Networking

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

Apple’s Android nightmare: Google’s Motorola purchase gets EU OK

By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols | February 13, 2012, 1:33pm PST

Summary: Apple has been doing its best to beat the snot out of Android in the courts with intellectual property lawsuits. Now, with Google purchase of Motorola Mobility, Android’s maker will have the patents it needs to retaliate.

Google's purchase of Motorola Mobility is looking like a sure thing and that spells trouble for Apple's Android lawsuits.

There are two major kinds of patent lawsuits. On the one side, there are the patent trolls, like Eolas making fundamental Web technology claims . Here, the idea is to use flimsy patents to collect hundreds of millions from the businesses that actually use ideas to make a product or service. Then, there’s what Apple has been trying to do to Samsung and other Android vendors: Sue them out of the marketplace. Apple’s not been successful at this, but that hasn’t stopped them from trying. Indeed, Apple is trying to block Samsung from selling the first Android Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) phone, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, in the U.S. Apple’s lawsuit happy ways may soon come to an end though. The European Union (EU) has cleared Google’s proposed purchase of Motorola Mobility.

Why would this make a difference? Because Google won’t have the patents it needed to fight Apple until its purchase of Motorola goes through. Getting permission from the EU was the deal’s biggest stumbling block. Now, it’s almost a sure thing. And, in this second class of patent lawsuits, where software patents are merely ammunition for business wars. Google needed the Motorola’s patent ammo to fight off Apple’s patent claims.

To be specific, while Google will get thousands of patents from the Motorola acquisition, eighteen of them are already being used by Motorola lawsuits against Apple. They cover technology essential to the mobile-device industry, including location services, antenna designs, e-mail transmission, touch-screen motions, software-application management and 3G data. The 3G wireless patents have already led to Apple no longer being able to sell some iPad and iPhone models in Germany.

Does Apple really want to face the chance of not being able to sell the forthcoming iPad 3 and its iPhones lines in the U.S.? Only if they’re idiots!

Unlike Apple, Google has shown that they’re willing to make patent peace instead of patent war. To make the EU happy, Google has pledged to license Motorola patents on ffair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms (FRAND) terms to other mobile manufacturers, even competitors, should the deal succeed. If Apple is smart, they’ll stop trying to sue Android out of the marketplace, adopt FRAND practices themselves for their IP, and put all their attention back into delivering the best possible products. Spending more time and money on anti-Android IP lawsuits looks more and more to be a losing game.

Apple gets kicked in the teeth by German patent lawsuit decisions

Can Apple really beat Android in the courts?

Apple’s Worldwide War on Samsung and Android

European antitrust regulators: Global patent battle could be ‘used as tool for abuse’

Google and Motorola Mobility: It’s all about the patents

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Google Inc., Patent, Apple Inc., Motorola Inc., Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, aka sjvn, has been writing about technology and the business of technology since CP/M-80 was the cutting edge, PC operating system

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

walterbyrd@... 16th Feb

>> Google 'stole' the concept by creating an Android that looked something like OS X on iPhone

No more than Apple stolde concepts from many other very successful devices. And since when is it illegal to "steal" a concept? Did Chevy rip-off Ford by putting the steering wheel on the left?

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

samalie 13th Feb

Or, Apple could accept the FRAND terms for licensing Motorola IP from Google, and still be an anti-competitive bastard with their patent portfolio.

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Seriously... This guy doesn't get it.. Lol..

theFunkDoctorSpoc 13th Feb

@samalie Apple's patents aren't part of any standard.. they'd don't HAVE to licence them fairly OR at all for that matter.. Apple is just getting the price down on Moto and Samsung patents.. in fact EU started an investigation into Samsung for Anti-trust for trying to licence some of its patents to Apple for unfair rates.. when your patents are part of a standard you are obliged under contract to do that.. Apple is under no such obligation..

Contrary to what SJV says.. I think this is what Apple has been dreaming of.. Since before Google didn't derive any revenue directly from Android
it couldn't sue Google directly because there were no dorect damages no with Google becoming an android manufacture there will be.. they can now sue Google directly..

Apple will NEVER enter into cross licensing agreements with these guys they will force Google to sell the licences at the FRAND rates as
They are ovligiged to be sold at and continue suing..

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

Peter Perry 13th Feb

@theFunkDoctorSpoc They have found no basis for going after Google or they would have tried to cut the head off the beast! Besides, they tried to go after Moro and that failed... not only did it fail, when Moto went back after them, the 3G devices got banned in Germany!

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

theFunkDoctorSpoc 14th Feb

@Peter Perry.. yeah, they got banned for an hour.. lol.. they are now happily back on sale..

Apple has found the right tactic.. 99% of these patents that these guys own are part of standard.. so as I said Moto, Samsung etc are obliged by law to licence these patents fairly and non-discriminatory or they will be investigated and fined like Samsung is on their way to being by the EU..

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204740904577194503316197864.html

Also Moto is trying to extract money from tech used on Qualcomm chips.. but there are in breach of their contract with Qualcomm because their licence is supposed to allow the users of Qualcomm chip to use them without having to licence them.. this is called exhaustion in the law.. if this wasn't there then we as users should all have to pay for use of this tech as well.. but we don't..

http://www.pcworld.com/article/249841/apple_files_complaint_against_motorola_in_us_to_prevent_iphone_4s_litigation.html

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Agree whole heartedly, Samalie

vulpine@... 14th Feb

@samalie: This is exactly what Apple has been suing Motorola for with the last several lawsuits.

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

danbi 14th Feb

@theFunkDoctorSpoc

It is not only Apple, but Microsoft and bunch others whose IP is infringed by Android code.

If Google were any good, they would have cleared that questionable code long ago..

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On the contrary, it is you who doesn't get it.

linux for me Updated - 15th Feb

@theFunkDoctorSpoc

Apple has started a war that that some one else is going to finish for them. It will be a pleasure to see Apple get slapped down a notch or two...they deserve it as those patents are found to be unenforceable due to prior art.

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

Chkaiban 13th Feb

@Samalie They cannot do that. If I read google's statement well the agreement must be from both sides for example if google license it's patent technology to Apple then Apple must do the samething to google

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

the.nameless.drifter Updated - 13th Feb

@Chkaiban

Then Googles going to get investigated by the EC, FRAND doesn't work like that, for things like 3G it has to license it doesn't have a choice

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

bigpicture 14th Feb

@Chkaiban Exactly, funk doc is talking out the wrong end, "fair and reasonable terms" can mean a lot of things including "if you want to licence my patents, you must agree not to sue any Android manufacturers. It does not need to be about money at all, it can be about marketplace behavior.

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

z2217 Updated - 13th Feb

The notion of infrastructure systems, the cell system and the Internet are examples, being used by and built out by many players whose products MUST work together or the whole thing fails is the basis for FRAND patents. When standards bodies define how these shared systems are to operate they must do so in a way that will let everyone play, otherwise these systems - which owe their value to the fact that everyone can build equipment that runs on them - would be essentially worthless. And so the industry, and importantly the courts, have determined that patents covering these systems and the devices that connect to them must be available to all on a Fair, Reasonable And NonDiscriminatory basis.

Developing something that is not part of a shared infrastructure is a different matter. Patents on ordinary (non shared infrastructure stuff) are grants of monopoly for a limited time to the inventors of new things.

The tablet and phone industry folks who did not invest in UI R&D, did not make the effort to build anything more than the old 'feature phone' junk foisted on the public by carriers for years, now complain they should have full and free access to the fruits of Apple development and innovation.

Google has simply copied iOS with Android, and they haven't even done a really good job of it. Where is the significant insight into how users interact with the connected data of the web? Where are the new, Google invented features, methods, ideas that "reinvent the phone" all over again?

Google is on track to reinvent the car with their self driving vehicles. Great! And when they do, they should have the right to monopolize and monetize their breakthroughs. But Google, Samsung, HTC and the rest should not claim some "free and unfettered right" to Apple's innovations.

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

boomchuck1 13th Feb

@z2217 Yeah yeah yeah. Apple invented the smartphone completely out of their own mind having never looked at anything that existed before. I guess they never saw a Palm, a Blackberry, or a Windows based phone or PDA. The smartphone is just a PDA that is also a phone. Springboard (I think that was the name) was doing that with Palm PDAs a long time before the iPhone came out. Did Apple do a better job with the iPhone than these other folks did? No doubt. But they built on other folks technology. My Palm had icons in a grid that you touched to activate. What a concept! And the whole 'reinvent' idea is pretty lame. Chevy and Ford didn't reinvent the car. All new technology is based on what has come before - tweak, refine, add new features, build on what others have devised.

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

gatormba2003 13th Feb

@boomchuck1 Very well said. I am so tired of the AAPL cultists incorrect statments that AAPL invented everything. All AAPL technology is just improvements of someone else's technology with much better marketing.

Steve Jobs was the best Marketer/Brainwasher in history.

For example, If AAPL is so innovative, why is IOS 5 just a bunch of Android enhancements?

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

smichael9@... 13th Feb

@boomchuck1
Absolutly right. I hate to admit it, but I still use my Palm Tungsten E2. It boots instantly, has a good screen and with Word, Excel and a data base on it, it's still a pretty useful device. OK, so it does lack a phone, but I use bluetooth to connect to my PC for email.
smichael9

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Tunnel vision much?

vulpine@... 14th Feb

@boomchuck1: You know as well as I do that Apple looked at these things, saw all of their drawbacks and said, "This stuff is crap!" How many of those things you mentioned are still in production today? The Blackberry is the only one, and its market is shrinking rapidly because of its ridiculous complexity. When you have to go through three or four steps just to answer your phone, you're asking for trouble.

No, Apple took their ideas, not their patents, and made something that was easy to use and as a result, attractive; I don't mean attractive in a 'style' sense either.

Still, Apple did have to use existing technologies for the phone capabilities and quite honestly they chose to use an already-licensed radio chip for their cellular connections. Antenna designs are quite literally constrained by the frequencies used and have to fall within certain sizes and shapes, though with the iPhone 4 and up (so far) the frame itself is the antenna system which should be exempt from any antenna patents that do (but shouldn't) exist.

Apple has changed the direction of phones world wide with the iPhone. Google 'stole' the concept by creating an Android that looked something like OS X on iPhone (now iOS). Had Google chosen to make it look different (maybe like Metro?) we probably wouldn't be seeing so much litigation today.

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

YetAnotherBob 14th Feb

@boomchuck1

Apple invents almost nothing. They are however good marketers. With the attacks on Samsung, I would predict that Apple will have some serious problems by this time next year. It seems that Samsung makes the screens that Apple is using, and they have Patents on them. Apple is covered, as long as they buy their screens from Samsung, but, with the current monopoly attempts by Apple of using vague patents that can be 'stretched to cover almost literally anything, and actually cover nothing, Samsung isn't in any mood to renew the current purchase agreements.

"Foist on his own petard" is the Phrase Shakespeare used to describe what is happening right now. Apple has angered many for it's legal shenanigans. It is entirely possible that in a year, Apple will not be allowed to sell in Europe or in the US. More likely, will be that losing the major lawsuits they have going on, with patents that don't really cover anything, Apple will be faced with owing the opposition for Millions of sales that are being improperly blocked. Since this was done diliberately, those costs will bear a triple indemnity. That could really hurt Apple.

Oh, and only a few of the patents cited against Apple are under the Standards umbrella. Motarolla has thousands to use. Apple is like SCO in this. The cracks are starting to appear in the roof of their imaginary structure.

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

MicroNix 13th Feb

@z2217, that was a long winded rant with nothing of substance. Apple did *not* invent the smart phone. Smart phones with icons on the screen to launch programs were around far before the iPhone. Web browsing? Ditto. Music playing? Ditto. Location based apps? Ditto. 3G data? Ditto. Texting? Ditto. Apps? Ditto.

Apple invented NOTHING. What they DID do was take existing tech, make it pretty, easier to use and wrapped an ecosystem around it. I guess Palm and Microsoft should have had their way with Apple back then. Now Apple is more evil than Microsoft at their worst. The global thermo nuclear attack failed and now it is returning to home base to leave a mushroom. With Motorola's IP, Google will be unstoppable as it shares these with its partners. Sammy, HTC, Moto and LG are all going to be able to tell Apple where to go. And Apple will be forced to update their 5 year old interface to compete.

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Do you really expect Google to share everything?

vulpine@... 14th Feb

@MicroNix: Now that they have their own mobile device manufacturing capability, they don't need to do anything more than share the raw OS with the other OEMs. I expect the Motorola devices to be far more reliable and effective once Google finishes building that wall around its garden.

Samsung is already looking at doing phones and tablets with their own mobile OS, HTC will stick to the bargain-basement market while LG will probably come out somewhere in the middle until they figure out quality is more important than quantity--as they have with most other devices they build.

Apple, meanwhile, will continue as it has and is likely to become the first to change computing as we know it.

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

YetAnotherBob 14th Feb

@Vulpine,

You seem to be confident in your ability to tell the Future. I would like to remind you of the famous quote from Yogi Berra "Prediction is hard, especially about the Future."

Apple's problem here is that they have taken on most of the consumer electronics industries. The patent clauses they are relying on all have a clause that said something like 'void if you sue us over anything.' Now, Samsung and HTC will come in with Google. Google meanwhile isn't even being sued. But, they will come in with their own patents from Motorola. Apple will be boxed into a corner.

The biggest problem for Apple is still to come.

Apple makes nothing. They buy the components, and then have them assembled. This leaves them terribly vulnerable. All Samsung and HTC and some others need to do is refuse to sell to them, and Apple is out of business. That is the problem with these sorts of processes. In lawsuits, only the lawyers win.

The Wright Brothers tried to sue Glen Curtis out of business until they ran out of money. They wound up selling their company to Curtis. Curtis-Wright is now a part of Grumman, I believe. It's an old story.

We just saw most of the wind up of the SCO attempt to dominate the market by lawsuits. When they got to court, a jury got to see it and there was nothing real there. Bye Bye SCO. That took only a day for the Jury to decide. Like the guy from Chicago who in Texas who tried to say that he 'owned' the entire internet. That one took the Jury only about an hour to decide. Over half of all patents are invalidated when they reach a Jury. That's because the Patent Office gives out patents for nonsense things. Like Apple's claim to have invented the that people are using, and were using 10 years before Apple began as a company.

It's called Prior Art, and it is the main reason that Apple will lose.

In Australia and Germany, the Judges did grant an order stopping the sale of Apples competitors products, based on arguments from Apples Lawyers, and from the fact, generally omitted on reports from Australia, that the Judge was married to the lawyer for Apple. But, when the cases were reviewed, those stays were lifted, because Apple has a lot of arguments, but no case.

It's all a stalling game now. When it ends, Apple will probably have what SCO and the Wright Brothers got out of it. They are suing their competitors, who are also their suppliers. Apple has nothing to replace the supply with. Nothing is what Apple will be left with in the end.

As Walt Disney said "Zippity Do Dah Zippity Yay".

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

MicroNix 13th Feb

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

business owner 14th Feb

@z2217

and what innovation is that? Steve jobs had been copying palm and motorola for years to get his first iphone done right. Do u think he's just going to give royalty to them out of his own goodwill? Everybody copies everybody, that's how they innovate.

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

walterbyrd@... 16th Feb

@z2217 Please feel free to tell us what you think Apple *invented* and that Google ripped off. Especially those "inventions" that Apple spent all the R&D dollars, and are completely original Apple ideas. Would you be surprised to learn that portable wireless devices, with color icons, touch screens, music players, kinetic scrolling, and more existed since 1992? Take a look at the Star7.

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

anonymous99 13th Feb

This is why the automobile invention hasn't changed over 100 years, and we are still running gas engine. Too much BS and little innovation and they all end up w/ greeds and stealing. They are just waiting for Chinese to steal all of their technologies and beat all of them out of China.

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

YetAnotherBob Updated - 14th Feb

@anonymous99

There is a real difference between a Model T Ford and a Toyota Prius.

The changes are incremental, but that is how things happen in the real world.

It is only rarely that something comes along that is truly new. Robert Goddard did that with his Liquid fueled Rocket. But, all rockets since then have been only improvements to Goddards rocket.

The same with computers. A British mathematician invented the modern form of a computer. That is why Computer Scientists call them Von-Neuman Machines.

Apple has NEVER had something that was truely new and unique. They made a computer using existing microprocessor chips, but so did several others at or before that time. The Apple and Apple II weren't the first computers, or even the first microcomputer. That would be the Altair.

They used a graphical interface, but graphical interfaces using 'mouse' pointing devices go back to 1966. Mac wasn't really an invention, it was just an adaption of already existing things. Others were already using each of these adaptions. Apple wasn't even the first to put these things all together.

Apple didn't invent the 'Smart Phone'. Palm did that. Palm added a phone to a PDA. That combination of a PDA and a phone is what the iPhone and the Android phone are. A PDA is after all just a pocket computer.

Apple didn't invent the PDA. Go did that in the mid 1980's. Apple did come out with it's Newton around 5 years later. Newton did sell better than the Go did, but not all that much better. Palm came out with it's PDA about 5 years after that, and for a couple of years made the Newton lose so much in sales that Apple canned it. The Newton was smaller and more portable than the Go. the Palm was just easier to use than the Newton, and also less expensive.

Apple didn't invent the touch screen either. They bought their touch screens from suppliers who were already making them for other purposes.

Apple didn't invent their iOS. They took a working Unix system from the University of California, and adapted it to put their own graphical shell on top of it. Unix systems had already been using graphical shells for a decade at the time.

All of this is known by the Lawyers defending all of these cases. Apple is up to their armpits in bovine excrement. It's called Prior Art. We can expect a lot of press releases that paint it all out for us, but when it gets to trial, the Jury will see that it's all just noise.

Apple knows this, so they will try to delay as much as possible. It's all they've got.

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

Nathan A Smith 13th Feb

Googorola got the DOJ's approval today too! Go Google!

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

symbolset 13th Feb

@Nathan A Smith I'm really excited about what Google can do here. What with their work on fiber to the premises, MotoMobi, Google TV and so on it looks like they're going to drag us into the future.

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

danbi 14th Feb

@symbolset

Google are good at one thing: promises

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

YetAnotherBob 14th Feb

@danbi

The Android lawsuits are not about empty promises. Apple is watching the sales of new products, and they know that their reign is over. Large scale patent lawsuits are a tactic for losers. Apple knows this.

Apple no longer makes anything. They only slap their label on it. And that's what you are buying, a label.

Apple as a manufacturer went out of business almost ten years ago.

Apples products are all based squarely on prior products by others. There is nothing that Apple has that was truly new.

Still, they could keep going, unless they upset their suppliers. Now, they are suing their suppliers.

The future isn't bright.

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

Peter Perry 13th Feb

I hope they make a super phone that blows up the market and they deliver on their $100 tablet promise!

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

Jesster 13th Feb

@Peter Perry

$100 tablet = piece of crap, especially with a google-eyed operating system

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

Peter Perry Updated - 13th Feb

@Jesster Unless it is heavily subsidized but that Google Eyed OS is 10x better yhan what iOS is able to deliver.

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

YetAnotherBob 14th Feb

@Peter Perry

The $100 tablet was the OLPC project. They never did hit that price point. The $100 price was only in lots of a Million or more.

Currently, the screens for these tablets are in the $70 range. There are computers that can come in at less than $40, so something close to $100 is possible. It might be Android, or it might be Meego, or WebOS, but it probably will be Linux based. It's just a question of what works that will run in those price ranges.

Recapping, I don't believe that Google or Motorola promised you a $100 tablet. Apple certainly hasn't done so. But that doesn't mean there won't be one. Prices are dropping. Wait a couple of years and see. Bottom usable that I see currently are around $200.

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

Heenan73 13th Feb

"All progress in science and technology has been achieved by standing on the shoulders of giants." - while Apple only sees progress as kicking giants on the shin. They may have fooled the fashionistas (not hard), but they won't fool history.

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

Jesster 13th Feb

Let us not forget it was Eric Schmidt that was on Apple's board stealing the ideas and the methodologies that allowed Google to copy what Apple was breaking new ground on. Sure it still took development R&D but the direction of that research was confidential and Steve Jobs trusted Mr. eShit to do his duty as a board member and not copy what Apple was already working on. "Do No Evil" is only a PR slogan for Google to cover the fact that they are the embodiment of eEvil. They want to have a database of everyone in the modern world that they can then sell to any bidder. I don't use any Google products, too bad because I did like YouTube, but find Tosh.O and yahoo to fill the gap very nicely.

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

eulampius 13th Feb

@Jesster
Sure, in your world the GNU bash shell as well as the Mac OSX userland are the inventions of the Joppsle Corp. Right.

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

danbi 14th Feb

@eulampius

The OS X is mostly BSD code. There are only few GNU things that are worth using.

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

MicroNix 13th Feb

@Jesster, Apple hasn't broken new ground with the iPhone since 2007. The last 2 iterations have incorporated existing Android features. Not the other way around. The only thing they've nurtured since 2007 is their iteration of the tablet.

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

danbi 14th Feb

@MicroNix

How did you know these were existing Android features and not something Apple spent years on developing?

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

KronJohn 13th Feb

@Jesster Let me know how Eric as just another share holding board member had any access to the inner workings of Apple. If he did... he would have gotten accused of insider trading and he's never been accused of that.

As it was, it's wasn't Apple itself, that wanted him removed, but Steve Jobs. But Eric remains a major share holding investor and had been taken out the iphone loop prior to 2006. Due to Google buying Android and later beginning work on Chrome Browser, because of conflict of wrongly portrayed conflict of interest. A board member such Eric (like Al Gore) is not really privy to top secret inner workings anyway. Because of then being subject to insider trading scrutiny!

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

msalzberg 13th Feb

@KronJohn

I don't think you understand what insider trading is. Industrial espionage is not insider trading.

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

KronJohn Updated - 14th Feb

@msalzberg No the Apple Board of Directors is made up of share holders and most are non-management members, who do not know the inner workings of the company. Hence not an Insider! This is what both Al Gore and Eric Schmidt were. Outsiders not involved in actual management of the inner workings of the company.

So "Insider Trading" is someone who either actually owns shares or has received a tip from actual management member who works in running a company. Who then subsequently makes a purchase or sells off a large amount of shares because of this inside knowledge for substantial financial gain.

This is only considered such when a company is publicly held, because "The Board" does not Run the Company and is only interested in Apple as share holders. That's how Steve could have Eric removed from knowing what the company was actually doing even though he was a major share holder. Because he was also a major share holder and CEO of a potential competitor. Who could not be privy to "Inside Corporate Management Information"!

And... buddy, it was well known and obvious in 2005 that Google was getting into the phone business when they bought Android OS!!!

http://money.howstuffworks.com/ceo1.htm

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How many of us believe SJVN's claim of a German ban on some iOS devices?

kenosha77a 13th Feb

Steven reports a German sales ban on some 3G iPad and iPhone models. As proof, he cites his own previous blog.

Everyone knows (except Steven) that a two hour sales ban was lifted upon a judicial repeal injunction against a lower court's ruling.

Sloppy reporting, Steven. Very sloppy.

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

KronJohn 13th Feb

Although they still need China's approval along with a few others, this is a major hurtle. Steven seems to be the only tech writer on the web with his head on semi-straight. Apple's Steve Jobs's threat of going Thermonuclear with weapons of destruction aren't doing so well. Unless you're reading asinine Florian Mueller's Orwellian 1987 "DoubleThink" Propaganda on his FOSS (what a misnomer that is) website.

We already know he's on Microsoft payroll doing a supposed FRAND Research project. But in that he has in essence admitted he knows very little by requesting info from us commoner's online. Yet it seems nobody really knows FRAND/RAND is really all about. They seem to think ETSI is there to only protect one member.... Apple. That's out of over 700 members all equal in a shared Standards Patent Pool of sorts.

The reality is that it's the members like Nokia, Motorola and Samsung that have pioneered the ETSI Standards that deserve protection for their R&D Investments in these Standards in the 1st place. Apple has no essential patents because they were created before Apple got into the mobile device business. The object of ETSI was to make sure that those companies that invest in creating those Standards were duly compensated for time and resources and rarely do they even come close to making back the Billions of Dollars they invest, that all members benefit in. That's what Moto and Samsung will prove!!!

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So you believe that charging one company ...

vulpine@... 14th Feb

@KronJohn: ... two to three times what every other company is 'due compensation' for the use of those patents. My friend, that's what FRAND is all about; to ensure every licensee pays an equitable, reasonable fee. Apple's lawsuits against Motorola (and conversely Motorola's against Apple) is that Apple refuses to pay any more to license the technology than any other company. Motorola says Apple flat refuses to license and Apple's counter-argument is that Motorola is charging discriminatory fees. It's as simple as that.

Apple's suits against Samsung are based on Samsung's industrial espionage (as Samsung is Apple's primary supplier, Samsung has an inside track on what Apple is developing) which has little, if anything, to do with patents themselves outside of interface technologies. Since Apple sets the specs for their devices, most companies have to wait until after Apple releases a device before they can determine those specs. Samsung doesn't, so is capable of meeting or beating those specs on release date. Apple's problem? Nobody else can, as yet, replace Samsung as their provider.

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

YetAnotherBob 14th Feb

@vulpine@...

You said "Apple's suits against Samsung are based on Samsung's industrial espionage (as Samsung is Apple's primary supplier..."

And there in lies Apples real weakness against Samsung. Samsung has the patents for the Hardware, inasmuch as there are patents for the Hardware.

If Samsung gets angry enough, they can cut Apple off from their hardware source. Apple will then have no better hardware than any Android vendor.

What will happen when Apple is not the best, but only another competitor for the bottom of the barrel?

Granted, you will still buy Apple, but there are only a few percent who feel that way.

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Apple's nightmare? Oh what a totally clueless imagination.

wackoae 13th Feb

Google owning Motorola totally opens up Google for Android litigation. They can no longer claim that they are "giving away" the OS. They will be making DIRECT $$$ with it.

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

Peter Perry 13th Feb

@wackoae If Apple could have gone after Google, they would have... They tried to go after Motorola and lost... they have no presidence to file that claim. Crud, to date they have found one, 1, piece of Android's software that violated their copyrights and the Gallery App was corrected.

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Your facts are kind of screwed up

wackoae 13th Feb

@Peter Perry
FACT: Apple hasn't sued Moto yet.
FACT: Moto sued the wrong "Apple" company in Germany ... reason why the so call injunction was overturned in less than 2 hrs.
FACT: Apple is not the only company who will be suing Google the moment they sign the papers.

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RE: Apple's Android nightmare: Google's Motorola purchase gets EU OK

KronJohn 14th Feb

@wackoae You certainly are true to your name. The reason the Apple was persuaded to convince a judge to temporarily lift the ban, was because Apple made a last moment offer of fees. Prior to that, Apple was claiming and still is claiming that they are not infringing. The infringement claims case had already been determined last November and the judge had given Apple until this date to settle or make an offer.

The ban will indeed go back into effect here shortly and there is nothing Apple can do about it. Especially suing Moto here on a case loss in Europe. Neither our courts or Apple can change that. If our courts get into what a court in another jurisdiction has determined it would be seen as meddling in the affairs of another country. This is just Apple grand standing and crying in public about the big bully Moto stepping on their toes!!! .....ain't going to happen!!!

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There's actually a BIGGER threat than Motorola's patents...

TheWerewolf Updated - 13th Feb

One of the major problems for Android is essentially the same one Microsoft has: they make the OS - everyone else makes the phones. That means not only a lack of consistency - but a 'disposable' mindset about the handsets themselves. So most Android phones gets slathered with the OEM's branding or the cellco's branding or both. Features are cut or odd semi-compatible features are added. You end up with a lot of choices and none of them are really great. The phone makes have no interest in upgrading to the newest version of Android because they'd rather you buy a whole new phone.. so upgrades are spotty and inconsistent.

With the acquisition of Motorola (assuming they'll stay in the phone manufacturing biz), Google just jumped over everyone. Now they can work with their own hardware engineers to make *definitive* Android phones that work end to end. It means Goog can get their ecosystem together because the other makers may not buy into it - but Motorola not only has no option - they can use it to sell the phones.

Microsoft is doing the same thing (sort of) with Nokia.

This should give us solid lines of premium phones for each of the three platforms.