Why Apple Is Suing Every Android Manufacturer In Sight

First time accepted submitter amiller2571 writes "The eyes of the technology world are focused on the epic patent struggle between Apple and Samsung — the latest iteration of Apple's frantic legal battle against everything Android. The iPhone maker has also brought suits against Android device manufacturers HTC and Motorola. Apple has faced criticism for its endless lawsuits designed to stunt competition from Google's Android, but a quick look at Android device shipments in the second quarter of 2012 reveals a key number that suggest Apple is right to worry." Spoiler alert: the number the article focuses on is 68 — as in, the 68 percent of the smart phone market in this year's second quarter that consisted of Android phones.

Repeat of SCO

[unics]

Didn't we go through this already?....oh yeah:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120807133033596 [groklaw.net]

Re:When Domination Isn't

[Anonymous Coward]

Samsung alone has been outselling the iPhone for a while, which is why Apple is desperately trying to crush them in particular.

Re:When Domination Isn't

[cheesecake23]

68% of the market is occupied by almost all the other smart phone companies put together. In other words, they're all tiny minorities. The iPhone rules.

Umm, no. If you had actually RTFA, you would have seen that the iOS market share in the same quarter was only 17% (RIM, Symbian, Windows, make up the rest). I'm pretty sure one or two of the major Android suppliers (Samsung? HTC?) can match that 17% figure all by themselves.

(But yes, this was measured in Q2 - expect iOS to do much better in Q4 when the next model is released. Also, matching Apple's smartphone *profits* is a different story.)

Sorry, you're wrong

[marx]

From the article:

IDC notes that Samsung was responsible for 44% of all Android devices shipped. That equates to 46.11 million devices, or about 20 million more than the iPhone.

I.e. Samsung alone shipped almost twice as many smartphones as Apple.

Re:Repeat of SCO

[Dyinobal]

Not just with SCO but with apple itself back during the personal computer era. Originally apple was making a killing in the market then people started making clones and PCs and apple was suing everyone they could get their hands on rather than innovating further. Eventually they became a small niche computer that they were prior to the iPod boom.

Now it would seem history is repeating itself in the phone market, with apple creating only high end, super pricey, super locked down phones and suing anyone who even puts a touchscreen on a phone. I give them another ten years of being relevant max if they don't come up with something new instead of just suing them. I'm not saying they will close down shop or anything just that they will under go the same shrinkage that happened back during the PC era

Re:Wrong %

[Anonymous Coward]

77% of the profits in the smartphone market go to Apple. I always think it's funny when people ignore this rather insignificant detail!

Source: http://allthingsd.com/20120806/apple-gorging-on-mobile-industry-revenue/

Re:Sorry, you're wrong

[MBCook]

20 to 1

Thanks to ongoing lawsuit, we know [computerworld.com] that Apple's iPad outsold the Galaxy tablets by a margin of 20 to 1 when the Galaxy tablets launched. In the most recent quarter (which may not be complete), Samsung only sold 37k Galaxy tablets. For reference, during it's slowest quarter the iPad sold 63k units per day.

Much like the iPod market, Apple is absolutely crushing people in tablets. The Kindle Fire has been be the best competitor, and it seems to have lost it's sales. The Nexus 7 is a much more compelling device, so we'll see what happens there. Apple doesn't have the lead in phones (only 16% of the market), but they have 71% [digitaltrends.com] of smartphone profits. Android may be moving more units, but that's not a good trend.

Re:When Domination Isn't

[postbigbang]

The litigation seems like a desperate attempt on Apple's part. They have a mighty war chest. And their customer love is huge. The market was bound to get bigger, and Apple knew it, and even Apple cannot last as a monopoly.

How about more innovation instead of breathlessly baiting the world with nominal, incremental changes? Apple can't stop Android, try as it may. It might try to snack off vendor paranoia, as Microsoft has (to the tune of more revenue than their own phones). There's a law firm somewhere that told Apple that this should be part of their market share retention plan, and they bought into it, much to the love of armies of law firms. Those attorneys should be fired, and the temp turned up where Apple won lots of hearts: outstanding design and flawless customer retention. Ultimately, that's the only place I believe they can win. The courts might hand them victories, but at a hideous cost.

Re:When Domination Isn't

[symbolset]

The lawsuit involves specific models of phone in the US jurisdiction of the court. Here we are talking about global numbers and all models of smartphone. Your iPad comment likewise ignores this global vs regional, model scope discrepancy, and drags in the type of object confusion also.

Re:Getting tired of Apple lawsuits

[Nerdfest]

I'm referring to the ones in iOS ... the ones that are quite blatantly copied from Android.

Re:Sorry, you're wrong

[noh8rz7]

why dont you transfer it to keynote? you know, the software that is designed for this specific purpose. also, you know, use the appropriate tool for the job? "my ipad is great for some things, but it sucks at changing my car's oil, so I'm going to hate on it."

Re:Sorry, you're wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

ummm... also, so do you.

Re:History

[fm6]

He did do both, but not at the same time. He only invented the ZIP format after he was forced to agree that he couldn't develop software that used the ARC format.

The irony is that by forcing him to create his own format, SEA made him rich.

Re:Ironically..

[TimHunter]

I for one can't wait for Apple to return to their pre-2k status as niche purveyors of overpriced shit that hipster douches and hipster douches alone are willing to pay for.

Hipster douches and, you know, NASA: http://9to5mac.com/2012/08/06/nasa-used-more-than-a-few-macbook-pros-to-get-curiosity-to-mars/ [9to5mac.com]

Re:History

[thegarbz]

This is the textbook definition of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I've owned 3 Android phones and none of them have required reboots or had signal strength problems. Quite unlike the iPhone 4 actually where even a reboot wouldn't save you.

So why blame the OS (Android) on a hardware / carrier software modification problem? Just get a Galaxy Nexus.

Re:History

[Charliemopps]

If your carrier doesn't have iPhones now, they aren't going to have them. It's just not cost effective. I was involved in some of the meetings in relations to this for a particular carrier and Apply royally screws the carriers just like they do all of their vendors and they absolutely refuse to negotiate. As a carrier you either take a loss on them just so you can claim you have them or you avoid them all together.

Re:Sorry, you're wrong

[Swampash]

You are making a mistake that's easy to make - you're believing what Samsung says. Samsung has a policy of withholding SALES figures because they're "commercially sensitive" and reporting SHIPMENTS instead. That is to say, Samsung reports how many phones it has put in boxes and sent to stores - it doesn't report how many of them got bought. That leaves analysts and journalists to make educated guesses as to how many phones Samsung has actually sold, and of course the closer the relationship between Samsung and those third parties the more enthusiastic their educated guess are. Google muddies the waters further by reporting "activations" and then the analysts and journalists make more guesses. And because there are a whole lot of entities with a vested interest in Apple having strong competition, a whole lot of articles get published claiming awesome things about Samsung's phone business. But you need to remember... they're guesses, made by people who have a personal stake in those guesses being good numbers.

Now Samsung is being sued by Apple, and the court doesn't give a shit about "shipments" and "activations per day". The court cares about SALES. So Samsung has been compelled to produce actual verifiable sales data.

They're not good.

According to Samsung's response to the court, filed last Thursday, from June 2010 through June 2012 Samsung sold 21.25 million phones, generating $7.5 billion in revenue. By way of comparison, sold more phones in six WEEKS over the holiday period than Samsung sold across its entire range in the two YEARS up to the start of last month. Shit, Apple sold 4 million iPhone 4Ss in FORTY-EIGHT HOURS.

You can't say "oh that's biased this report from IDC says something much better and this forum post at androidforum.com says something much better" because these are Samsung's official figures entered into the record of a lawsuit. They have come from the legal department, not the marketing department.

Re:When Domination Isn't

[Swampash]

Samsung alone has been outselling the iPhone for a while, which is why Apple is desperately trying to crush them in particular.

Samsung's marketing department has been claiming that Samsung has been outselling the iPhone.

The reality, revealed in last week's court filings, is quite different.

http://allthingsd.com/20120809/apple-vs-samsung-trial-forces-companies-to-open-up-the-books/ [allthingsd.com]

Re:History

[Gumbercules!!]

You're not getting better signal strength by rebooting, you're rejoining a tower by rebooting. Your signal strength is dropping off over time because your provider has over-subscribed your area in terms of users vs tower capacity. Getting an iPhone won't change this.