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Comment by kbutler | Hacker News Reader

When Microsoft was dominant, it was eviscerated for the "embrace, extend, extinguish" approach to protecting its monopoly.

Apple shows every indication of being a much worse monopolist than Microsoft ever was. Apple seeks to control the whole stack and eliminate competition at every layer - from controlling the apps that can be installed, to restricting expansion and peripherals, to controlling the tools used to develop for the platform. They are also quite adept at "capturing the consumer surplus" using tiered pricing, etc., to maximize their profit.

The overreaching terms in developer agreements, very aggressive (and overreaching) patent lawsuits, and restrictive shrink-wrap licensing are all efforts to protect and extend their control.

TL;DR: Apple is not your friend.

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>very aggressive (and overreaching) patent lawsuits

I'm not going to disagree with you, but every time I hear people complain about Apple and patent lawsuits, I recommend the following: Watch the iPhone introduction video on YouTube. If you don't have time to watch the whole thing, skip to 3.40 in Part 1, and see the state of affairs, then watch at 4.00 in Part 2 [2]. Listen to the crowd reaction when Steve "Slides to unlock" for the first time in the world.

It doesn't matter who you are, or what your background is, nobody had ever seen anything like that before.

In my opinion, Apple clearly invented something "brand new" and they are defending the patents that have on that in court. What's wrong with that?

I don't think anyone can deny successful smartphones today have almost nothing in common with the phones at 3.40 in Part 1 [1], though they look and behave a hell of a lot like the one shown at 4.00 in Part 2 [2].

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5VTB7Lj_NA

2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VLb5XdxRm8

EDIT: I need to clarify: I'm not just talking about "slide to unlock" being brand new and patentable.. I'm talking about the whole phone..

I'm not sure that was the first slide to unlock, it certainly wasn't the first touchscreen device. http://www.androidcentral.com/apple-granted-patent-slide-unl...

I tried to like Apple, after receiving an Apple Tv 2, but it doesn't work seamlessly with anything else I own. As one co-worker put it "You need an Apple House for that."

I'm glad all the Apple fans have lovely walls in their garden, but I'm not hanging out there. I don't like them trying to patent me into hanging out there for trivial items like "slide to unlock", either. I don't even like slide to unlock! I much prefer just punching the physical button unlock my phone, but I guess that just means I'm old and you damn kids better get off my lawn.

Can you clarify in your video where it shows the similar slide-to-unlock as in the iPhone? I can't see that at all.

edit: qdog, I can't reply to this thread or your response, so I'm going to edit my comment with a link to an article with referencing the specific patent Apple applied for (and was granted) [1].

If you look at the diagrams, it is completely different than what is shown, as there is immediate visual response where there is none in this device... that is a key part of the patent (and requires a capacitive touchscreen).

[1] http://9to5mac.com/2011/10/25/slide-to-unlock-patented/

It's about the 4:00 minute mark. There isn't a slider bar graphic, but he has to slide left-to-right to unlock.

Apple products work well for a lot of people, I'm just not one of them, and I don't think having to 'slide to unlock' make my Android phone an iPhone clone. Nor is it the type of thing that should be patentable, imho. It'd be like he first company to have a link to a web browser on the main phone screen patenting that concept, it's a pretty obvious idea once you have a phone.

Nothing in that video invalidates the patent in question. If you're going to claim that the patent is bogus, you should read the patent first, understand what is actually being claimed, and then if you want to show prior art, specifically show which claims are being undermined.

Near as I can tell, you guys think that anything that vaguely resembles the representation of what the patent covers (which usually isn't correct in the first place-- Amazon didn't patent a "one click" at all) -- counts as prior art. Someone once told me that the movie 2001 is prior art! (If you know anything about patents, you know that a movie can never be prior art, except maybe about a movie technique. A movie is a fictional representation of an idea, not an invention that has been reduced to practice.)

I claimed that this device already had "slide to unlock", I didn't specifically say it invalidated the patent. I don't believe the patent should have been granted in the first place for a few reasons.

A dutch court, however, has said this invalidates Apple's patent.

In my opinion, just adding a 'graphic' to the slide to unlock is bullshit. There's any number of ways to slightly alter slide to unlock, add a ding, whatever, do you think they all deserve government monopoly status? I don't.

The patent from 2001 is a design patent, and I'm not a lawyer, so I won't say whether it will be invalidated. I don't really see anything clearly patentable in the idea of a touchscreen device with rounded corners. I used to have one of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compaq_Concerto back in 1993.

I'm not a lawyer, I don't try patent cases, I don't intend to. These may be perfectly valid patents in the current system, but I don't agree with the system. I make no claims as to validity or invalidity WITHIN THE CURRENT SYSTEM.

re: edit

That article shows the same device, and quotes a dutch ruling that it invalidates Apple's patent. Whether it gets invalidated is kind of a moot point to me, I don't think it should have been patentable.

It does not follow.

- nobody in the world had seen anything like the entire package that was the iPhone 1.0. It was a fabulous and revolutionary package, and Apple was rewarded with a massive crowd reaction and huge profits.

However, I bet there were people in that crowd that had seen some of those features before: slide to unlock, multi-touch et cetera. However, they were probably cheering just as loud as the rest. It's often more exciting to see something done well that previously sucked than it is to see something brand new.

Wrong. Slide to unlock is everywhere. Nearly all portable CD players had a physical sliding unlock button.

Just because Apple rendered this functionality in a touchscreen doesn't mean they "invented" the concept of slide to unlock. The patent is completely bogus as is all software patents.

Here we go again ... "When Microsoft was dominant..."

Microsoft IS dominant. 90% desktop market share.

Apple doesn't have anything near a monopoly. The iPad is the closest thing because they have 70% of the nascent tablet market. Android is here and strong and Microsoft will be joining with a respectable product later this year.

I could go on but this is really a pointless endless debate.

Looks like Apple has a monopoly on the selling a lot of stuff category.

I joined Apple in 1987, when they were in a panic because margins on their hardware were slipping from 60 percent to 50 percent. The PC was starting to eat their lunch.

Apple recovered by making products they could sell at high margins again (with comparatively little overhead in engineering, I might add).

They still suck at stuff outside the area of consumer botique computing. It's a huge market, but it's not the whole market by any stretch.

I agree with almost everything you say here except:

How is Apple "controlling the tools used to develop for the platform". I am using AppCode for iOS application development and it works just fine.

>Apple shows every indication of being a much worse monopolist than Microsoft ever was.

Difference being, they don't have a monopoly in any area with the possible exception of music players. They have a minority market share in every other product they ship, so the consumer has a ton of choices. If Apple had Google's Search dominance in smartphones, then it would be an issue. As it is, if you don't like Apple, don't buy their products.

You say Apple "shows every indication of being a much worse monopolist." This is a flawed argument because Apple is not a Monopoly in any product line except the iPod.

If they become a monopoly in Phones or Computers , they will properly be restrained legally from certain aggressive actions.

hey guess what. Microsoft sucked. If suddenly every Linux laptop anywhere in the world turned into a Microsoft laptop, there would be a howl of pain from all corners of the world.

If suddenly every Linux laptop anywhere in the world turned into a MacBook, everyone would smile quietly and start configuring it.

If suddenly every Linux laptop anywhere in the world turned into a MacBook, everyone would smile quietly and start configuring it.

Lies. If my Linux laptop turned into a Macbook Pro, I'd reformat it and turn it back into a Linux laptop. I used to think that Apple maintained a dichotomy between their iOS arena and their OSX arena. iOS was locked down and OSX was more open. But the introduction of the app. store for OSX, and the pressure placed upon software developers to sell through that app. store shows me that Apple does not draw a distinction between iOS and OSX. It appears that the openness of OSX is a historical artifact, and that if they could get away with locking down OSX as much as they lock down iOS, they would.

"If my Linux laptop turned into a Macbook Pro, I'd reformat it and turn it back into a Linux laptop" -- in other words, exactly what I said.

And then you would end up with a rocking Linux macbook. There are bussinesspeople that run windows on their macbooks, just because it's such great hardware.

>pressure placed upon software developers to sell through that app

To be fair, I haven't heard of any pressure at all. It's just a very nice platform to ALSO distribute through, as it handles updates far better than many other platforms.

You certainly can distribute outside of that.

"If suddenly every Linux laptop anywhere in the world turned into a MacBook, everyone would smile quietly and start configuring it"

I have call BS on this.

As someone who uses all three - and made the switch from Windows to Mac - the whole meme of "it just works" or "is simply superior" is a load of crap.

Mac are fine products. The physical design is nice. The trackpad is definitely top-notch. The keyboard? meh. The display? meh.

The OS? least impressive of all. It's fine once you get used to it but I have had as many problems getting the Mac OSX to work with stuff as I ever did with Windows or Linux. Sure - it's a different set of problems, but Mac OSX most definitely doesn't "just work".

All OSes are good at some things, great at some things and are complete and utter junk in other ways.

You just pick you poison learn to live with it.

you and your sibling post reply as though I said "turned into OS X." BUt I didn't. I said "turned into a macbook".

which is the difference between microsoft and apple.

Maybe I'm being dense :-) but I must be missing your point..

How would a macbook not imply OSX? Have you tried to buy a macbook without also buying OSX at the same time? Not seeing distinction you are making between MS and Apple..

I guess if you're including "installing a new OS" within the scope of "configuring" then maybe I get it.

Even for the tech-savvy among us I think referring to installing a new OS as "configuring" is a bit of a stretch :-)

But I won't argue that the macbook hardware is solid.

right, the point is that the macbook hardware is really OK. Microsoft Windows in the workplace is NOT really OK. That's the big difference between Apple creating a walled-off Eden and Microsoft creating a walled-off Hell in the 90's. They get treated differently (by us etc) not because the walled-off monopolistic behavior is different, but because one is solid, and one is hell...

"one is solid, and one is hell"

I guess that's the crux of where we disagree.

I think both Apple products and Microsoft products have their strengths and their weaknesses. Both are solid in many ways and both are hell in other ways.

MS products work really well for a lot of people. Nothing wrong with that.

Mac's really resonate with some people. That's fine too. I'm not one of them.

You're right, Windows DOES work really well for a lot of people. The Microsoft hate doesn't come from these people. In surveys, Microsoft is deemed "competitive", "best-in-class" and so on (by the masses). But the tech who have to administrate it prefer Linux. Windows caused them some huge headaches in the nineties. Now, starting about 2002 a lot of these same Linux-using tech guys switched over to Macs as a Unix. As Apple grew and grew, it did not completely piss off these same people. Now the Mac is becoming walled-off, but Apple gets a pass from these same sys admin type people where Microsoft doesn't.

I agree with you that Windows means huge productivities for millions of businesses, and also that Macs really resonate with huge numbers of people, also millions. I also agree with the reason we're coming to an explanation, which is that Apple seems to get a pass on monopolistic behavior that we (tech people) railed on in the nineties. My attempt is to try to explain part of that.

It doesn't matters what one do, but where he is doing it from.

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