Edible Apple

iMore has an interesting post up detailing how Samsung deciding to copy a market leader isn’t really all that new.

No one can look at Samsung’s mobile products over the last decade and not consider them anything other than a ruthless, relentless copy of everything popular that’s came before. It’s not that Samsung doesn’t continuously push the limits of hardware specifications and capabilities as much if not more than anyone else. They do. But they do so by systematically, institutionally copying what other vendors have already done first.

Samsung does it to such a degree, and with such a consistency, that it’s flabbergasting they can show up in court, swear an oath, and claim anything otherwise. Now they could claim it doesn’t matter, that all phones and tablets and icons should look alike, and would be understandable as a strategy. But claiming they don’t copy? Absurd.

Indeed, you might recall a little product called the Samsung BlackJack which not only sounded similar to BlackBerry, but looked remarkably similar as well. Oh, and whadya’know, RIM actually sued Samsung as a result, forcing them to change the name in the process – though the design was kept as-is.

And while there are no shortage of photos detailing the extent to which Samsung copied the iPhone, here are some you may not have seen before.

Absolutely shameless.

Even if you can rationalize “a black slab is a black slab” it’s impossible to rationalize “a yellow flower on blue background icon for photos is a yellow flower icon on blue background for photos”, or “the shape of AC adapters, dock cables, and desktop computers are…” well, you get the idea. Even if you can dismiss individual instances as coincidences, when taken as a whole, it’s impossible to dismiss the depths of Samsung’s unoriginality as anything other than blatant, bold-faced copying.

It’s a common thread of conversation these days, in the context of Apple’s litigation with Samsung, to claim that Apple is abusing the patent system. Or as a Samsung attorney seemed to imply, that Apple is trying to patent rounded rectangles.

To that end, it’s really hard to not see the overt infringement committed by Samsung – in our humble opinion. And sure, you can look at each one of Apple’s claims in isolation and construct an argument that Apple is being petty and their case has no merit, but what one really has to do is look at all of the alleged infringing claims together. A phone is a final product, an amalgamation of a number of features, and that’s how claims of infringement should be analyzed.

That said, Jim Darlymple over at The Loop has an apropos analogy wherein he compares Samsung’s infringement to copyright infringement in music.

If there’s a hit song on iTunes right now, is it okay if I learn how to play that song, copy down the lyrics and release the exact same song? Everyone would say no, that’s not okay. Even the most ardent Samsung supports would be aghast if they heard their favorite song copied and re-released.

But why? A song is just a collection of notes and words. What’s stopping me from taking those same notes and words and releasing a song? After all, musical notes and words are free for anyone to use, so copying that song and making a lot of money from should be just fine.

Except it’s not. What you would be copying is the way those notes and words were put together to create a song.

The iPhone and iPad are Apple’s songs. In fact, it could be said that Apple even created a few new instruments along the way.

Samsung didn’t just copy rectangles from Apple. They copied years of research in how to put together a hardware and software design that is new and fresh. It wasn’t done before and people loved it.

Using the music analogy, Apple had two blockbuster hit songs and Samsung stole them, note for note. That’s not right.

Amen.

Steve Jobs’ Palo Alto home was burglarized a few weeks ago, with thieves taking upwards of $60,000 worth of computers and personal items. Since then, authorities arrested a suspect named Kariem McFarlin for committing the crime.

Mercury News reports:

McFarlin, who remains in county jail on $500,000 bail, could face a maximum prison sentence of seven years and eight months, including a one-year enhancement for “excessive taking of property,” Flattery said. He is slated to return to court Aug. 20 to enter a plea.

Bay Area cities have seen double-digit jumps in burglaries during the first half of the year. Police in Palo Alto attributed the city’s 63 percent increase to unlocked doors and windows. A “Lock It or Lose It” campaign launched earlier this year seeks to change that behavior.

The report adds that McFarlin likely did not know whose how house he was burglarizing.

“The best we can tell is it was totally random,” a police offer explained.

Oh Samsung, your sneakyness knows no bounds! Well okay, they’re not exactly being sneaky, but Samsung’s legal team always seems to be up to something, with Samsung Attorney John Quinn’s actions regarding the Sony-iPhone issue being a prime example.

Apple just recently finished making its case against Samsung and now the Korea-based electronics giant will have the floor to make its case against Apple, or rather, discredit Apple’s arguments.

But before that, Samsung filed a motion with the Court arguing that the entire case should be dropped, alleging that Apple had failed to adequately make a case upon which a judgement of infringement could be rendered.

Naturally, US District Court Judge Lucy Koh didn’t agree.

Ina Fried reports for All Things D:

Judge Lucy Koh heard about an hour’s worth of arguments from the lawyers on both sides before ruling that the documents and testimony presented by Apple were enough to form the basis for a reasonable jury to find infringement.

Apple is seeking approximately $2.75 billion in damages from Samsung on account of its patent infringement across a multitude of Android-based smartphones.

With so many leaked iPhone parts floating around these days, it was inevitable that we’d eventually see an assembled pre-production iPhone 5 built out of repair parts. Case in point – the photo above which leaked to the web just last week.

What’s more, we even have this video which purports to show the iPhone 5 housing.

With so much information about the iPhone 5 in tow, industrial designer Don Lehman took a look at a few of the leaked photos and discussed the benefits Apple will attain from what appears to be a unibody iPhone 5 body.

The same properties that unibody designs give to Apple’s laptops apply to this design as well: stronger, lighter, and thinner. You can see from this picture the tool path of the CNC machine that made the unibody backplate of this design. The tool path sort of looks like the lines that are made when a farmer plows a field. This started out as a single block of metal and the CNC carved that metal out until you have what you see here.

You can also see the bosses (screw attachment points) that are part of this unibody backplate. Those aren’t separate pieces — those are part of that same unibody piece. They are the most important detail of this design. Having those bosses integrated into the material allows for the part to be stronger, thinner, and lighter. It condenses several parts into one better part.

Check out much more of his analysis over here at The TechBlock

Legendary Apple alum Andy Hertzfeld, who now works for Google, posted an interesting link on his Google+ recently highlighting a rare commercial Apple created in honor of the first Mac. The ad was designed by Chiat-Day and includes interesting snippets about the Mac from the design team. Notably, Hertzfeld notes that the commercial never made it to air because Apple deemed it to be too “self-congratulatory”, while noting it did make its way into some promotional materials sent to dealers way back in the 80’s.

Some interesting cameos to be seen, including of course Hertzfeld who said, “”We were just trying to make something incredibly great, and I think we did.”

A young Burrell Smith, touted as a Macintosh Hardware Wizard kicks things off by explaining, “We designed the Macintosh really because we wanted one for ourselves and we couldn’t get one and Apple turned  it into a product to turn the whole world onto what we got.”

Interestingly enough, Apple executives to this day continue to parrot that sentiment that was so apparent even back in the 1980s – designing products that “we our selves would like to use.”

George Crow, the Manager of Analog Design on the original Mac chimes in: “It had to be easy to manufacture, it had to be very reliable because we didn’t want our customers to ever have to worry about it failing. And it had to cost roughly 1/4 of anything I’ve ever designed before.

And Apple fellow Bill Atkinson adds, “Demonstrating the Macintosh is the only way to do it. i can’t really describe it to you in words, but if i can get you to sit in front of it and play with it , you won’t let go of it.”

With a keen interest in technology, at least when measured against other late night hosts, Conan O’Brien last week had a little bit of fun at Samsung’s expense with a video featuring a fictitious Samsung executive trying to explain away the oh so important differences between Apple’s iPhone and iPad and Samsung’s allegedly infringing products.

Tech humor done for the mainstream fails more often than it succeeds, but this one is pretty good with clever references to Samsung “smart guys” and our personal favorite, Stevan Jobes.

Enjoy.

Citing one of their trusted sources at AT&T, BGR is reporting that AT&T is already taking measures to prepare for an iPhone 5 launch sometime during the third or fourth week of September with an “all-hands-on-deck policy in place for employees that will extend through to the middle of October.”

This of course coalesces with a slew of previous reports which have all pointed to an iPhone 5 special event set for September 12 and a full scale launch of the device on September 21. Earlier today we relayed a report from iMore which noted that pre-orders for the iPhone 5 will open up on September 12th with a full scale international launch of the device set for early October.

With a rumored 4-inch screen and 4G LTE support, the iPhone 5 is likely to result in Apple’s biggest iPhone launch yet.

via BGR

With the iPhone unveiling and pre-orders just about a month away, according to the most recent rumors, MacRumors has an interesting story detailing a rash of layoffs that are reportedly sweeping through some Apple retail stores.

Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve been receiving reports that Apple has been laying off a number of recently-hired staff members at its retail stores. Most of the reports have been coming from Apple retail employees in the United Kingdom, but several of these reports claim that similar actions are taking place at stores around the world. We’ve also been receiving reports of long-term cutbacks in hours for part-time staff in the United States and Canada.

One report in particular received by MacRumors details how three distinct training groups at a UK Apple retail store were all let go just this week. Further, the site also claims to have received word that retail employees in North America are having their hours cut back rather significantly.

Check out the full scoop over here.

When Apple executive Phil Schiller took the stand in early August as part of the ongoing Apple-Samsung litigation, Apple’s Senior VP of Worldwide Marketing explained, in part, how Apple decided to throw caution to the wind and start developing the original iPhone.

There were many things that led to the iPhone at Apple. We were searching for what to do after iPod that would make sense. If we can make the iPod, what else can we do?

Schiller explained that some of the ideas thrown out there by Apple employees were as far ranging as a camera, a car, and an assortment of other “crazy stuff.” Naturally, though, a smartphone made the most sense.

“We realized at the time cellphones weren’t any good as entertainment devices,” Schiller explained. And coupled with Apple’s previous work on a multitouch tablet, everything converged into what would ultimately become the iPhone.

But what if things transpired differently? What if Apple decided to really go for broke and develop a car. What in the world would that even look like.

Who’s to say, but maybe this how the front door would be designed.

Funny stuff.

After a chorus of reports pointing to an Apple special event on September 12 comes word from Rene Ritchie over at iMore that pre-orders for the iPhone 5 will open up for business on September 12, to be followed by a full scale launch on September 21.

Ritchie also adds that the international launch of the iPhone 5 is scheduled to commence during the first week of October, with October 5 being a likely candidate.

The information on Apple pre-orders comes from sources that have provided iMore with accurate iPhone related launch dates in the past. The information on the international launches comes from sources that have provided our network, Mobile Nations, with accurate information in the past.

While iPhone events and pre-orders haven’t always occurred at the same time, last year Apple introduced the iPhone 4S on October 4, 2011, and made pre-orders available the following Friday on October 7. This year, it sounds like they’re being even more aggressive.

Random thought regarding iPhone launch dates – we all know that the iPhone 4S launch was pushed back to October last year due to technological glitches that took Apple some time to work out. It marked the first time Apple did not release a new iPhone model during the Summer months. Last year’s launch went down on October 12 and with the iPhone 5 set to launch on September 21, is it possible that Apple is slowly but surely pushing back the release date for future iPhone models closer to the Summer months? In other words, maybe the iPhone 6 will launch sometime in early September and before you know it, the iPhone x will be launching in late July.

This weekend we reported on how Apple, before it initiated its suit against Samsung, offered a licensing deal to Samsung that would have seen the Korean-based electronics giant fork over $30 per smartphone sold and $40 per tablet sold. Interestingly, the licensing terms proffered by Apple also included a number of “bonuses” whereby Samsung could lower its royalty rate, for example, by choosing to cross license its own patents to Apple.

Obviously, Samsung didn’t agree and litigation ensued a few months later.

Today, as the Apple-Samsung dispute rages on, Apple’s patent licensing director Boris Teksler disclosed an interesting nugget of information. As it turns out, the good folks over at Microsoft entered into a licensing agreement with Apple for a number of their iPhone related patents.

Reuters reports:

Apple’s decision to license its design patents to Microsoft was consistent with its corporate strategy, Teksler said, because the agreement prohibited Microsoft from manufacturing copies.

“There was no right with respect to these design patents to build clones of any type,” Teksler said

Teksler testified that Apple offered a clutch of patents for licensing but, crucially, viewed patents related to what he called the “unique user experience” as a highly protected category.

Those included design patents at issue in the lawsuit, covering the look and feel of the iPhone and iPad. Teksler told jurors last week he could count on “on one hand” the instances Apple has licensed those patents.

“There was no right with respect to these design patents to build clones of any type,” Teksler said.

What we don’t know, however, is just how much Microsoft is paying Apple for these licensing rights. We’d venture to say, though, that it’s a tad lower than the $30/$40 offer initially made to Samsung.