Samsung Seeking Ban of iPhone 4S in Europe 331
First time accepted submitter KingofSpades writes "Samsung has announced that they will try to stop the sale of Apple Inc.'s iPhone 4S in France and Italy. Samsung believes that Apple is 'severely violating' some of their patents. From the article: 'Samsung will file motions with courts in Paris and Milan seeking the ban, each citing two patent infringements on wireless telecommunications technology, the Suwon, South Korea- based company said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. Apple unveiled the iPhone 4S in Cupertino, California this week and aims to start sales later this month.'"
Round 3 (Score:2, Funny)
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Needs a "popcorn" tag!
Stuff like this keeps Slashdot in business... Way better than discussing the betterment of humanity with Ipen Sources.
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I see what you did there, Apple shill. ;-)
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Meh.
If Apple really wants, they'll just order so many fucking iphones and iPads from the screen providers in Taiwan and Korea that Samsung will never see another of their phones or Galaxy tablets made for a couple years. Either Samsung will cave, or they'll die.
Don't think it's for real? Look at the delays on the last generation of Android tablets - square on the manufacturers who kept delaying screen runs in order to keep Apple orders going instead.
Re:Round 3 (Score:5, Informative)
LG Display (Korean: LG , KRX: 034220) is the world's largest LCD panel maker,[1] ahead of Samsung Electronics in a slender lead. Currently, the two South Korean companies together exceed 50% of the global LCD panel marketLG_Display [Wikipedia] [wikipedia.org]
Doesn't that mean that Samsung is the second largest manufacturer of said panels? If that is the case doesn't that mean that Samsung will just stop taking orders from Apple if it cuts into their own business? Think about it.
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Samsung also make container ships and power plants. They're quite safe.
Re:Round 3 (Score:4, Insightful)
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Um, Apple's screen provider IS Samsung. I'd find it unlikely that Samsung isn't capable of making sure their own devices are still being assembled.
As they say on Iron Chef America... (Score:3)
<OVERDRAMATIC>
"Let the Battle Begin!"
</OVERDRAMATIC>
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Chairman: "So now America, with an open heart and an empty stomach, I say unto you in the words of my uncle:
<OVERDRAMATIC> Allez cuisine!" </OVERDRAMATIC>
Alton Brown: "Let the Battle Begin!"
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The Chairman says "Let the battle begin" before he unveils the secret ingredient
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I have been wondering for some time (Score:2)
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Somehow, I don't think having their flagship products blocked will get them much profit.
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No, Samsung and Apple just felt their lawyers weren't making enough money.
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great i live in germany :) (Score:2)
any plans to ban it germany, file a motion in berlin? these patent wars are getting stupid - why not just share the knowledge and build an awesome product instead of all this crazy fighting over who has the biggest penis.
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I can has galaxy tab now pls (Score:2)
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Having to enforce your patent is not "patent system still broken".
It will only be broken if Samsung's patent enforcement is not upheld after Apple's was.
Apple != iPhone (Score:2)
Apple is bad.
iPhone is good.
Apple != iPhone
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For varying definitions of good. I doubt people who are more concerned about software freedom would agree here. Neither would people who prefer open platforms. And alternatives that provide more of both aren't exactly behind in technical quality.
The iPhone might be good, but for some of us, there's better.
Android iPhone (Score:3)
iPhone is good.
Android is better.
Android > iPhone
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Neither Android nor iPhone are scalars.
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If the iPhone was that good, Apple would be able to compete on quality; instead of having to rely on bogus IP lawsuits.
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If Galaxy Tabs were so good, Samsung wouldn't feel compelled to copy the icons, the power adapters, the box, the case, the dock connector...
I'd feel a little better if it wasn't so obvious [reddit.com], but they're plainly just trying to confuse people, to the extent that the Galaxy Tab probably would pass as some sort of grad student experiment in culture jamming.
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The iPhone is shiny, but Android phones are shiny and don't involve giving money to Apple.
Choose your poison. (Score:3)
The iPhone is shiny, but Android phones are shiny and don't involve giving money to Apple.
No, they involve giving money to Microsoft.
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Look, the broken patent system isn't being shut down in our lifetimes. I have a choice to buy from the company that shuts down competitors with patents or the company that bills competitors with patents. Guess who I'm going with.
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The iPhone locks you into Apple and only Apple... iTunes to do anything with your device, expensive proprietary cables, random removal of applications that don't meet their nebulous "standards"... not seeing how your inequivalence is valid.
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This is a good thing. (Score:2)
For years these companies have just been accumulating patents and preparing for this. Once products actually start being banned from markets, average people will see how silly and unproductive the whole patent thing is. Then maybe we can get some real reform.
Patents in standards (Score:2)
The same Slashdotters who are worried about patents in the H.264 standard someday possibly being used to sue someone are now excited when patents around technology core to 3G are being exploited. Hypocrisy.
Re:Patents in standards (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's schadenfreude. Patents are rapidly proving themselves to be destructive legal constructs, and each case like this simply reinforces that reality.
2 Antennas.... (Score:2)
.... Wonder where they will be located on the phone??
Now which ever way you hold it you'll probably be covering an antenna limiting it's effectiveness without an approved apple rubber ring slapped on it...
Oh and since US mobile networks are basically over subscribed, You'll probably never have both functioning at the same speed on a network, So you'll end up with exactly the same speed as an iPhone4, while Sprint charge you twice the price for the privilege...
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You'd never be using both antennas at the same time. The idea is that it's a world phone so if you ever leave your country (admittedly not as much of a problem for many Americans) your phone will still work. For you stay at home types, if you get fed up with AT&T you can switch to Verizon without getting a new phone.
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From what I read the iPhone *would* use both at the same time to give upto 2X the bandwidth. (one transmitting and other receiving at the same time.)
I misread title (Score:2)
I thought it said Samsung seeks to ban iPhone 45 in europe (thats forty-five, the same caliber as the gun that Colt tamed the west with.and I wondered if Apple were doing a 'firefox version inflation thing'
Re:which patents? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're missing out on the why, Samsung has said Apple is using their 3G wireless patents. This is simply retaliation for Apple blocking Samsung's Galaxy sales in Europe.
If Samsung can get sales of the iPhone 4S blocked in enough countries maybe Apple will stop their patents on rectangular shapes nonsense.
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You're missing out on the why, Samsung has said Apple is using their 3G wireless patents. This is simply retaliation for Apple blocking Samsung's Galaxy sales in Europe.
That's right. Apple should have seen this coming. These big corporations are playing like babies and someone needs to take their toys away.
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If Samsung succeeds with their intentions, then every 3G phone also violates their patents. They've successfully trojan'd 3G standards.
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only if you break the clause that says your FRAND licence is revoked if you sue the owner.
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No, licence is perfectly correct.
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They are also trying to stop sales of other iphones, but with this one they get to block the latest apple has to offer.
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If I'm correct, it's about some 3G patents... They didn't attack Apple before (for the previous phones) because patent war was not declared at that time.
Since that time, Apple had the Galaxy Tab 10.1 banned from Germany and tried to have it banned in whole europe.
Samsung could go after all the iPhone but it would not make any sense. first, they'll have some trouble preventing them being sold as Apple is likely to stop selling them and only selling the 4S and they can't get these called back from consumers.
They have been vioating them all along. (Score:5, Insightful)
which patents could apple possibly be violating that they were violating already?
This is over patents that Apple has been violating all along. Nokia, Motorola, Samsung and have all been tryng to negotiate licensing deals with Apple since the day the iPhone was shipped and they still haven't come to an agreement. The different companies have had different thresholds of how far they are will to push negotiations before suing. Apple crossed Samsungs threshold when they used a shitty German "Design Patent" to force the Galaxy Tab off the market because it was a black rectangle with rounded corners.
What it all comes down to is that Apple thinks that it should be able to license all the hardware/communication patents that these companies hold under FRAND terms, while at the same time refusing to license any of it's software patents. Many of the communication patents are related to the GSM/CDMA standards, and thus do require FRAND licensing, but not all of the hardware patents.
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And they _MUST_ do so at a rate that is Fair and Reasonable. Anything else is a breach of their F/RAND obligations.
Indeed, and Samsung is willing to license their FRAND patents in terms that they believe to be Fair and Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory: a cross-license of all Apple patents in order to protect their (Samsung) products. Whether that is, in fact, "Fair and Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory" is an issue for the courts to decide.
One big one (Score:3)
It has a WCDMA radio in it. Samsung holds a patent related to that kind of thing. In the older iPhones, only the Verizon ones had CDMA radios, the AT&T ones had GSM. Now I suppose Samsung could have gone after them, but that might risk angering Verizon and Samsung doesn't want to do that. This one though, all phones have both radios so they can go after it and try to block it generally.
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It has a WCDMA radio in it. Samsung holds a patent related to that kind of thing. In the older iPhones, only the Verizon ones had CDMA radios, the AT&T ones had GSM. Now I suppose Samsung could have gone after them, but that might risk angering Verizon and Samsung doesn't want to do that. This one though, all phones have both radios so they can go after it and try to block it generally.
Every single iPhone since the release of the iPhone 3G has a WCMDA radio in it. While the 2G GSM standard used a combination of TMDA and FDMA, the 3G UMTS standards (Commonly referred to as 3G GSM because they evolved from GSM/GPRS/EDGE, but aren't really GSM at all) use WCMDA technology. CDMA and WCDMA are very general multiple access schemes that are used in multiple standards. When people say "CDMA" talking about an access standard, they probably mean something like CDMA2000 or another standard from that
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Slight clarification/correction: WCDMA itself is NOT a general term for wideband CDMA techniques, it is a specific implementation of code-division unique to the 3G UMTS standards.
Re:which patents? (Score:5, Informative)
Hello fanboy.
You realize, for example, that that is the same camera that has been available for quite some time in *other* phones?
Oh wait, it's magical and new.
Re:which patents? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:which patents? (Score:4, Insightful)
Dual core processor... what you can find on other (slimmer) phones for months
8MPixels camera... You also find it on other phone... And the size of the camera is barely different... The biggest part is the lens which didn't have to change.
Voice recognition, available on Android for long
There is nothing big about the new iPhone 4S... it's only trying to play catch-up with the other smartphones... And, yes, it's the best iPhone as each iPhone is better than the previous one (otherwise, nobody would purchase it).
Oh... and about their A5 chip... more than 95% of it is "common IP cores" that can be found in many other chips... ARM core, 3D core, RAM, ... But it's more sexy to say "our brand new ultra-secret processor called A5" than to say "Our brand new ARMv7 two cores, 1GbRAM,XXX 3D core,...chip".
And iOS5 will probably be available to other Apple devices... Those with older devices being left in the cold.
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No, Android doesn't have voice recognition, it support's Google's Voice Recognition API. It's all done via an API call to Google's services.
Siri's entirely on the phone on the other hand.
Also, the optics in the 4S are better than the optics on the N8, even has a slightly wider aperture size too at f/2.4
The only two devices being left in the cold are the 3G and the 1st gen iPhone. Given the iPhone 3GS is free on contract as of the 14th, there's good reason to upgrade if you're still on the 3G.
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Siri's entirely on the phone on the other hand.
Sorry, you are mistaken: http://macintude.net/2011/10/04/apple-unveils-beta-voice-control-service-siri/ [macintude.net]
Speech recognition will work in English (UK, US and Australian), French and German in it’s beta release. A data connection is also required to work.
(about halfway through the article). That being said, Siri looks more advanced then the default voice recognition built into android, though some similar 3rd party apps exist for android.
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the Cube wasn't that bad - but Shuttle did it right with the XPC line
In a year? (Score:2)
On the outside there doesn't appear to be many changes. On the inside there have been many hardware changes. However it is easier to call someone a fanboy rather than give Apple any credit. You do realize that Apple was able to put in a larger processor, make the phone operate both CDMA and GSM, put in a larger camera-- all the while keeping the same form factor with a slight increase in weight (3g). I would think geeks would appreciate the engineering it would take to do this.
The processor package doesn't get physically much if any bigger by going to dual-core. The radio in the Verizon I-phone was already capable of GSM. The firmware just didn't take advantage. The camera does seem to have some better optics and that is a good thing. Overall, it looks like a just a merging of the Verizon and AT&T phones along with a few closely compatible part upgrades that had become available from internal and external suppliers. No form factor heroics here.
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Typical fandroid responses. "Been available on Android for long".... Kind of like how the android community preached the XOOM in all its multi-core, NVidia GPU glory, and it could not even outperform a 1-year-old single-core iPad. Apple gets the hardware and software working together like a swiss watch. It's the same tired responses from tech-heads that they refuse to accept. Android slaps together a bunch of half-baked solutions, supporters say "see!! we did it first", and cringes when iOS does the sa
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"put in the iPad2 A5 chip which still outperforms anything the competitors have, GPU performance 7-9 times faster than the already-impressive iP4, the nicest camera yet, and with iOS5 this is is a solid update for a phone."
It is hard to resist pushing back against such a gushing of PR bullet-poi
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They did do that with the 4... they call it the 4S.
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Not quite [techcrunch.com]. It's the same sensor as in the EVO 4G, but the "camera" functionality includes lenses, filters, packaging, and software. The lens is a 5-element F/2.4 lens. The filters include an "adaptive IR filter", which supposedly reduces noise significantly. The software includes tight integration with the new CPU allowing very fast picture taking (a little over a second to first pic, 0.5s per pic after that).
It is definitely new. I'd say Siri [tuaw.com] is the magical part of the 4S, not the camera, but the came
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It is definitely new. I'd say Siri [tuaw.com] is the magical part of the 4S, not the camera, but the camera is no slouch.
Oh, please don't describe Apple features as "magical". Really, really don't.
I'm no Apple hater or anything like that (I mean, I wouldn't kick an iPhone out of bed or anything), but that's just letting the marketing executives win. Hearing it is like the slow realisation that the speaker is a pod person.
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Which Android phone are you talking about? A Camera button is not a standard part of the Android interface. Most I've seen don't have a separate button for it.
Re:which patents? (Score:4, Insightful)
You guess wrong, Samsung wants the right to sell a tablet that happens to be rectangular with round corners in Europe back.
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They didn't. Rectangular tablets with rounded corners have existed for decades. The aspect ratio and size is not similar either.
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Copy designs? I don't know, but who's copying who here? Look at this pre-iPad released Samsung picture frame:
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2006/03/samsungpictureframe.jpg [blogcdn.com]
Or how about the iPhone 4, I mean, LG Prada that got released in 2006?:
http://www.letsgomobile.org/images/reviews/0019/lg-prada-1c.jpg [letsgomobile.org]
You tell me, what's so original about the iPhone 4 and iPad? Seems like Apple is the one who's copying.
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You're right! According to Steve they should have shamelessly stolen the design instead.
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And not because Apple did the same thing to Samsung using a German court to block sales of the Galaxy Tablet in Europe?
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And not because Apple did the same thing to Samsung using a German court to block sales of the Galaxy Tablet in Europe?
Two wrongs and a right - ever hear that one? ;)
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Two wrongs and a right - ever hear that one? ;)
Well actually they do. If Samsung are blocked by Apple from selling their products, and Apple are blocked by Samsung from selling their products as well, that will force them to make a patent settlement to get them out of a stalemate that hurts both companies.
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By the way, that same hardware design was already present in a 1969 film called 2001 A Space Odyssey...
The icon-grid can be tracked back to Xerox' work (which was stolen by both Apple and Microsoft... Which is why Apple got denied when he tried to block Windows). We can find it on Palm Pilot devices (I already had an icon grid for the application launcher on my old Palm IIIxe monochrome)
Capacitive sensors were already used more than 20 years ago (I remind seing some of them on some microwave) and you can fi
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Yeah, were you saying that when Apple did the same thing to Samsung?
Both suits are garbage, but I hope Apple gets to taste some of their own medicine here.
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Apparently, Apple didn't get the memo.
And it looks like they're massively outgunned [wordpress.com], too.
This is almost like North Korea going against USA... Hmm.... Apple mobile is best mobile. Dear Leader Steve Jobs .... Humm... Suddenly, I have a weird feeling of irony. Strange.
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No, it's okay for Samsung to do it because I like the popcorn.
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If you can't innovate, litigate.
Yesterday, Apple announced iPhone 4S - which is basically iPhone 4 with upgraded CPU and graphics hardware (that's nobody going to use, since all app writers want their stuff to run well on prev-gen iPhone 4) and a better camera that's now on par with what was top of the line for Android.
In a week, Samsung will announce Nexus Prime. Suffice it to say that the phone has a 1280x800 OLED screen. It's not the only feature, not even the biggest, but it does show the relative scale of differences.
So, what did you
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This is about hardware and design patents -- not software patents that are just ideas dreamed up. They actually built the thing.
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Yeah, they built a working physical representation of a "2001 A Space Odyssey" handheld tablet computer (or a Star Trek ALCARS handheld tablet, or any of a couple hundred tablet computers described in sci-fi stories over the last 50 years.) Then effectively under threat of law claimed that the tablet was their original idea and that anyone building one needs to pay them. This either makes them brazenly stupid or brashly assholerific. I'll let you pick, please, be my guest!
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Re:Patents are bad... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Well samsung is actually doing this in revenge for a hardware patent, admitted a retartedly vague one for a rounded rectangle with a touch screen, but that no less is a hardware patent.
It was a design patent (or the European equivalent). It's important to distinguish between utility patents and design patents.
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Patents are bad. Patent lawsuits that create problems for Apple are good, because they're likely to get noticed and hopefully result in improvements.
Lawsuits over say, patents related to RAM are obscure, hard to understand, and in the end only drive up the prices. The global economic impact might be huge, but the average user won't notice much, so chances are nothing will get fixed.
However when people are not able to buy the phone they want that gets their attention, and maybe will get them to see that the
What about laches? (Score:2)
Although now that I think about it, they might be trying to enforce WCDMA patents specific to HSPA+, which wasn't present before the 4s.
If anyone knows, speak up.
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Patents don't work that way. You are probably thinking of trademarks. If you don't promptly and aggressively defend your trademark you can lose it. Patents and copyrights have no such requirement.
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IANAL, but if others use a particular patented technology for a period of time and are able to make money doing it, with Samsung's knowledge, it becomes more difficult for Samsung to sue later because the others can claim an estoppel by acquiesence has been created. It's even worse if Samsung has made positive statements that it will not sue others, even outside the context of a contract, and then later decides to enforce its rights against one or all.
Laches can apply to any right, you can't permit your ri
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Not even close. A patent is, by definition, a monopoly on a specific technology which is granted by the government specifically for this purpose - to prevent unauthorized use and theft of intellectual property (well, really to advance the arts and sciences, but who are we fooling).
Patents are not like trademarks, which must be defended - they can be cherry picked. All that is necessary is to prove that someone used your technology without a license. It's like speeding (to bring this back to a car analogy)
Re:How would they know? (Score:4, Insightful)
The iPhone 4S isn't available to buy, it's not even available to pre-order yet. But Samsung managed to get ahold of one, reverse engineered it, and found it to infringed on their patents. Impressive.
The way Apple employees tend to lose prototypes of the iPhone at bars, it can't be that hard to get one.
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Well, since Samsung sits on some of the patents that you -have- to infringe to provide 3G, they know you infringe if you provide 3G without paying them.
Apple will probably try to argue that they should be let off for that reason, we'll see how that works out for them.
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It's not available to pre-order, but pick a random bar in Cupertino and you'll probably get one free.
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It's perfect timing to take a revenge against Apple and it's actions towars Galaxy Tab... And maybe kill the whole iPhone market in the long term.
Apple lost it's Guru, Steve Jobs. Markets are waiting to see how things will go... If Apple get one big backlash it's stock value will probably fall down and Apple could be pushed back in a corner like it was before in the Macintosh vs PC.
Unlike a few years ago, there are now viable alternatives to the iPhone. Android Market is catching up (faster growth, quality
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Shouldn't it be the other way around...? Isn't that why Apple brought out the patent guns in the first place, because they thought Samsung was too much like them and they couldn't compete?
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That is too dumb for anyplace, I see why you posted it as an AC.