> I don't like to think of Apple as a pure innovator - I think of them more as an assembler. When they see a market in which all the hardware pieces are available and waiting to be put together, they do that in such a way that the final product appeals to the end-user, particularly through the design of appropriate software.

Really? All Apple does is pick up the legos and put them together?

Sigh. I'm sick and tired of people twisting reality to fit an Apple anti-hero narrative.

Except the actual quotes.

> so much as skipped the task to move forward on others before circling back around to it.

So they skipped it. Whether they came back to it is somewhat pointless. That they skipped an earlier question means that later questions were based on uninformed assumptions about patents.

> Sigh. I'm sick and tired of people twisting reality to fit an Apple anti-hero narrative.

As opposed to what, suggesting in one sentence that they didn't skip the question, and then saying they did skip it but came back later, as if they are fundamentally the same? They aren't. Even the juror's admit that the ordering of questions was important to their verdict. Suggesting otherwise is silly.

Then again, maybe that's not what he meant to say. Because as read, these quotes suggest some pretty absurd things.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57500358-37/exclusive-appl...

I hope you don't consider CNET biased. If anything, they are usually criticized for being Apple-biased.

And since they explicitly had to make the choice on the instructions (Y/N) on infringement, the safer assumption is that they did get back to it.

Given that they also have been quoted as not needing the jury instructions, actively ignored those instructions by indicating that the damages awarded were punitive rather than compensatory, and that they could have spent, at most, a few minutes on each of the hundreds of questions, it's hardly out of line to think that this verdict was rushed.

Of course, there's no evidence to suggest that's what they did, but equally there's no evidence to suggest that they eventually went back to that question and debated it further.

Given that they admitted to ignoring the instructions on punitive vs. compensatory damages, it's not a stretch to imagine they also ignored the instructions on coming to a unanimous decision.

For example, Jurors have the right to find a guy not guilty when caught red handed with marijuana simply because the law is unconstitutional. They have that right and that is intentional in our system. Judges on the other hand, tell jurors in their instructions that they "have to find them guilty if they believe he possessed the drugs". When judges do this, I consider it jury tampering, and unfortunately for innocent pot smokers, too many jurors listen to the instructions.

And justice required them to use the courts to "send a message" and punish Samsung with more than "just a slap on the wrist"?

Normally, their viewpoint is right in line with most of the tech world. It just so happens that this time around, the tech camp is pretty well split on who the good guy was in this case.

The reason you feel this way is because you're biased.

It's ok, I'm biased too.

The problem is, you guys seem to think that you can accuse anyone of being "biased" as if it were a counter argument that excuses you from the need to defend your points.

Here you're derailing the discussion because someone hat the temerity to speak the truth: Groklaw is biased. In fact, "biased" is being generous. They're driven by ideology to the point of being dishonest.

This article is a good example with their selective quoting and their lies about what was done.

For instance, the claim that the jurors had only 2 days to consider the evidence is a lie. They had the whole trial.

You're typing angry words at a phantom argument you created. I don't know who's face you glued on that straw man, but I'm bored watching you burn it down. Besides, you can take as pro or as anti-Apple a stance as you want. Personally, I think that's missing the point of this entire exercise.

Do you really think that people are upset about Samsung and Apple? They're upset about software patents and how ludicrously easy they are to get and yet how absurdly difficult they are to render invalid. The jury here says they decided (under the advice and guidance of a patent holder) to stop debating the prior art issue.

This is what we have a problem with.

For what it's worth, I think Samsung did attempt to copy Apple with its first round of phones and they did a damn poor job of it. Cheap knock offs looked like cheap knock offs, and I think they were made willfully. However, I think many of Apple's patents are invalid because they do not constitute real, protectable innovation.

If this were Samsung vs. HTC I'd be hoping for exactly the same outcome: a demonstration of the facile nature of software patents in the US. They do nothing to protect innovators; they only serve to artificially limit competition. For the sake of the industry and the economy I live and work in, they need to be radically reformed.

You were taking offense at the use of the word. I was, in a sense, agreeing with you, and asking you to recognize that bias does not mean lacking in credibility. It simply means having an opinion.

Bias is not the weapon that some on hacker news seem to think it is (and your position was one as if it had wounded you....)

Hope that makes it more clear!

From a dictionary.

> I was showing you how people on your side of the patent debate use the word, since you were on the, shall we say, receiving end of it this time.

No. You were burning down straw men.

> I was, in a sense, agreeing with you, and asking you to recognize that bias does not mean lacking in credibility.

It does, in fact, hurt credibility to be biased. When it stops being an opinion accompanied by honest reporting and becomes manipulation (be it deliberate or not) is usually where we start calling it bias.

> Hope that makes it more clear!

I have no idea what you are talking about. I can only assume this is part of some larger conversation you are having with everyone at once and no one in particular.

They said they skipped the question. They skipped the question. The contention was they skipped the question. You disagreed, and then agreed.

You are acting the part of a troll, and being purposefully obtuse, and dishonest.

Okay, let's look at the OP you replied to, and take at look at the claim you are disputing:

"The jury foreman admitted that they "skipped" prior art because "It was bogging us down.""

Okay. So, that's the extent of the claim.

Going by the quote from the juror: "In fact we skipped that one,", it matches up with the claim.

Claim: They skipped a question. Quote: We skipped a question.

I think it's fair to say they skipped a question.

Even you admit to this with your own quote: "As far as I can tell, there's no evidence from those quotes that they skipped prior art, so much as skipped the task to move forward on others before circling back around to it." You say here that there is no evidence that they skipped, but there is evidence the skipped the question and most probably eventually came back to it later.

However, skipping did occur, which was the original contention backed up by statements from those who would know.

It would seem that you are the one trying to invent, poorly, as you can't even avoid contradicting yourself in your own comment.

But, you might ask, why would skipping and coming back matter as long as they addressed the question.

Context. The questions were ordered in a specific order. Addressing them out of order is, in essence, answering the questions "out of context." Indeed, the quotes suggest (though admittedly not directly) that by skipping the question, they were able to continue. But if that question had been answered as they had expected it to, would it have impacted the outcome? I believe so.

After all, the context in which you answer a question determines the answer (which is fairly obvious).

In the end, you are trying to paint the jurors in a different light. One in which they abided by the rules set forth (which they've already admitted to not doing[1]) and using the worksheets provided to reach the judgement (again, something they've admitted to modifying).

So no, I'm not inventing anything. Couple that with the "expertise" offered by a patent holder, it's fairly obvious there are issues with the ruling.

That all being said, maybe it's okay the jury ignore the provided worksheets and rewrote them. Maybe it's okay that they ignore instructions given to them by the judge. After all, they are the jury, and they our last line of defense. If we can ask a jury to find someone innocent facing an unjust law, we can expect them to make their voice heard in other cases as well.

Regardless, my point still stands: They skipped a question, they admitted to it, as did you, and you seem foolishly trying to take on other conditions as if somehow that makes the "fact" untrue.

Honestly, how can you even suggest they didn't skip the question, and then say they did, and try to blame someone else for inventing false narratives? I mean, besides being dishonest?

[1] They were instructed: "You should keep in mind that the damages you award are meant to compensate the patent holder and not to punish an infringer." However, what they "wanted to make sure the message we sent was not just a slap on the wrist. We wanted to make sure it was sufficiently high to be painful, but not unreasonable."

This is the same sort of reality twisting that we see out of the likes of the birther movement -- facts and supporting data take a back seat to whatever supports an appealing narrative.

Our jury also selected a lawyer as foreman--from everything I've read, and my experience, I believe the most logically consistent scenario was that most of the panel simply followed where the "expert" led.

--I've used Apple products for years, so I'm not trying to construct an anti-hero narrative--

Also, you really like the word "narrative".

You have no evidence of this what so ever. And the other logically consistent scenario is that the jury didn't follow where the expert led.

And it is not a complicated matter IMHO. Once the document was produced detailing Samsung intentionally trying to copy the iPhone UI and the warning from Google then it was pretty obvious which way this was all going.

You, on the other hand, make unsubstantiated claims. You equate me with birthers, you contradict yourself... and even when faced with concrete evidence, you dismiss it out of hand. You even go so far as to lie by claiming I offered no supporting evidence.

No, I've provided evidence. You've merely attempted to insult and claim that the quotes are out of context, and when asked to explain yourself, you merely repeat, as if it will somehow make a difference.

Still, you've proven you are more interested in trolling with the birther remark. This is not reddit. If you cannot discuss things like an mature adult, leave. Feel free to disagree, but insults, ignorance, and trolling are not welcome here.

But extrapolating all of this from one single statement is irrational, ridiculous and frankly delusional.

I do. At least, I tried. Anything that couldn't be found in the thread, I quoted.

You, on the other hand, make unfounded and untrue claims.

> But extrapolating all of this from one single statement is irrational, ridiculous and frankly delusional.

I didn't do that. You can reread my comment, and you'll see that your statement is incorrect.

Also, by extrapolating all of what?

* That they skipped the question, which they admitted to? You cannot deny this. * That they did not follow the instructions as prescribed? They admitted to this as well. * That context is important? Something even you agree to.

All of this backed up with quotes above.

Makes a change from all the Microsoft bashing. Hard to fit a $ into Apple, though. A$$le maybe?

Apple might not have discovered or invented everything (macintosh GUI case in point). But Jobs and Apple in general have a habit of discovering useful technologies and commercialising them. It's a hindcasting mistake to say 'oh, well it was obvious that GUIs or iPhone style screens were always going to happen'.

Well, if it was so obvious, why is Apple continually breaking new ground?

The answer is that there are literally millions of good ideas that don't go anywhere. To pick some out, commercialise them, make them work and deliver for an affordable price. Well, that's innovation.

Egads. I sound like an Apple fanboi. Nothing could actually be further from the truth. But I'm tired of seeing the army of cutters heading for Apples tall poppy.

Herds.

More specifically group thinking and risk aversion. I can't say I really admire Steve Jobs but what I completely believe was that Steve's willingness to say "my way or the highway" on very very risky decisions and directions is the entire source of Apples "innovation."

This trial, and the documentation around the web about prior art, brought that into absolutely stark relief. I claim that any competent design and engineering group that was asked to make a 'smartphone' with the requirements Steve laid out for it, would have come up with something very much like the iPhone. However, there was no CEO in the world except Steve who had the balls to invest the company into those requirements.

Look at Tesla (the car company) and Elon Musk. GM could have made the car that Tesla built on the assembly line they used to build the EV1 but they didn't have the balls to commit to it. If you watch the Bloomberg video [1] it is absolutely clear that one of two things was going to happen, either Tesla was going to ship a car, or Elon was going to go broke. And in being so committed to his own vision of what needed to be done, he dragged a bunch of naysayers along.

Palm had proven people would buy a PDA with 'apps' and carry it around. RIM had proven that people would pay to have a phone they could send and receive email from. None of the 'big' players (Sony, Ericsson, Nokia, RIM, Palm) was ready to commit to making a phone where "phoneness" was a peer of "PDAness." So there were tenative steps pushed out there that were evolutionary on the existing products. A blackberry with some Palm features, Sony's phone with the touch screen, all that stuff you see that existed prior to the iPhone.

And one of the things you get when you are tentative, is timidity. A general sense that this can't possibly work, or that the chance of it working is really low. And people trying to protect their careers or their reputations won't say "We do it this way or else." They are not fearless. And for good reason, they've got kids that will go to college, spouses who expect steady employment, a 401k, a retirement plan. It is a really really hard conversation to have with your boss to say "I want to spend $100M on developing a product that you have to take my word for it will be awesome." The answer is, almost always, "Why the f*ck should I do that?"

But Steve (and through him Apple) did just that. Just like Musk put into production a $100,000 all electric sports car.

And when Apple proved that it wasn't a stupid idea to make a portable computer that made phone calls, the rest of the world was now free to act without fear that the idea was stupid, after all Apple made it work right? And sticking as close to the Apple 'formula' as possible was the safe bet.

That is why I don't think Apple will do it again, I don't think Tim Cook is able to make that kind of leap. Elon can, but he's already running two other companies.

[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/video/73460184-elon-musk-profiled-b...

The whole point is nothing today exists in isolation. The ecosystem around you and other people's innovation play a huge role and are in many ways are responsible for your own innovations. Its a little like social security and taxes. Objectivists may argue that they must get all the pie they earn without giving anything back, because they earned it. But for them to earn it, the society and ecosystem around you- Stuff like roads, national/internal security, education, schools, industries, infrastructure ..<the list is endless>.. was already built for you. The ecosystem was conducive for you to 'earn' your pie. Without all that you would spend much of your life solving those problems first, leaving your actual accomplishments very little. Therefore if each person goes through the same thing, we go no where as a society or as a ecosystem. That is why 'giving back' is so important. Because that creates a feed back loop to achieve more as a society/ecosystem yet offering room for individual growth.

For Apple to be so successful. They had to stand on the shoulder of many giants. Even their design philosophy rests on the shoulder of a giant called Dieter Rams.

That is why their claims 'to carry the innovation burden of world' are not false but are ridiculous.

I agree that they had the what it takes to take risks. But to claim that they are responsible for all the innovation that exists out there and that they are innovating for the whole world is just ridiculous.

That said, its not the design per se that made Apple so successful, it was Steve Jobs giving irrevocable support to the concepts he wanted built. In any other company, like here on HN, you can make an unequivocal positive statement about something and someone else will come out to tell you how wrong you are. They can be quite persuasive and influential too, and cause you to doubt your statement and lose your commitment to it.

I've been bouncing around the periphery of Steve Jobs wake my entire career, from dealing with folks from NeXT, hiring the previous head of the Newton division, "rescuing" people from advanced development jobs, working with Apple on their NFS port, etc etc. And you hear a lot of 'Steve stories' from folks. But I have never ever heard a story where someone told him, "Steve, I don't think your idea will fly." And he responded with even an ounce of doubt. In contrast I've heard lots of stores where people people said that and Steve told them they were an idiot.

Its a rare level of fearlessness that I suspect you can really only achieve when there isn't anything anyone can do to hurt you.

You see folks like Mark Pincus pull $200M out of Zynga which nets out probably north of a $100M and even at a sub-inflation return of 1.2% is $100K/month (tax free if its from treasuries). When you've got that sort of back stop, even if everyone hates you that is ok, they can't really touch you. Then all you have to do is be like Elon and be willing to throw it all away on something you believe in and people will take you seriously.

[1] http://gizmodo.com/343641/1960s-braun-products-hold-the-secr...

This doesn't, by itself, mean that their design patents are invalid. But hopefully it gets rid of the strawman of "if they weren't innovative why did people buy so much of their stuff?"

I don't either. They had the right combination of a bold CEO and their backs to the wall with little to lose at the right time but everything they've done since then is just basically polish. They need to keep coming up with iPad-level hits to maintain their market cap and I just don't see something like that coming out of Cupertino now.

That's how I think of them, and it's what I have great respect to them for. It can be worded to sound like a putdown, but in my opinion it should be considered a compliment.

If that ability is what makes them successful, then their rival phone manufacturers should be even more successful since they often use faster processors and bigger screens and more RAM than Apple.

I'd never say "all Apple do is" about this, just that it is what they do, and they do it better than anyone else.

And having seen them, other companies can't replicate them well at all because they don't do the research.

Calling them a lego assembler ignores all the real innovation they do.

Apple made billions off the iPhone while MS made peanuts off the Surface solely because of how each tried to bring their respective takes on the product to market. I give Apple all the credit in the world for knowing how to package technology up for mainstream use and bring it in at a price point the masses can afford, while Microsoft was dicking around with giant table size systems (primarily because being burned by the stylus-touch tablet market early, they had stupidly convinced themselves that general consumers didn't want touch at all) but you're totally wrong about this tech being completely innovative and non-existing before Apple came down from the mountain and presented it to us, because that isn't how it went down at all.

For someone who seems to have so little grasp on the real history behind all this stuff you should be careful about calling other HN readers out as you do in a post below this one.

Strange conclusion, given that the original Microsoft Surface does not use a capacitive touchscreen.

> Both arrived at these solutions at the same time because the wide availability of capacitive touchscreens (...) made such UIs an obvious next step to anyone paying attention to the field.

He was saying that capacitive was inspiration to both, not used by both.

This is nonsense. It is just rejecting innovation out of hand by claiming that it was obvious.

Post Hoc ergo Propter Hoc fallacy.

If timing and marketing is all that matters for market success then Apple should NOT have been successful with iPod or iPad since they weren't the first MP3 player or tablet. And they definitely didn't have the experience of companies like Sony when it comes to marketing.

You criticize others about grasp on real history when you seem so quick to ignore it yourself.

There are many errors in this claim.

Capacitive Touchscreens were not widely available at that time at all, which is why the early iPhone ripoffs used resistive screens.

This is also why the Microsoft PixelSense used CAMERAS.

Quoting from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_PixelSense "It is a 30 in (76 cm) 4:3 rear projection display (1024x768) with integrated PC and five near-infrared (IR) cameras that can see fingers and objects placed on the display."

For emphasis: "and five near-infrared (IR) cameras"

>"For someone who seems to have so little grasp on the real history behind all this stuff you should be careful about calling other HN readers out as you do in a post below this one."

I think its hilarious that people would accuse me of having "so little grasp on the real history" when you just claimed that the Microsoft PixelSense used "widely available" "capacitive touchscreens".

So, which is it, did you know that it actually used cameras and thought you could lie and get it by me? Or were you genuinely ignorant of the "history behind this stuff" and just repeating what you'd heard from someone else because it fits your ideology and you live in the Reality Distortion Field where Apple never invented anything?

Seriously. 9/10 of the "rebuttals" I see on Hacker News are of the quality of the one you just posted... and not only were you blatantly and obviously wrong in a way that you wouldn't have been if you'd ever bothered to research any of this, but you accused me of not knowing my history based on a made up claim of your own.

The bottom line is you're following an ideology, and because that ideology has supplanted reasoning for you, you believe-- with the conviction of a religious zealot-- what you hear that fits your reality distortion field. And thus it is inconceivable to you that I might actually know what I am talking about.

IF you'd just said "Didn't the microsoft surface use a capacitive touch screen?" that would be very excusable. But even then-- and even if it HAD-- it wouldn't support the claim that Apple never invented anything, or specifically never invented a UI for iOS.

Unless you're also claiming that somehow the iOS UI is the same as the microsoft one... which would again be absurd and easily disproven.

See the thing is, you aren't even arguing on the topic-- you're just throwing out (false) claims to try and create cover!

If you were the outlier it would be one thing, but on any of these threads you can find hundreds of people posting this kind of easily disproven nonsense that doesn't even address the issue.

This level of discourse is just terrible. Please make arguments, please make them to the actual point. Even if you'd been factually right, you wouldn't have been addressing my point at all.

I worked on a tablet in '99. I wrote the widget library (we used Nano-X plus a custom widget library and font loader to keep memory usage down - this was a unit with 32MB RAM...) and managed the developers who wrote the apps that are featured:

http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/Linux-For-Devices-Article...

(the names on the people in the phone book are names of actual employees of Screen Media at the time, actually - I'm there too)

Notice how it is described: Not as something new, but as another entrant up against another product. Even in '99/'00 our touch based tablet was not a new idea.

In fact, one of the companies that Screen Media was co-located with was a touch screen importer and distributorship that served as our major go-to guys for ideas and information about what the touch screens of the time were capable of - we didn't invent any of the ideas of this type of touch screen UI because we could go to our local touch screen distributor and ask what was common practice in the market already. The only remotely new thing (and at least Ericsson, and probably others, beat us there too) was to apply it to a tablet type device rather than a kiosk.

We did use resistive touch screens, not capacitive, but the UI was most definitively "touch oriented" - there were no hard keys on the standard unit at all. Web browsing, phone functions, address books, e-mail, was all done via touch.

The tablet used a port of Opera, and Opera subsequently introduced gestures in 2001, but while gestures was then new to browsers, that was not considered anything revolutionary either - just applying existing, known technology in a novel way.

The idea that a "touch oriented UI" didn't exist before Apple developed it is fiction.

None of the key metaphors or widgets Apple developed for iOS are present in that device.

To claim that Apple didn't invent anything in iOS, and use that device as an example is to claim that there was nothing new in the iPhone because Alexanger Graham Bell had phones before.

It is absurd. And to me, all it says is that you're desperate to rationalize this belief that Apple never invented anything.

Remember: I'm rebutting the claim that Apple just assembled off the shelf pieces, like legos.

You are replying to a very informative post from a person who directly worked on a touch-screen device. What about that post made you think it was "desperate to rationalize this belief that Apple never invented anything"? I am trying to determine how anyone could read that post and come away thinking it was desperate.

And you are making giant leaps in your arguments. The comment does not claim that Apple never invented anything in iOS or elsewhere. He is rebutting your claim that Apple invented the "touch oriented UI". You ignored him and fell back to some more specific claims about widgets and metaphors (perhaps you should have been more specific to begin with?).

I will close by quoting from another of your comments in this very thread. You would do well to read these as a reply to your own reply above.

    The bottom line is you're following an ideology, and
    because that ideology has supplanted reasoning for you, you
    believe-- with the conviction of a religious zealot-- what
    you hear that fits your reality distortion field. And thus
    it is inconceivable to you that I might actually know what
    I am talking about.

    See the thing is, you aren't even arguing on the topic--
    you're just throwing out (false) claims to try and create cover!

Hmmm. I'm still using my Palm Centro phone, which used to be a Treo, which used to be a Palm PDA, which used to be a Palm Pilot. All of those have a touch oriented UI, and most if not all of them pre-date iPhone by years.

So now I guess we can watch the debate about whether Newton or its competitors pre-date each other.

This is a major invention and a major difference, and that is just one part of what made the iOS touch UI.

This is the fundamental problem- you and others say nonsense like this, and I don't know if you're simply not well informed about the nature of these technologies, or you don't care and are making arguments because of ideology that you think will work propagandistically. I mean, I guess ofr many people they don't care that they aren't the same thing, they can just pretend like they are in debates like this, right?

I really don't know which. I keep hearing people claim that Apple stole from Xerox[1] and here you imply that the palm might have come before the newton and that it is up for debate.

What's next? The Mac stole from windows?

Seriously, what level of basic understanding of the history and nature of these technologies can I expect here on Hacker News? And do you get off the hook for repeating this nonsense simply because it fits your anti-apple ideology?

[1] I shouldn't need this footnote, but due to the aforementioned ignorance or dishonesty, I do. Apple licensed Xerox's early research into what later became the GUI by selling them pre-IPO Apple stock which made Xerox a pretty penny and would be worth over a billion now if they had never sold it.

According to who, you? Feel free to argue around the technological improvements Apple have brought, but to argue that everything everybody has always called "touchscreen" isn't that... makes no sense.

And even by your strange definition of a "touch based UI", were Apple the first company to create capacitive touch screens? Hell, I don't think they were even the first to create phones using them, if I remember correctly LG beat them to it with the Prada? Not to mention how many people used Palms etc. using their fingers rather than a stylus.

As to working out how to ignore stuff like knuckles touching the screen... wonderful, I'm sure Apple did a great job in this area. I haven't used enough devices to really have an opinion of whether they were the first to perfect this, but it's irrelevant. Nobody is claiming Apple haven't done some stuff better than other companies - but even if you can definitively say that they created the first really good touch based UI, that's not the same as creating the first touch based UI.

You know what I expect from HN? Civilised discussion. All I've seen from you is rudeness, arrogance and a holier-than-thou attitude that could be summed up by the last part of your profile description.

I'm not sure that's true. For example, in the Tablet PC space, a touch screen could mean that a screen responded to a stylus, finger, or both, but usually, just the stylus! And even before the first iPod came out in 2001, screens in PDAs were referred to as touch-screens.

Handspring Edge, 2001: "THIS WARRANTY DOES NOT COVER PHYSICAL DAMAGE TO THE SURFACE OF THE PRODUCT, INCLUDING CRACKS OR SCRATCHES ON THE LCD TOUCHSCREEN OR OUTSIDE CASING."

Treo 650, released in 2004: "Fully integrated phone and PDA with digital video and camera capabilities Integrated Bluetooth technology Vibrant 320 x 320 touchscreen display" http://www.amazon.com/Palm-Treo-650-PDA-Phone/dp/B0007NP8PW

A review of Treo 650 suggests the finger worked on large areas, 3 years before the iPhone was released, but the UI buttons in the PalmOS were unchanged from small ones created 10 years earlier for stylus-access only. (In this light, Apple's innovation was to require action buttons to be at least 40x40 pixels with enough spacing from each other in their new iPhone OS, now called iOS.) http://www.mobiledia.com/phones/palm/treo-650.html "Extensive use of touch screen allows finger access but you will need the built-in touch pen for pulling down menus and making selections."

One could argue that Apple should not be allowed to sell a phone without a keyboard since they're improving on the Treo 650's design, just like Samsung should not be allowed to sell a phone with a larger screen and multiple physical buttons since they're improving on the iPhone design.

But if "touch means finger touches" in the tech world then what do you call devices designed to be used with a stylus? Not touchscreen? And in general English "touch" doesn't mean "with fingers" either.

Yes it is. The user is touching the screen with the stylus.

This definition specifically includes pen and pencil: (http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/touch)

The wikipedia article has a variety of touch screens which respond to objects, or fingers, or both: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchscreen#History)

Apple refined existing concepts.

You remember incorrectly. Regarding the Palm as well. In fact, your claim is a lie. It doesn't rebut the point I am making, and instead is making a post hoc ergo proctor hoc fallacy in order to knock down a strawman.

>You know what I expect from HN? Civilised discussion.

A key component of civilized discussion is reading what someone says, thinking about it, figuring out what they said and why they said it. Then thinking about where their error is, if you disagree with them, and presenting an argument to the point that addresses that error.

It doesn't involve spewing logical fallacies and then characterizing them in a derogatory fashion.

>All I've seen from you is rudeness, arrogance and a holier-than-thou attitude that could be summed up by the last part of your profile description.

One of the problems with Hacker News is that people often interpret the act of thinking differently, or presenting evidence that disagrees with the belief they'd like to hold, as "rude, arrogant and holier-than-thou" or other derogatory terms that they then feel comfortable throwing at people.

I can't count the number of times on this site I've gotten personal attacks, such as yours, responded by not calling them names (as I have not called you names in response) and merely illuminated what they were doing in the hopes that they could see their errors (I named your logical fallacies above, for instance) only to have it escalate.

Unlike you, I don't expect civilized discussion from Hacker News, because as a minority, I've found that the voting mechanism gives bullies a feeling of superiority and free reign to attack others.

I often leave this site for months at a time because I've been subjected to stalking, personal threats, harassment, and name calling.

But here I am in a thread where I know I'm the minority. I haven't gloated, I've tried to explain. When I've seen repetition of very obvious fallacies, I've asked, with genuine wonderment, if people are simply not aware of these things or not. (I mean, really, you cite the LG Prada... are you not aware of the details of that phone? You say "If I remember correctly", so it sounds like you could simply be repeating what you've heard from others.

Do you realize that almost all of the claims made in this thread of prior examples of work that negates the assertion that Apple is innovative are being made by people repeating claims they've heard elsewhere without understanding the context? (There's only two possibilities when someone tells a falsehood-- either an intent to deceive, or an error. I'm presuming an error here, which I suspect is what you call "arrogant", but the alternative is to presume dishonesty.)

So, yes, I'm not ashamed of my profile description. It's an explanation of why I'll just drop out of discussions and why I won't just roll over and repeat the falsehoods that would garner me much more karma.

Do you realize you never made an argument against the point I was making? You expressed some conclusions that, even if they were accurate, don't argue against my point.

For there to be discussion, you'd need to address my point, right? But you didn't. Near as I can tell you responded because what I said didn't agree with your ideology (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but that seems to be the motive, since you didn't respond to the point.) And in an ideological response like that, you're going to cite "proof" that usually amounts to talking points. "The palm had it!" "The Prada Had it!" But that isn't argument.

You didn't notice that the "it" is not the same, and that the it your talking about is not the same it I'm talking about.

"I can't count the number of times on this site I've gotten personal attacks, such as yours, responded by not calling them names (as I have not called you names in response) and merely illuminated what they were doing in the hopes that they could see their errors (I named your logical fallacies above, for instance) only to have it escalate."

That says everything about you, nothing about me or this website. Look through the rest of the comments on this thread, notice how you're the only one getting into arguments while others are simply discussing and disagreeing with each other.

Notice how you're the only person I've written negatively about yet you're not the only person arguing for Apple - maybe, just maybe, what I wrote is about you, not about my hatred of Apple. Oh, and while my hatred of everything Apple fits your narrative beautifully, I'm actually a proud owner of two iPods (currently), an iPad and a macbook. Nowhere in this thread have I even come out in support of either side, all I did was debate a point in the discussion and pointed out that your attitude wasn't one that could win anyone over.

As it happens you're wrong in this topic, but the way you argue you wouldn't get many people to change their minds if you were right. And the fact that your comments in the past have led to stalking and threats... Clearly I'm not alone in my opinion.

Incidentally, you're now the second person I've ever criticised on HN, rather than just disagreed with. The first was a neo-nazi who proudly displayed swasticas on his website. I'm not an asshole, I don't call people out on their attitude because I disagree with them, I reserve it for people I consider need telling. It's fine if you disagree with my judgement of you, but don't be under any illusion that it isn't a judgement and is just my wanting to win the argument.

That's the only way I could be "wrong about this topic". You didn't even notice that you weren't responding to what I said, but instead knocking down a strawman!

And despite that and your insults, I granted you leeway and responded in a civilized manner. And for that, you insulted me again, and then compared me to a neo-nazi with more insults.

I would guess you're trying to make me angry, but you're so far off the mark I'm mostly just perplexed.

Hacker News would be a better place if people focused on arguing to the point and not the person. I've responded to the point, you should too.

[1] I was rebutting the claim that the iPhone was assembled from off the shelf components, like legos.

The stylus on the Palm was optional for better precision. It was by no means necessary. Not only could I write reliably with my fingertips on a Palm Pilot Pro, it was precise enough with my fingers to play games and draw stuff with it.

> This is the fundamental problem- you and others say nonsense like this

It's quite rich that you claim this when you yourself are making spurious claims about how these devices supposedly couldn't be used reliably with fingers. I can only conclude that you yourself do not have firs thand experience with these devices, or have forgotten how they worked.

The reason you needed a stylus is because the technology was not advanced enough to detect finger touches with the accuracy that the iPhone does.

Even if Palm had all of the algorithms that apple developed for iOS, the ARM processors in those palms was not fast enough.

To claim that Apple invented nothing new because you could get a Palm to react to your finger is frankly a lie. It is a shameful lie, because when you let your ideology drive you to dishonesty, you've lost all integrity.

I have given the specifics of how and why my claims are true, but you ignore them, and you post dishonest stuff like this.

I genuinely don't know if you are simply ignorant and repeating what you've heard from others how are lying, or you're lying yourself, but at the end of the day it doesn't matter.

For the record, I have owned Palms and Newtons and Compaq's stylus driven device (iPaq I think it was) etc.

None of them could be used completely by fingers and all of them were designed to be used reliably by styluses.

I never said they would not react to finger presses at all, and I never said they couldn't be used in a limited fasion with finger presses.... so pretending that I did is yet another dishonesty.

This is dishonestly revisionist, given how common it was to see people thumbing through applications on Palm devices. That Palms came with styluses doesn't mean that they weren't touch-friendly in a lot of ways, and that should be taken into account.

The entire argument in favor of Apple's patents is bullshit, and nirvana has a history of bad-faith fanboyism on the topic.

It doesn't really change much, though, as "make a [Surface|Lemur|Diamondpoint] handheld" is about as obvious a conceit as one can want.

Further, "obvious" is silly since nobody did it before them, and it is a post hoc ergo proctor hoc argument.

The LG Prada was single touch and it did not have a touch UI. Just a gimmick screen that would let you launch functions. IT wasn't even a smart phone, it was a feature phone.

>The entire argument in favor of Apple's patents is bullshit,

Its only "bullshit" that the facts of reality don't fit your claims.

>and nirvana has a history of bad-faith fanboyism on the topic.

I do have a history of citing facts that deflate ideological balloons in response to people like you who lie about history and call me names.

It really is a shame that you choose not to be honest. I mean, that guy was asking a legitimate question, and you lied to him!

On this you are correct. I was thinking of the Prada II, which was multitouch. My apologies. That does not necessarily make Apple's use of multitouch the novel concept you assert, however--to me, Surface, Lemur, etc. make shrinking it down to PDA size (whether or not a phone radio is in the device or not) an obvious progression.

The rest of your post is more of the curiously self-absorbed nattering we've been seeing throughout this thread, however. "Ideological balloons" is funny--I own three iOS devices and two Android ones, I have no ideological allegiance either way. I do, however, have a rather strong aversion to using the court system instead of competing and I find it ridiculous that something like the iOS "bounce" at the end of a list is a patentable effect. I am not impressed by Samsung's attempts to copy iOS, either; I find them to be lacking in creativity, but I do not find a lack of creativity to be grounds for rent-seeking and legal action.

I also have a strong aversion to your style of posting, however--your brand of obnoxiousness is something I came to HN to get away from--so I will not be replying to you again. I am sure you will enjoy the last word.

You're so focused on your ideology that you're making an argument against patents (the context where obviousness would be relevant) in response to me saying Apple created iOS.

I find your need to characterize me, rather than address my point, and your dishonesty about the point I was even making, a form of obnoxiousness that I can do without, so feel free to ignore me. '

But don't pretend like I've done anything wrong here- you lied about me, and you characterized me and you called me names. Thus I must conclude you come to HN to be in the google distortion field, unpreturbed by anyone who would bring up pesky facts you don't like. And since I dared to make an argument you can't rebut, you feel fine insulting me.

You made the error, buddy, and you're blaming me for it. Shame on you.

Actually Mac did borrow a few usability from Windows too.

1. Finder Sidebar: Windows Navigation pane

2. The Mac Path bar: Windows Address bar

3. Back and Forward navigation buttons in folder windows

4. Minimizing to document windows into app icon

5. Screen Sharing: Remote Desktop Connection

6. Time Machine: Backup and Restore

7. System Preferences: Control Panel

8. ActiveSync and Exchange 2007 support

9. Command-Tab: Alt-Tab

10. Terminal: Command Prompt

While most of these are so obvious and can also be called prior art, standing in Apple's shoes, its an innovation by Windows, they had it in their OS before Apple. If you find the above list funny you know that Apple tried to sue Microsoft for having a GUI. A GUI !!

Also, most of the things you list appeared originally on the Mac, or the windows "equivalents" really aren't and haven't caught up to the mac.

The only thing that the Mac did take from windows-- that's on your list anyway-- is Alt-Tab.

Since you seem like a fanboy who loves to make up facts without any basis. Let's iterate over the list one by one in more detail:

1. Finder Sidebar: Windows Navigation pane -> Appeared in Mac = Mac OS X 10.3 Panther = Two years after the Navigation pane appeared in Windows XP.

2. The Mac Path bar: Windows Address bar -> Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard added an optional Path bar at the bottom of folder windows to display the path of any selected file or folder. Double-clicking a folder in the path opens that folder. This feature first appeared as the Address bar in Windows Vista, which began appearing nearly a year before Leopard shipped.

3. Back and Forward navigation buttons in folder windows -> Microsoft first put the Forward and Back buttons of Web browsers into its folder windows with Windows 2000. Oddly, Apple first included only a Back button in the original Mac OS X. It wasn't until version 10.2 Jaguar that a Forward button appeared.

4. Minimizing to document windows into app icon -> Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard adds an option for minimizing, which is turned off by default. Instead of creating a new icon in the Dock, you can have a document window minimize into the application icon it belongs to, as Windows has been doing with taskbar.

5. Screen Sharing: Remote Desktop Connection -> Appeared in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard which was already implemented in Windows XP.

6. Time Machine: Backup and Restore -> Really? Do I really need to prove that System Restore and Backup n Restore appeared before Time Machine??

7. System Preferences: Control Panel -> Before Mac OS X, Mac system settings were found in a set of separate files. Microsoft put all the settings in one convenient place. For Mac OS X 10.0 Cheetah, Apple stole Microsoft's idea and called it System Preferences.

8. ActiveSync and Exchange 2007 support -> Macs have long been second-class citizens to Windows when it comes to Exchange Server. Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard added native support of Exchange Server's 2007's group scheduling, contact, and mail services.

9. Command-Tab: Alt-Tab -> Well you agreed to that.

10. Terminal: Command Prompt -> Windows has had the command prompt integrated since the very first version. Apple finally added Terminal finally after the 9th version.

Love your products and be loyal to your manufacturers, that is one thing but please don't turn off the logic side of your brain!! If you are going to respond to this comment please backup your statements too.

Ideology? It's just a phone.

And if they did, you could be damn sure that whoever did invent it would have been suing Apple left and right.

It's disappointing to see people actually siding with Apple here. Is it brand loyalty that blurs people's judgement?

The fact that icons are sized and spaced similarly across these devices is because most people have a similar index finger size. It's obvious what the ideal icon size and placement should be on any touch device for optimal touch usability.

The legal defense of "obvious concept" is absolutely true. There are limits to how design can optimize details such as icon display, and touch input. The concepts Apple are trying to own simply do no belong to them due to their obvious nature.

Slide to unlock, the page bounce, the icons, all of it is obvious stuff once you have the hardware pieced together.

As a result of this lawsuit, Apple has lost me as customer. I am not rewarding childish hypocrisy. I do not respect billion dollar playground fights in the courts because someone else made a similar phone that has icons and multi-touch. What a waste of time and money.

But to address your point: multi touch OS

iPhone - 2007

Minority Report - 2004 (design ideas, not working implementation)

This is a flat out lie.

>said that touch must only be fingers.

This is also a lie.

>Minority Report - 2004 (design ideas, not working implementation)

Completely different method, used cameras to sense hand positions in air, not physical screens.

And even if minority report showed a PDA with a touch UI in it, it would be completely irrelevant to the point I was making.

If we limit conversation to the sentence fragment "assemble components like lego" then most people would agree that Apple does more than that. It's unfortunate that someone in this thread used that phrase; it's unfortunate that you wrote such a broad response.

So, now we discuss whether what Apple (and it doesn't need to be Apple, my view would be the same about other companies) did amounts to patentable innovation.

We're not going to agree on that bit. But for me that's fine. You think the money and research and work that Apple did, and the result, is a significantly different implementation and so is patentable. I think it's a refinement upon existing technology.

In the first two paragraphs of the post to which I replied, he explicitly says that finger-based touch "is a major invention".

I think its funny that people are responding to what I said, pretending I said something else, and then others are attacking me for saying what I didn't say... and you're saying I said it!

I guess it doesn't matter what I say does it? Everything gets distorted by the google distortion field.

You're simply not clear or precise enough in your comments and statements. It takes you awhile to fully explain what you mean, and in the interim, rather than immediately realizing what has happened and making yourself more clear, you convince yourself that everyone else is crazy for not understanding exactly what you mean.

Please don't take this as a personal attack. I am merely observing. I don't think anyone here is out to get you. Most people are well-intentioned and are arguing against the precise statements you've written, not the ideas in your head. If you can't see that, then there may be no hope. But I'm hoping you will re-read some of this thread and come to the same realization.

Here's a quote from you:

    Except that the major parts- like a touch oriented
    UI- don't exist until Apple develops them.

    Apple does not merely put together existing pieces of
    technology like legos. They created iOS from scratch,
    which represented a significant amount of original work
    in the area of touch oriented UI.

Look back a few comments.

My claim was merely that Apple invented the first Touch UI of that style.

Not all touch UIs.

Some restaurants do have iOS devices in them.

For you to claim that Apple didn't invent a touch UI, you would need to show that someone prior to Apple shipped iOS on one some device.

That's not the way Apple works. Apple doesn't license someone else's operating system.

Apple created iOS.

Nintendo DS - 2004

You've shifted the goalposts from "touchscreen" to "touch screens only include things operated by fingers". The DS fits that requirement. Note that makers and sellers of touch screens don't make the distinction that you claim is obvious.

I never said there was never a screen you could get a reaction from by touching before the iPhone.

Never said that at all.

I said that to build the iPhone Apple couldn't just use off the shelf components, they had to invent new ones.

Nintendo DS is not running iOS.

They made refinements to existing technology.

> I never said there was never a screen you could get a reaction from by touching before the iPhone.

It's hard to know what you're saying - it keeps changing.

You said that "touch oriented OSs don't exist until Apple develops them" - (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4435702)

People have shown many examples of touch oriented OSs developed independently of Apple, released before iPhone.

The screen existed before iPhone. The software to drive those screens existed before iPhone. Integrating that combination into an "OS" has existed before iPhone. And the idea of multi-touch surfaces was shown in a movie (where characters interacted with both big screens and small portable devices) before iPhone was released.

You may say that I have ignored the rest of your post that I quote above -

> And having seen them, other companies can't replicate them well at all because they don't do the research.

> Calling them a lego assembler ignores all the real innovation they do.

Step away from the keyboard. Calm down. Maybe you'll realise that people don't feel the need to say "I agree with this bit" because they assume that they not talking to a rabid troll who'll accuse everyone of lying.

Umm... I guess you never used a kiosk before the Iphone then. Calling someone lego assembler is not necessarily a bad thing. You can put two and two together and create great things but people are bound to copy great things and make it better. That is how innovation drives forward. Ever heard of the phrase "Reinventing the wheel"? Well, if everybody had patents on their "wheel", then everyone else has to waste their time and resources on reinventing the wheel. Like, Reddit was 4chan and Digg put together with better improvements. Putting two and two might make u a lego assembler but the end result isn't that bad!

Because if you're not saying that you're not being honest about what I said.

Obviously nobody in this thread is claiming such a thing. Perhaps they misunderstood your earlier point (or perhaps you made it poorly) and thus their counterpoints are irrelevant, but that is not the same thing.

You should be more charitable and less trollish in the way you choose to disagree with others.

I also don't buy that essentially saying: "go find your own way to do this." Stifles innovation. Quite the opposite IMO.

How does the LG Prada exist in this strange world of yours, then?

By the way, the LG is not multitouch, it isn't even a smartphone. IF Apple had licensed it -- necessary for the claim that Apple just assembled lego blocks-- the iPhone would not work the way it does.

%99 of the features would be missing.

You're making the "graham invented the telephone so there was nothing invented to make the cellphone" error.

The main inventive requirement in touchscreen phones is in making small, thin, cheap touchscreen modules. The UI concepts that then run on those kinds of devices have however been the subject of design studies for decades before that, and have been implemented in various forms on commercial touchscreen installations.

Also, much of the graphic polish of many of these devices seem to draw a direct lineage to stuff like the old praystation series of websites by Joshua Davis and his experiments with tsunami menus and inertial scrolling elements.

In terms of hardware, I disagree. None of the hardware on Apple devices have been invented. The fact that they are specifically produced for Apple doesn't mean they were invented. We can't count A5 as invention because most ARM licensees design their own SoCs anyway. Samsung's Exynos isn't an invention either, it's just another ARM SoC. But if, for instance, Apple manufactured/designed a new kind of display (like Samsung's AMOLED) then that would count as inventing something hardware wise.

They are just as guilty as any other hardware/software manufacturer which tries to stifle human progress in the name of ego.

Let me provide my perspective, as flawed as it may be. In 2006, Nintendo released the Wii. To those who don't know, it, for better or worse (re)introduced motion within the context of video games. Immediately, Microsoft (Xbox) and Sony (PlayStation) criticized the Wii's motion controls – deeming them "childish" and "not what gamers want".

Today, we know how that story played out. We have PS3 Move and Xbox Kinect. At the time, I had hoped and dreamed that Nintendo would sue and strike back at Sony and Microsoft (not sure if they had the grounds to, mind you). I didn't want Microsoft and Sony to benefit from Nintendo's genius, especially after they essentially deemed motion control as a ludicrous novelty.

Today, Microsoft Kinect is making all sorts of cool innovations possible – not Nintendo. But in 2009, I would have been happy to hear that Microsoft would have no right to create Kinect. What a lousy outcome that would have been. Kinect, as a technology, is a benefit to a collective of people – and I was a dink to believe another outcome would have been better. Chalk it up to being a Nintendo fanboy.

Today I'd be incredibly angry if Nintendo had the power to overturn, punish or fracture the Kinect technology. And watching Apple fanboys defend a system that essentially holds us all back is incredibly painful to watch. Apple has created a contemporary masterpiece and it is now the baseline for which all better technology evolves. What happens if you get your way and no one can build in the direction that is proven to work?

Stagnation. Thanks for that.

Neither of which has really taken off for gaming. The Wii wasn't really a success either. Sure, they sold a lot of consoles, but the console is sold at - at best - break even (and only there after 3-4 years on the market). All the money is in the game licensing (Paid per copy from the developer to the console maker). Wii owners just don't buy that many games - I remember a study that pegged it at ~half what a typical Xbox owner bought.

I don't know about that. Last I checked, Kinect was doing well. In fact Kinect Adventures is #1 [1]

> The Wii wasn't really a success either.

Nintendo, until most recently, was the only console manufacturer to actually profit.

[1] http://www.vgchartz.com/platform/7/xbox-360/

Kinect Adventures was a pack-in game, so that doesn't really count.

So far, there have been only 7 Kinect-required titles in 2012, and except for 1, all are either movie tie-ins or rhythm games.

The one exception is Steel Battalion, which managed a whopping 90,000 sales, and a 35/100 Metacritic score.

In fact, only 2 Kinect titles have even managed to break an 80 on Metacritic, both music games.

Its first loss since inception in 1889. Not bad for a company that didn't have any successful consoles.

> Kinect Adventures was a pack-in game, so that doesn't really count.

It does count. For 2 reasons: 1) you got Kinect Adventures because you bought Kinect - which is more money than any single game, and 2) if you decided to buy the Xbox with Kinect, you paid more – and seemed to be okay with it. Not exactly a complete failure.

> In fact, only 2 Kinect titles have even managed to break an 80 on Metacritic, both music games.

You're getting outside of the original point – Kinect is a great, inexpensive technology that is being used in all kinds of applications (i.e. interactive displays, teaching, robotics, etc.).

Stagnation. That's what you get when people duplicate ideas instead of leading with their own.

Right. So the guy who invented the cell phone shouldn't have "copied" the guy who invented the cordless phone. Oh, and the guy who invented the touch screen phone shouldn't be able to make it because the guy who invented the cell phone (which can't exist because of the guy who made the cordless phone says "No") doesn't want someone to make a touchscreen phone.

That's stagnation and that's what you're promoting here. You're just splitting hairs by narrowing the focus to rounded corners, # of buttons, etc.

Truth be told, there are no original inventions here. Apple's products are evolutions of previous hardware created by others – let's not forget that.

Microsoft at least managed to try something completely different with Windows Phone, and I think it's a hell of a lot more innovative than what Samsung did.

The kinect is a motion gaming device, but that is where the similarities to wii end. That's like suggesting the PS3 infringed on the xbox because it's also a console.

    1. Looking at prior art, did Apple create original Patents X, Y, Z?
    2. Did Samsung violate Patent X, Y, Z?
    3. Which phones violate the patent?
    4. How much money should Apple get for each violation?

    1. Samsung violated Patents Y and Z
    2. Phones X, Y, Z violate patents Y and Z
    3. Apple should get $X, $Y, and $Z for each phone.
    4. The prior art does indicate that Apple did not create an original product.

>"In fact we skipped that one," Ilagan continued, "so we could go on faster. It was bogging us down." ... "Once you determine that Samsung violated the patents," Ilagan said, "it's easy to just go down those different [Samsung] products because it was all the same

This is the evidence to support that conclusion. From: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2012082510525390

Not that I'm a fan of Apple, but putting things together nicely is pretty damn valuable and innovative.

It'd be disingenuous to claim that no subsets of people, on HN and elsewhere, twist reality to fit an Apple hero narrative. Looks like people just have different points of view.

They later went back to it.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087239639044427040457761...

"Mr. Ilagan, who is 59, said they watched the video 'very, very carefully' but decided to move on when the two weren't swayed. 'We didn't want to get bogged down,' said Mr. Ilagan, who works in marketing for a company that makes circuit boards."

Maybe I'm misreading it.

Another rationale is that they would have needed a unanimous opinion to overturn the patent on prior-art. And since they weren't going to get a unanimous opinion, they skipped it because they couldn't over turn the patent.

Without knowing all of the jury instructions, it hard to know exactly what happened.

I've been agreeing with your other points, but I must disagree with this specific. Absence of evidence is definitely evidence of absence. Keep in mind that "evidence" is not the same as "proof."

My own position on this is very simple: All (yes, all) patents should be abolished. The current law is the problem, not Apple or Samsung or the Jury or the judge.

I also think what Samsung did was – in part – morally reprehensible, but should have no legal consequences.

It was just ugly as hell.

I believe that patents should be abolished.

There is value in being able to transact designs. There are costs in the patent system. Court cases for example.

The question is "does the marginal benefits of patents over the alternatives, justify the costs?". And sometimes it might and other times it won't.

The existence of patent trolls is, surely, evidence that the system is horribly broken. Who is protected when a non-trading entity with no product is allowed to own patents and sue other companies for infringement?

Most companies are going to need assistance from arm which arm can still charge for. Additionally the design can be copyrighted.

Apple sold the original iPod for $399, which was the cost of the original 5GB drive to Apple. It was sold at a severe loss to begin with to push the technology and ramp up volume production of those drives.

> They entered the phone market when capacitive touchscreens were cheap/large enough

The iPhone's screen was far and away the biggest cost of the device. It was moving so many of them that dropped the price. You're accusing Apple of jumping at an opportunity when they see a cheap enough component. That's entirely not true, that is what their competitors do.

What they do is choose a key component for their device and drive down the price through massive volume sales that nobody else can achieve. It was true for the hard drive in the iPod, the flash memory in the Nano and the capacitive screen in the iPhone.

If you're saying they didn't invent the HD, memory or screen themselves, that's fair. But I don't think them selling the device at a loss counts as the component being "cheap enough". More like Apple believes in the technology enough that they're willing to do whatever it takes to push adoption, get scale discounts, and MAKE it cheap enough.

I've never heard this before, do you have a source where I can read more? I've never heard of Apple willingly taking a loss on anything.

It also seems odd to me to talk about volume in an earlier era of Apple, e.g. this was when Jobs was still dead-set towards limiting the iPod to Macs (it didn't really take off until Windows support was added).

As of now, this is the veredict, but its not game over for Samsung. If they think they have a case and they've been wronged, they should appeal and use this quotes as proof of wrongdoing by the jury. Let the judges decide on it, that's what they are for.

A lot of what apple was calling "trade dress" was arguably just the best most obvious, or cheapest way of doing something--bezel etc...