Apple Warns iPhone Competitors: Don't Rip Us Off 23 comments
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At the tail end of Apple’s quarterly earnings conference call today (full transcript), COO Tim Cook (CEO Steve Jobs, who is taking a medical leave of absence, was not on the call) noted that 17 million iPhones have been sold to date. When he was asked about the rising competition from Android (GOOG), Blackberry (RIMM), and Palm (PALM), Cook made an oblique threat:
We approach this business as a software platform business. We are watching the landscape. We like competition as long as they don’t rip off our IP. And if they do, we will go after anyone who does.
This threat seems directed squarely at Palm, which recently launched its own answer to the iPhone: the Palm Pre. The Pre has a multi-touch interface, something which Apple holds patents on, and from which other competitors have steered clear. When Cook was asked if he was talking about Palm, he demurred:
I don’t want to talk about any specific company. We are ready to suit up and go against anyone. However, we will not stand for having our IP ripped off.
What makes this veiled threat even more personal is that Palm’s executive chairman is former Apple product chief Jon Rubinstein, who was installed by Elevation Partners. Elevation Partners is Palm’s biggest investor. They believe so much in the Pre that they just sunk another $100 million into the company, on their initial $325 million investment a year ago.
Maybe Rubinstein can use that cash to pay Apple a licensing fee.
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Really? Which phone has the Pinch/Squeeze technology? I have not seen it before on a phone?
On Jan 21 07:53 PM MasterZ wrote:
> good god...apple thinks they invented everything.
>
> touch screen and the cute pinch/squeeze technique has been on phones
> for about 6 years.
Is AAPL actually threatening to sue the competition over gimmicks that they claim they 'invented' when there is years and years of prior art saying they didn't ? I mean multi-touch for scaling photos is not so far from the Trash Can/Recycle bin is it ? Am I missing something ? Did they learn nothing in the last 20 years ?
I'm looking forward to the iPhone being an also ran to the OHSA, the same way the mac was an also ran to the PC.
Closed architectures are a compromise that customers are forced to make until a competing open alternative displaces it and litigation is always a poor substitute for innovation.
This is why Apple is cyclical. They do something bold and innovative, then they get greedy and lazy and close it off, and then they get beaten by open competitors and they cry to the courts until the crisis forces them to start again.
Good innovator - lousy competitor.
Deja vu all over again.
That said, if Microsoft can rip off free developers code and then make an OS by buying it off a guy for $50,000 and adding already developed bells and whistles,then suing anyone who copies it (they don't even know how he made the original code, probably by frankensteining free developers code too), then gee Apple's patent hoarding transgressions are nothing.
Personally, I like Linux or any free and open system that actually encourages creativity and development. Since the advent of Microsoft and IBM computer development has been hobbled in 1st gear. The cell phone industry is a bit better even though Nokia is going the way of Motorola by sitting on their OS and not innovating just because they have all their customers trained like monkeys to use their system.
The next wave of young adults will not go for the press 5 buttons to do anything drag and drop menus of the past. Congrats to Apple for dragging the cell phone kicking and screaming into the modern age.
Yes, you are missing something. Exactly who are you saying Apple ripped off?
You have your open OS in Android. How's that going, especially in comparison to iPhone sales? If you're so damned smart, and YOU innovate, then someone rips you off, what are you going to do? If you were getting ripped off, as Apple clearly is, how exactly would you propose to defend your inventions?
On one hand you say that Apple is not innovative, then you admit they ARE bold and innovative. Which is it?
And in case you haven't noticed in the 32 years of its existence, Apple NEVER did anything "open" which they would later "close off." Do you know something that I don't?
Who, pray tell, beat them with an open architecture, as you state? You're not saying the "M-word," are you? MSFT is open? LMAOROF.
Yes, Apple got lazy in the 90s and damn near went belly up. But in 1997, this guy named Steve Jobs (maybe you heard about him --- he's been in the papers a lot) took the helm at Apple again. Give me an example of the Jobs-era Apple getting lazy. Just one. I'm dying to hear your response.
The generic criteria for patent law of “novel, non-obvious, and have utility” has been applied fairly liberally in the last couple of decades.
The "non-obvious" aspect is the most subjective and susceptible
to debate. I believe that this is all the poster was referring to. And
I agree it is not necessarily a slam dunk that the innovations in the
Iphone interface fit that criteria.
Go back to writing for your high school paper.
Jesus, the morons who are permitted to voice their unsubstantiated crap on the Internet is mind bobbling.
Everyone is entitle to his own opinion; no one is entitled to his own facts.
On Jan 21 07:53 PM MasterZ wrote:
> good god...apple thinks they invented everything.
>
> touch screen and the cute pinch/squeeze technique has been on phones
> for about 6 years.
I addition to all of the excellent points that Doug from Mt. View raised regarding your pathetically ignorant rant, your own post contradicts itself.
You start of your post with this gem:
<<AAPL is actually threatening to sue the competition over gimmicks that they claim they 'invented' when there is years and years of prior art saying they didn't>>
And then end your post with this one:
<<Good innovator - lousy competitor.>>
Tell me Colin, how can a company that rips off old "gimmicks" from the past also be a "good innovator"?
Quit talking out of your --s and go back to posting stuff you have experience in i.e. writing code for ORCL.
Keep on dreaming your dreams, it that's what makes you less miserable than you clearly are.
From Forbes.com
Apple Lets The Numbers Talk
Brian Caulfield, 01.21.09, 10:05 PM EST
The gadget and computer maker says little about Steve Jobs' health, Palm or netbooks on its earnings call.
Is Steve Jobs dying? Will Apple sue Palm? Will the Cupertino, Calif.-based phone and computer maker introduce a low-cost netbook to counter the hot-selling gadgets pumped out by Hewlett-Packard, Acer and Dell?
Apple (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) did little to address these questions on its quarterly earnings call Wednesday, letting stronger than expected sales and earnings speak for themselves amidst a quarter that wrecked much of the rest of the tech industry. Shares of Apple rose $7.62, or 9.2%, to $90.45 in after-hours trading.
Yahoo! BuzzNet income for the quarter rose to $1.78 a share, or $1.61 billion, from $1.16 a share, or $1.05 billion, during the year-ago period. That's 39 cents better than the $1.39 per share analysts had expected. Sales rose to $10.17 billion from $7.5 billion during the year-ago quarter. Analysts had expected sales of $9.7 billion. Adjusted for the effects of the subscription-based accounting scheme used to tally sales of iPhones, however, and Apple's numbers are even more impressive: Earnings of $2.3 billion on sales of $11.8 billion.
Apple sold 22.7 million iPods during the quarter. On the analyst call, however, Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer noted that all of that growth came from outside the United States, where iPod sales fell 3% year-over-year. Similarly, while Apple sold 2.5 million Macintosh computers, up 9% from the year-ago quarter, that growth came thanks to sales of notebook computers.
Desktop computer sales fell 25% from the year-ago quarter. Oppenheimer said that was in part because of a tough comparison to the year-ago quarter, which followed the introduction of new Macs, but also because consumers are snapping up notebook computers, rather than desktops, in greater numbers.
Apple sold 4.3 million iPhones, up 88% from the year-ago quarter.
Analysts also asked about the health of Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs, who is on medical leave through June. Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook described the company's employees as "wicked smart," and said Apple's values are "well entrenched."
"Regardless of who is in what job, those values are so embedded in this company that Apple will do extremely well," Cook said. "I strongly believe Apple is doing the best work in its history."
When asked about Palm (nasdaq: PALM - news - people ), whose new touch-screen phone offers many features first seen on Apple's iPhone, Cook said Apple will move aggressively to defend its patents. "I don't want to talk about any specific company," Cook said. "We will not stand for having our IP ripped off and we will use whatever weapons we have at our disposal, I don't know that we can be any more clear than that."
Asked about netbooks, Cook said they offer an "inferior" customer experience, but added that Apple is "watching" the category's development.
Visit The Forbes.com Digg ChannelApple's guidance was vague, although perhaps less so than usual. Oppenheimer said he expects sales of between $7.6 billion and $8.0 billion and earnings per share of 90 cents to $1 for the quarter ending in March. Those figures are well short of the earnings per share of $1.13 on $8.2 billion in sales investors are expecting, but Apple typically offers very conservative guidance.
People with limited intelligence and fractured imaginations will never get this right. Too bad.
Apple didn't invent online music stores.
Apple didn't invent the GUI.
Apple didn't invent OS X -- it's a shell on top of publicly-available BSD.
Apple didn't invent Safari or WebKit -- it's thinly-modified open-source software that they adopted and tweaked.
Apple didn't invent high quality phone web browsing -- Opera Mini was doing that for years.
Apple didn't invent much of anything that people keep lauding them for -- they just packaged it better.
Apple is certain to lose a "multi touch" lawsuit because they didn't invent that technology -- they were just the first to use it on a cell phone.
If Apple and its fans want to stay in the game, they should focus on coming up with new ideas -- not trying to take ideas they borrowed from other people and bullying competitors out of the marketplace in order to avoid competing.
The way for Apple to stay ahead is create an iPhone that can be a credible corporate tool, not just an expensive toy. Palm's created a phone that can be used for both personal and business use, that introduces lots of concepts Apple doesn't offer, and packaged it well.
Get to work building a competitive device, rather than threatening developers, customers, and competitors who want to move the industry forward. That's what innovation is all about.
Apple has a tool that works like Synergy?
Apple has a hardware keyboard and off-screen gestures?
Apple has a multitasking capability and application cards?
Apple allows you to send MMSes and record video out of the box?
Yeesh. iFanatics are running scared. That's good for the rest of the market, who want a good phone that is open and doesn't have Apple imposing hundreds of restrictions on users, developers, and customers.
On Jan 22 02:38 PM Tarpoon wrote:
> the PRE is a total ripoff of the Apple iPhone UI-flatout.
Here we go again. First M$ threatens tries to establish an extortion racket now Apple is trying to put in it's two cents. Good greif. My dislike of proprietary companies are justified now.
On Jan 21 07:53 PM MasterZ wrote:
> good god...apple thinks they invented everything.
>
> touch screen and the cute pinch/squeeze technique has been on phones
> for about 6 years.