A Samsung Electronics designer testified on Tuesday that she didn’t copy Apple when creating the icons for the Galaxy line of products.“Not at all,” senior user experience designer Jeeyuen Wang said, through an interpreter.
Oh, okay then, let’s just cancel this trial and move on.
After writing about how iPads and YourTeacher helped raise math scores by 49%, I decided to speak with YourTeacher CEO Charlie Hermes to find out more about his company, and what it’s like to publish textbooks on the iBookstore. […]
Global BlackBerry sales tumbled 43 percent last quarter as RIM’s aging lineup of devices failed to match the consumer appeal of Android phones and Apple’s iPhone. BB10 will change RIM’s fortunes, Heins said today.“We’re here to win,” he said. “We’re not here to fight for third or fourth place.”
Maybe RIM is tired of Samsung getting all the attention and says stupid things to turn things around.
Handy.
Great article from Daniel Eran Dilger at AppleInsider.
Davin O’Dwyer for the Irish Times talking about his experience with a Samsung phone:
All the time I had it, I kept wondering who at Samsung let this thing out the door? Did anybody actually use it before it was released? And if so, what kind of contempt for their user did they have?Five minutes with that phone would have the jury awarding full damages to Apple, no doubt about it.
I love the Irish.
Florian Mueller on Apple’s victory in excluding the President of Samsung Telecommunications America, Dale Sohn. Samsung said Sohn “may testify regarding Samsung’s innovative technology and products,” but that wasn’t their original position:
An even bigger issue is that Samsung allegedly “fought tooth-and-nail to prevent Apple from taking Mr. Sohn’s deposition”, and in doing so, Samsung argued that Apple failed to show that Mr. Sohn had any unique “first-hand material knowledge”. Samsung had even denied that he had any “personal knowledge that is relevant to this case” and any “relationship to the accused products or the patents-in-suit other than [his] place atop Samsung’s organizational hierarchy”. The court finally granted an Apple motion to compel Mr. Sohn’s testimony, but was granted only three hours, which Apple considered insufficient, and only so late in the game that Apple was deprived of the opportunity to “to conduct any follow-up discovery in connection with [Mr. Sohn’s testimony]”.
Technologies the company has adopted protect Apple customers’ content so well that in many situations it’s impossible for law enforcement to perform forensic examinations of devices seized from criminals. Most significant is the increasing use of encryption, which is beginning to cause problems for law enforcement agencies when they encounter systems with encrypted drives.“I can tell you from the Department of Justice perspective, if that drive is encrypted, you’re done,” Ovie Carroll, director of the cyber-crime lab at the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section in the Department of Justice, said during his keynote address at the DFRWS computer forensics conference in Washington, D.C., last Monday. “When conducting criminal investigations, if you pull the power on a drive that is whole-disk encrypted you have lost any chance of recovering that data.”
Matthew Panzarino:
The patents were apparently licensed to Microsoft with an “anti-cloning agreement” in place in order to stop Microsoft from turning out copies of the iPhone and iPad. Samsung and Apple have, notably, met several times to discuss licensing patents, but the design patents covering the ‘user experience’ of Apple’s tablets and phones were, according to Samsung, not on the table.
Nice, an anti-cloning agreement.
There are some people that believe that Apple’s lawsuit against Samsung is all about rectangles and that Apple has no right to sue based on that criteria. That’s just false and I think I’ve found a way to explain it so everyone can understand. […]
Ben Brooks questions about and Samsung’s design teams were funny.
In October 2010, Apple offered to license its portfolio of patents to Samsung provided the Korean company was willing to pay on the order of $30 per smartphone and $40 per tablet.
Nicklas Lind put together a nice list with pics. Seriously, it shouldn’t be this easy folks.
Bryan Bishop for The Verge:
During cross-examination, Samsung attorney Kevin Johnson attempted to discredit Balakrishnan, first by trying to insinuate that two slides presented by Apple were incorrect. In fact, the images Johnson showed featured representative stills from a video the slides actually contained; the video itself was consistent with the labeling and testimony. Johnson then challenged Balakrishnan by giving a live demonstration of a 7-inch Galaxy Tab that didn’t incorporate the bounce-back feature — while neglecting to mention what operating system or skin it was running. He followed it up with a video that he said proved the Galaxy Tab 10.1 didn’t use the feature either. Unfortunately for Johnson, Balakrishnan had to point out that in the video the user wasn’t actually scrolling to the end of the web page in question — a requirement to trigger the feature in the first place.
The only reason you would do this is if you’re guilty.
According to Samsung these are nothing alike: […]
Most important are the designer’s statements regarding the handset’s design inspiration, which she claims came from a bowl of water and not from any Apple patents.
I would have guessed a bucket of shit, but okay.
Horace Dediu:
What is surprising is that the overall sales volume is not growing. At least for the products catalogued (which exclude the Note) growth for the last four quarters has been: 5%, 34%, 31%, -53%. These are in stark contrast to the iPhone pattern shown in the outline bars behind Samsung’s.
Interesting article from Horace.
Samsung could face penalties from the U.S. District Court in Northern California after one of its lawyers involved in the patent battle against Apple admitted that she hadn’t file the paperwork necessary to practice law in front of the court.
Samsung’s lawyers haven’t been impressive so far.
Documents filed by Samsung lawyers on Thursday reveal that from June 2010 through June 2012 Samsung sold 21.25 million phones, generating $7.5 billion in revenue. On the tablet side, the company sold 1.4 million Galaxy Tab and Galaxy Tab 10.1 devices, producing $644 million in revenue.
That doesn’t seem like a lot of sales to me. Maybe most of their sales are international.
Eric Slivka:
But a source has now revealed to MacRumors that Apple’s retail stores have been given authorization to match these discounted prices from approved major retailers and carriers.
I never thought Apple would do that, but good for the consumer that wants to purchase from an Apple retail store.
Ilya Birman sent this to me today. It’s a sign in Russian, but translated. Clearly people aren’t confused about things. Definitely not.
Mike Beauchamp defines “Benchmarking” and “copying” for Samsung.
South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co said on Thursday it has not considered acquiring Research In Motion or licensing the embattled BlackBerry phone maker’s new mobile operating system.
I don’t know, buying RIM and using the software in its devices might be a good idea for Samsung, especially if it loses the lawsuit that Apple brought against it.
My latest Techpinions column:
Samsung contends that Apple doesn’t own the right to putting a receiver on an icon to indicate that it’s used for making a phone call. Samsung fans also argue that Apple can’t patent a rectangle. These arguments don’t get to the heart of the matter, which is the blatant copying of everything Apple is doing.
After Apple introduced evidence that clearly shows how Samsung purposely copied its iPhone, Samsung released the following statement:
“Samsung benchmarks many peer companies,” she said. “In fact, these are typical competitive analyses routinely undertaken by many companies in many industries – including Apple. Samsung stands by its culture of continuous improvement and innovation. We are very proud of the product innovations driven by our more than 50,000 designers and engineers around the world who have made Samsung’s products the products of choice.”
It’s doesn’t say, but I’m guessing the Samsung rep didn’t say that with a straight face.
Ars Technica:
Google’s search app for iOS is about to become more Siri-like. The app, which already allows users to enter search terms via voice, will soon gain the ability to better understand your intent—that is, what you actually mean with all those extraneous words coming out of your mouth. Google announced on Wednesday that the feature will be available “soon” for iPhone and iPad.
Big advantage of this Google “version” is that it will be available on the iPhone 4.
Ars Technica’s Jon Brodkin has a nice article showing us what Samsung’s phones looked like before and after the iPhone was released. Surely the most hardened Apple critic can have no doubt how badly they were ripped off.
Verizon Wireless Tuesday revealed that there are five additional data tiers over and above the six tiers announced with its Share Everything plans earlier this summer.
Starbucks is investing $25 million in Square, and will soon process all of its credit and debit card transactions through Square.
I would love to be in a strategy meeting with these two companies. Sit back with a keg of Heineken and just watch them fumble their way through a day of meetings.
Actually, you better make that two kegs.