Even the homescreens look the same
No, they don't. When Apple shows Android phones they always show the app drawer instead of the home screen, because it looks a lot more like iPhone's home screen.
For example, I don't see Apple winning a case against Google's Nexus brand
Then you're missing the fact that Nexus S was found infringing.
RE[3]: How easy it is to forget...
by BallmerKnowsBest on Sun 26th Aug 2012 16:38
in reply to "RE[2]: How easy it is to forget..."
Member since:2008-06-02
A small initial point: I love the reduction of the role and significance of the Newton in your timeline to just a throw away reference in parenthesis. At least you are consistent.
I love the way you don't actually try to offer any counter-argument & just throw out some substance-free snark instead. At least you're consistent.
I could argue the toss about this forever with you Thom, and with other motley bunch of techies,
Not that it would take much effort, since you basically just copy-paste the same talking points over & over again.
Apple haters
Still borrowing rhetoric from Twilight & Justin Bieber's tween fangirls, I see.
and Android fans who try to counter the absurd mythology preached by iFanboys, describing a self-serving fantasy-world where smartphones didn't exist before the iPhone.
There, fixed that for you.
The endless repeating of 'it's not fair' in ever more complex and well researched ways takes the debate no where.
....remind me again, how many times now have you re-posted almost the exact same "but... but... Google is advertising company!!!!!" spiel? You can guesstimate if you like, probably easiest to round to the nearest thousand.
RE[4]: How easy it is to forget...
by Tony Swash on Sun 26th Aug 2012 23:00
in reply to "RE[3]: How easy it is to forget..."
Member since:2009-08-22
I was trying to point people such as yourself away from the sterile war of rhetoric with Apple fans, a debate that's probably going nowhere, towards a more pressing debate and one which is of some consequence. What happens now? Apple won big, it may be overturned on appeal but probably not, and Apple will continue to move forward with more aggressive legal actions, and will probably win more cases. I repeat what happens now? If you support Google and Android then what strategy is best from now on? To escalate the IP wars? To change course and concentrate on product differentiation and try to out design Apple? I am genuinely interested in that debate and in hearing what people such as yourself think about such questions.
BTW - Google is an advertising company. If you think different perhaps could you point me at some of the non-advertising products that Google sells and what proportion of the company's revenues they generate. The latest figures I have seen say Google gets 95% of it's revenue from ads.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 22:43 UTC
The Verge pointed me to a blog post by Leap Motion - which reveals how their Kinect-like motion control works with Windows 8. "From the second you plug in your Leap Motion Controller, you'll be able to browse the web and interact with your computer just by moving your hands and fingers in the air. With Leap Motion technology and Windows, you can do everything that's possible with multi-touch inputs - without actually touching anything. This also means that existing applications in Windows 7 and 8 will respond to your natural hand and finger movements. Soon, we'll show you how Leap Motion will work with Mac OS X." Quite cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 21:50 UTC
PocketNow interviews Marc Dillon, and there's an interesting note about why Jolla is keeping the display properties under wraps: "We're leaving some of those details out because we do understand that there are a lot of really big players in the market and they tend to take certain components in the market and dominate them. We created the ability to actually be able to run Sailfish on multiple hardware displays and be able to swap components, so this is part of the demand and supply planning phase. We are committed to this industrial design which is a 4.5-inch display, an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a front-facing camera at the front, and the exact specs of the display we'll provide when we're close to delivery." Something you rarely hear anything about.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:15 UTC
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:11 UTC, submitted by Drumhellar
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:06 UTC
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 23:35 UTC, submitted by kragil
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
Linked by MOS6510 on 05/17/13 22:22 UTC
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 22:15 UTC, submitted by Tom
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.More News »
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Member since:
2009-08-22
A small initial point: I love the reduction of the role and significance of the Newton in your timeline to just a throw away reference in parenthesis. At least you are consistent.
I could argue the toss about this forever with you Thom, and with other motley bunch of techies, Apple haters and Android fans who want to minimise the role of Apple's innovation in the history of personal computing and to insist that the iPhone was just another incremental step in an evolution wrought mostly by others.
But why bother? You are not going to change you mind and frankly neither am I.
What is worth discussing is the significance of the Samsung-Apple verdict and what it means for the future. It seems fairly clear that given the opportunity to put to a jury its more or less full portfolio of evidence and testimony that Apple will stand a good chance of winning more such trials in the future.
So where does this leave Android, Google and the Android OEM community? If as seems likely this case marks a watershed after which Android OEMs will feel more vulnerable to legal attacks from Apple and have to restrict their product development to take on board the judgements handed down in this case, what should Google do? Should it counter attack with Motorola patents and escalate the legal war? Should it accept the partial but strategic victory that Apple has won and try to route around it?
What advice would you give Google about how they should exercise leadership in the Android ecosystem?
It seems clear to me that up until now Android has been a fire and forget weapon for Google, make it, releases it and just let things fall as they will. Google has positively tried to avoid exercising the same sort of hegemonic that Microsoft did in the old Windows ecosystem. Should Google take a more active role in managing the Android OEM community? Can it do that given that within that community so much power has accrued to Samsung?
I am posing such questions in a genuine way. The endless repeating of 'it's not fair' in ever more complex and well researched ways takes the debate no where. It happened, Apple won a big one, what happens next for Android and Google? I want to hear what a considered piece of advice would be from those that love Google and Android, those who want it to succeed.