Apple Hides Samsung Apology So It Can't Be Seen Without Scrolling 743
An anonymous reader writes "Apple today posted its second Samsung apology to its UK website, complying with requests by the UK Court of Appeal to say its original apology was inaccurate and link to a new statement. As users on Hacker News and Reddit point out, however, Apple modified its website recently to ensure the message is never displayed without visitors having to scroll down to the bottom first."
OK, stick a fork in them, they're done. (Score:4, Insightful)
The lawyers are probably going to get put in front of the bar for their shite advice to these pricks too.
Banned product, I reckon. And some few billion in compensatory damages to Samsung. It seems the only thing they won't weasel out like a spoilt four-year-old is being slammed down hard financially.
Re:OK, stick a fork in them, they're done. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:OK, stick a fork in them, they're done. (Score:5, Insightful)
He's not saying 'they're done' as in 'they're bankrupt' - wrong context.
He's saying they've made a pretty serious mistake, which is true; it doesn't matter how big a company you are, there's a point where you can't just ignore the law of the land any longer. This is now the second time that Apple's failed to comply, and the means makes it clear it's deliberate. How do you expect the courts to react to that? Or the people for that matter?
The UK has a different culture than the US; this won't be seen as 'sticking it to the man' but as childish petulance; it's bad press that Apple does *not* need in a market where they're already behind Samsung. If sanctions go to the EU level then Apple could realistically end up a US-only phone company - so don't underestimate the seriousness of this.
Re:OK, stick a fork in them, they're done. (Score:5, Insightful)
Way back in the early days of the Mac, Apple should have been able to rule the world. Unfortunately Apple was run by and anal-retentive asshole who actually tried to rule the world. The Developers and hardware manufacturers who could have participated in Apple's success figured out really quickly that Apple didn't want anyone to share in their success.
So the developers and hardware companies made Microsoft and PC's a success. Apple would have lost out completely, but they actually built a decent graphics display and a few software developers were able to build some very desirable products that couldn't be run on a PC clone.
MS could have run Apple out of the marketplace at any time, but they didn't have to because Apple had already cut their own throats. And the bean-counters were unable to make Apple competitive company again.
When Jobs was invited back (out of sheer desperation on the bean-counters part) he invented the iToys and revitalized a dying company, but in 20 or so years he had never learned a thing and was still an anal-retentive asshole.
Android has already captured 50% of the smartphone market and once it becomes possible for developers to make a buck (without all the walled garden BS) Apple is once again destined for a 5-10% market share - unless the marketing guys for Android think they can make a buck with their own walled garden.
Unless they finally learn something, that high-flying Apples stock might turn into an excellent opportunity for short-sale speculators Rim used to make more money than god. It didn't take much to turn that around...
Re:OK, stick a fork in them, they're done. (Score:4, Informative)
Those with Apple stocks will be laughing all the way to the bank.
Laughing nervously at best. Apple stock is down 18% in the last 7 weeks. The most recent news is "down on disappointing iPad Mini sales".
Death? Not by a long shot, but crashing back to Earth to compete with the rest of the mortals -- most definitely.
Re:OK, stick a fork in them, they're done. (Score:5, Insightful)
The most recent news is "down on disappointing iPad Mini sales".
Where are these sales figures?
Re:OK, stick a fork in them, they're done. (Score:5, Insightful)
iPad mini is estimated to have sold 1.5m in the first weekend. It appears Apple has redefined success. Anyone else sells that amount, it is an unqualified success. If it's Apple it's meh.
Re: (Score:3)
"... rest of the mortals"
I kind of know what you mean, but Apple is no overvalued dotcom. Their price/earnings ratio [ycharts.com] has been under 15 for a while. Lower than Google's, much lower than Facebook. Apple has a high valuation for a reason.
Re: (Score:3)
Hm, perhaps. On the other hand, the DJIA is down only 3.4%, the NASDAQ down 6.2%, S&P down 3.2%, Nikkei dipped 6% over that time span and rebounded.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=dow+jones+over+last+7+weeks&dataset=&asynchronous=false&equal=Submit [wolframalpha.com]
Anyways, the numbers after the holiday season are going to be the most telling. That will be interesting for sure.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
except that osx really isn't unix at all.. just like android really isn't unix either.. they both use a unix like kernel, but that's where the similarity ends. The meat and potatoes of osx application design and user interface is decidedly ununix.
Re:OK, stick a fork in them, they're done. (Score:5, Informative)
Well unfortunately, you don't get to decide what is and is not Unix. The Open Group does and they have certified OS X as genuine Unix.
Re:OK, stick a fork in them, they're done. (Score:4, Interesting)
That's nice, but it doesn't change the fact that typical OSX applications are still not Unix applications. They're OSX applications. You can't recompile them on Unix. You might be able to port them to OpenStep...
Re:OK, stick a fork in them, they're done. (Score:4, Informative)
Whatever. Do you happen to know what the maximum penalty for contempt of court is in England & Wales?
The judge does.
Re:OK, stick a fork in them, they're done. NOT! (Score:4, Interesting)
Sorry to burst your bubble there, but Samsung is by far the largest smartphone maker in the world and their profits seem to be quite close to Apple's. So no, they're not that far behind.
Re:OK, stick a fork in them, they're done. NOT! (Score:4, Insightful)
More importantly Samsung has diversity. Their top end Galaxy S3 has recently passed the 30 million sales mark, but they also do a large number of other phones and tablet devices. They also manufacture many of the components, including the CPUs and screens. Samsung has valuable patents on key phone related tech.
Apple has the iPhone and iPad. If they ever go out of fashion Apple is screwed.
Re:OK, stick a fork in them, they're done. NOT! (Score:5, Funny)
Kiteo, his eyes closed: AOL buying Time Warner.
Re:OK, stick a fork in them, they're done. NOT! (Score:4, Funny)
hah.
Sokath, his eyes uncovered.
Re:OK, stick a fork in them, they're done. NOT! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You seem to care how much money this company makes.
Maybe you should just give them more money just by donating them money, since you think having the smallest userbase with the maximum profit is a good thing.
Blackberry at it's peak had twice as much users (50%+), windows is still dominating (75%+), Samsung has always sold more smartphones...
So why do you want each device to be more expensive for no other reason than to make a company rich?
Re:OK, stick a fork in them, they're done. NOT! (Score:5, Informative)
... you do understand that "Market Value" has nothing to do with "largest company", right?
Apple isn't even top 20 in terms of actual value [forbes.com]
Apple's profits: $33 Billion Rank: #2
Apple's assets: $138 Billion Rank: #187.
Apple's sales: $127 Billion Rank: #26
Their stock is over-priced and it will return to earth eventually. They probably cannot maintain their profit margin over the next 3-5 years and as soon as the sharks see them miss a few growth estimates, it will be bye bye Apple market value.
Re:OK, stick a fork in them, they're done. NOT! (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple has no debt. Did you factor that in?
The $33bn number is "old news". Apple made $41bn in their just ended fiscal year. They are still seeing growth in 3 of their 4 main product lines (iPods are understandably seeing negative growth). Their product mix is still high value and high margin. I frankly do not see them taking an axe to their margins for market share. The bottom line is they sell in the high end of the market, where people spend money (App Store revenues are still ahead of Google Market/Google Play revenues), even with a much diminished market share/install base.
Re:OK, stick a fork in them, they're done. NOT! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:OK, stick a fork in them, they're done. NOT! (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, Google's bubble will eventually pop, but it may take a decade or more for it to happen, and Google has a lot of time to create safeguards, which they have actively being doing for some time now.
Apple's bubble, on the other hand is going to burst much sooner and they havent been doing much in order to safeguard themselves against the eventuality.
Re:OK, stick a fork in them, they're done. NOT! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:OK, stick a fork in them, they're done. NOT! (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple has an extremely restrict product portfolio, especially compared to Google in the real world (which is not your fantasy world), and Android is far from being a economical failure for Google as you paint, quite the opposite, actually.
But keep to your delusions. Lets see in a few years where Apple and Google stand and then you can come and apologize to me. I will be waiting.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
MS is diving into the shark tank of ARM powered mobile devices specifically because their bread and butter has been threatened by the exposure of other operating systems and technology in the same tank. People have been exposed to apple and *nix like systems without getting the it's too complicated and nothing I own works complaints. They need to provide a comfortable fall back for people else they will find that apple isn't as scary as thought or that some *nix distributions just work well enough for what
Re:OK, stick a fork in them, they're done. NOT! (Score:5, Insightful)
THIS, this right here, is why I can't understand why MSFT is blowing billions jumping into the shark tank that is ARM powered mobile devices. Frankly Apple is the ONLY one making reliable money, the rest are caught in a race to the bottom, HTC has had some bad quarters, so has Samsung, the rest are looking ready to lose their shirts. the chips are changing too fast, they have too much stock, and frankly nobody looks at anything but the price...except for Apple.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, even in a downturn Apple will make out like bandits because they are NOT a tech company that makes fashionable devices, they are a fashion company that happens to work in tech. This is actually a GOOD thing for Apple fans, just look at lines around the block and people paying crazy markup for Air Jordans. Fashion seems immune when it comes to downturns for the most part, and even when article after article bitches about their memory prices...they keep right on buying.
So any company trying to jump into that blood soaked shark tank is frankly more than a little insane, and anybody that thinks they'll make iMoney with Android or WinRT are frankly delusional. Mark my words you'll see dual core 7 inch tablets for $50, the prices will drop so low it'll practically be throwaway devices. The only one that will be making consistent profits will be Apple, and this is coming from someone who doesn't even own an iPod.
It isn't necessarily about making money, IMO. It is about creating an ecosystem that allows their existing product to continue to thrive. As more and more people embrace mobile, and as the tablet and the laptop continue to converge, it seems apparent that Microsoft can't just keep on delivering new releases of Windows and Office. Eventually, as Google Apps continue to improve and make headway, as Google releases the Chromebook and such alternatives take root, there is going to be fewer and fewer things that are keeping people in the Microsoft world.
Even if Microsoft's mobile venture doesn't win them huge sums of money, inroads in market share means that the Windows experience is out there as a viable alternative moving forward. Delivering an ecosystem where Windows applications can run on both the desktop and the mobile device means that development for the Windows platform can continue. If enterprises are forced to support Android and/or iOS anyway then there is no reason to build anything that takes advantage of Microsoft unique features. If Microsoft can put forth a unified ecosystem where enterprises can be convinced to target the Windows platform, that is a huge win for the long term viability of Microsoft.
Re:OK, stick a fork in them, they're done. (Score:5, Informative)
No, iOS is not OS X derived as Android is Linux derived. iOS is less than OS X (being a crippled OS X minus a lot), whereas Android is more than Linux (being the Linux kernel plus a lot), and Apple TV is tiny, irrelevant, close to nothing compared to TVs and various set top boxes running Linux (TiVo and more). Then you've got pretty much every single popular wireless router except Apple's running Linux.
So, with iOS not being OS X, and iOS being smaller than Linux, how about not being such a giant wanker.
Re:OK, stick a fork in them, they're done. (Score:5, Informative)
That's not quite right. iOS and OS X are both built on top of the same base OS, Darwin. iOS then took relevant core libraries from OS X. Then each each has libraries dedicated to its purpose (OS X doesn't need touch or phone, iOS doesn't need windowing or Time Machine support). As far as mobile is concerned, iOS is more than OS X.
Apple TV is a single-core A5 chip, vs basically a weaker version of a Raspberry Pi in a Roku HD. Roku is running the base Linux kernel plus a small collection of libraries and software. Apple TV is running iOS with one included app, the Apple TV software. Not quite nothing in comparison.
Apple uses NetBSD, probably the best OS for embedded network applications.
Re:OK, stick a fork in them, they're done. (Score:5, Informative)
That's not even counting the marketshare of OS X(which iOS evolved from).
Does this mean I get to count every device using a *nix OS as well? There is a lot of machines that run *nix, a huge huge number, which probably dwarfs pretty much every other OS. Hell, my TV runs Linux, as does my Bluray...
Re:OK, stick a fork in them, they're done. (Score:5, Interesting)
The total number of iOS-based devices is greater than the total number of Android-based devices.
Not true at all. Android phones alone have more than five times the market share of iOS phones, the iPad doesn't sell five times the iPhone, and neither does the iPod touch which is the only iPod running iOS. The total number of iPod Touches sold by EOY 2011 was 60 million, which is a relatively small number considering 136 million Android phones shipped in 3Q12 alone.
So, your notion that there are more shipped iOS devices than Android devices is not even close to true, even if you just count Android phones. Put that into your head and let it spin for a while. There are more Android phones sold than the total number of iOS devices.
Here is another important number for you. Apple's market share is falling. It dropped by 2.1 percentage points from 3Q11 to 3Q12, and all preliminary numbers from iPhone 5 sales says it is a disappointment as related to market share. If you have a 15% market share and it is dropping 2 percentage points year over year, you're in trouble.
Shameful behaviour (Score:5, Insightful)
When you've been slapped down for contempt of court, your next action really shouldn't be this kind of open contempt. I wonder how Apple's UK employees feel about this disrespect to their courts?
Re:Shameful behaviour (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you really think Apple's UK employees really give a damn?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If they don't already, they will when the courts start looking at who to throw in jail for contempt of court.
Re:Shameful behaviour (Score:5, Insightful)
They just might care if the judge shuts down Apple UK for an indefinite amount of time. Contempt punishments are entirely up to the judge issuing the punishment.
I can't for the life of me figure out what Apple thinks they're gaining when they continue to draw attention to the ruling that Samsung didn't infringe.
Re:Shameful behaviour (Score:5, Insightful)
Whilst that worked in Germany for Microsoft I do not believe that would work in the UK either. If Apple got such a ruling in place, I suspect the UK courts would really throw the book at Apple at that point regardless of what some Texas judge says. If that involved a fine, and the US courts told Apple they didn't have to pay it, that could well mean the bailiffs moving in on Apple's UK stores and seizing both the properties and the products to pay the fine.
Judges in texas can rule whatever the fuck they want but ultimately when Apple operates in a country it is bound by that countries laws and US judges do not have universal jurisdiction. It's really up to Apple then whether it wants to rely on the US judge's ruling or comply with UK law, if it doesn't it will get punished in the UK regardless.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How is this contempt? The message isn't hidden, it's right there on the page. The fact that they optimise the page so that their product shot makes the most of the above-the-fold real estate is not removing it from the page in any way, it's just good design.
The judge never specified that it had to be in a particular place on the page, or above the fold. And wearing my web developer hat, it's not at all obvious that above the fold was implied to be necessary. If it were me doing it, I
Re:Shameful behaviour (Score:5, Insightful)
Judges don't like "good design". They don't like clever marketing tricks (like the first "apology"). They like absolute, immediate compliance (and not "technical" compliance) with the spirit of their demands.
Apple needs to suck it up and obey the court's order, or for the next round, you can expect executives to give their apologies on live TV from the inside of a cage.
If you have clicked on this Slashdot article and are now reading this comment, it is almost certainly below the fold. Yet you read it, right? It's not invisible?
Do you remember the SlashQuote at the bottom of your page when you wrote that comment? Did you even scroll down far enough to ever see it in the first place?
Re:Shameful behaviour (Score:5, Interesting)
Interestingly I notice that I no longer get redirected to the UK site when I go to Apple.com too so it suggests they've disabled that, at least for UK visitors so that people see the US site where the apology is not posted.
Say I then click store, because I also have to scroll down to notice I'm set to the wrong country on a 1920x1200 monitor and hence proceed anyway, get to the store, and then realise I'm on the US site because all the prices are in dollars not pounds, and then change country it changes it to the page I'm on completely bypassing the front page where the notice is.
They've gone out their way to try and avoid people seeing this. I do hope the judges are made very aware and that they are properly punished as a result.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How is this contempt? The message isn't hidden, it's right there on the page. The fact that they optimise the page so that their product shot makes the most of the above-the-fold real estate is not removing it from the page in any way, it's just good design.
This is an error in the judgement, not an error in Apple's behavior.
Although I will say: the message is not just below the fold; it's below the content on the page e.g. it's below even Apple's copyright statement; which suggests it's just a disc
Re:Shameful behaviour (Score:4, Insightful)
If the Judge was serious about the prominence of the disclaimer; they should have ordered Apple to display a prominent message. Submit a 'draft' copy of their home page for the judges approval, publish it.
This isn't school detention, the judge isn't a teacher who has to make sure his pupils comply. The judge expected Apple to behave like adults and not be dicks about it. Apparently that was an error in judgement and Apple will be punished for it, just like a school child would be.
Hopefully next they will be required to just replace the entire front page with a click-through notice.
Re:Shameful behaviour (Score:5, Informative)
How is this contempt? The message isn't hidden, it's right there on the page. The fact that they optimise the page so that their product shot makes the most of the above-the-fold real estate is not removing it from the page in any way, it's just good design.
Oh, bullshit. Try this: go to Apple's US page [apple.com] (which is "apple.com" which I'm guessing will redirect in other countries, and apparently you can't just add /us/ to force it to stay in the US, so, you may have to pick a random country if you're actually in the UK) and compare it to the UK version of the page [apple.com]. Notice anything different?
You might not, if the browser isn't large enough, but I'm typing this on a 1920x1200 display with the browser sized to the maximum height. With that, on the US page, the entire page is visible, including the header. On the UK page, the content is sized off the bottom.
If you throw the page into Responsive Design View in Firefox (Ctrl-Shift-M) and start playing with the size, you'll notice that they explicitly designed the page to size the apology off the bottom. (Well, almost: they give up if you manage to get your browser view to be greater than 1600 pixels tall.)
That's not "using above the fold real estate," not when it's optimized to not display on anything less than 1600 pixels tall. That's called "being as asshole" at the least and, I expect, will turn into being called "found in contempt of court."
Re:Shameful behaviour (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes. Apple are pushing the fourth generation iPad on their USA site and the iPad mini on all their other sites. That's the determining factor for whether the resize code is used.
Wrong. They're showing both the 4th gen iPad and the iPad mini on the US page. I know, because I just accidentally double-opened the page while double-checking and got one of each.
But wait, it gets better. When I wrote my original post, it was based off seeing the iPad Mini ad. It looks like this [xenoveritas.org]. Note that there's plenty of room at the footer to place an apology.
The iPad version actually takes up more vertical space than the iPad mini version! It looks like this [xenoveritas.org]. This one kind of cuts off the footer.
So, yes, they're being flat-out asses here. The fact that the same iPad mini resize code runs on every international site is probably more a factor that Apple runs two versions of the site: for the US, and for "everyone else."
Re:Shameful behaviour (Score:4, Informative)
Not a side effect, it is deliberate. If you view source you'll see that the code is different on the UK site vs the others.
The UK site has:
which is a little script which resizes the elements on the screen specifically to hide the notice:
The US site doesn't use that script, in it's place is a script called promomanager.js.
Re:Shameful behaviour (Score:5, Insightful)
That's right. They should goosestep to the demands of the state. All hail Britannia! I love you sheeple.
If you think you're above the requirements the government lays on you, you could be in for a rude awakening.
Re:Shameful behaviour (Score:5, Informative)
If the thesis in question is "i won't be punished", then argument by punishment is not fallacious at all.
Re:Shameful behaviour (Score:5, Insightful)
It could go much farther than that. I don't know how large a fine the court is allowed to impose for contempt, but I imagine it's pretty large.
And if the court it more interested in the apology being viewed, they could required Apple to post ads on buses and trains, buy advertising time on television and post the apology in large letters across every website and on the marquis of all their UK Apple stores. They could specify the exact wording, location and size of the ads. They could make them put it in an obtrusive place on every page and piece of paperwork their customers see -- for as long as they want.
The point here is: don't mess with the judge!
True in the UK. True everywhere.
Re:Shameful behaviour (Score:5, Funny)
"We have suggested that Samsung were infringing on our IP. DISREGARD THAT, I SUCK COCKS"
Have to scroll to see it 1680x1050 (Score:3)
WTF are they a Lindsay Lohan of the computer world?
Re:Have to scroll to see it 1680x1050 (Score:5, Informative)
In case you missed this:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/6237043/applesucks.png [dropbox.com]
What now?
Apple managers didn't think clearly. (Score:5, Insightful)
How long until they just reach for a big hammer? (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder exactly how much patience the judges have for this kind of nonsense.
Re:How long until they just reach for a big hammer (Score:5, Insightful)
Even on a 30" monitor I have to scroll (Score:5, Informative)
On my 2560x1600 monitor with the browser maximized i have to scroll to see the text. Yup, I would say it is definitely fishy.
Four links. (Score:4, Informative)
There are four links (2x thenextweb, ycombinator, and reddit) in the summary and none of them actually point to the web site [apple.com] or the actual statement [apple.com]. Was this really the best submission for this story?
Facts... (Score:3, Insightful)
How about some facts.
First, the UK website has had this responsive layout for weeks. Also, most other country-specific landing pages of Apple use the same layout (for example German, Austrian websites). With the notable exception being the US site.
Second, Apple was laughed at for claiming to need 2 weeks to implement the new statement on their website. While I agree I could fix something like that in 5 minutes, you just don't fiddle around in the CSS of such a website. In addition to drafting a new text, you have to adjust the code and actually test it, which can't be done in a few days. That the court demanded Apple to fix this in 48hrs, just goes to show how much they understand about this.
Re:Facts... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, if 48 hours was an unreasonable amount of time to make this change, perhaps Apple should have complied with the original order which gave them 14 days. Instead of, you know, being giant cocks about it.
Re: (Score:3)
p>First, the UK website has had this responsive layout for weeks. Also, most other country-specific landing pages of Apple use the same layout (for example German, Austrian websites). With the notable exception being the US site.
Umm, they put the notice *just outside* the fitted area. That says a lot.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Facts... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Facts... (Score:5, Insightful)
you have to adjust the code and actually test it, which can't be done in a few days
Huh what? It takes more than a few days to test a change like adding some text to the bottom of a web page? Granted that there are multiple browsers and configurations to test, but even manually that's not more than a few hours' work... and if Apple's web site is managed by competent engineers they should have automated tests for that anyway. This sort of change should take minutes, not days, much less weeks.
Side-by-side screenshots (Score:5, Interesting)
apple.com/uk vs apple.com on a 1600-px high screen [imgur.com]. I had to hit F11 *after* loading apple.com/uk to include the notice in the screen capture.
Pretty sleazy.
Oh Apple, when will you snap out of it? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's getting harder and harder to defend Apple.
It's 1997, they're near bankruptcy, and St. Steve comes back to save them. They're the underdog, and we cheer for them.
The iMac comes out. OSX comes out. The iBook comes out, with wifi standard, and they start cementing their reputation for avant-garde design paired with avant-garde architecture.
The iPod comes out, and they're clearly on a roll.
Then, the iPhone. Very nice device, miles ahead of everything else, but one niggling problem: the walled garden. Still, that's perfectly defensible: simply a way to preempt any virii, right?
Then they start bricking phones that are jailbroken. WTF, Apple? It's malicious behavior, and can't be explained away by any desire to stop viruses: people who jailbreak aren't Apple's responsibility, they chose that path and Apple should let them walk it.
Then, once Android starts to get really competitive, the suing starts. Sure, some of it may be technically correct - they won a number of their cases, around the world, and phones like the Galaxy S were pretty clearly rip-offs. But Apple wasn't just standing up for its rights, it was competing in the courtrooms instead of the marketplace. They had stopped being the underdog that succeeded through innovation (not invention, innovation - look it up), and started being the establishment that succeeded through inertia and bullying as much as anything else.
And now, they descend even further, and behave petulantly, seeming to agree with the law when it serves their interests and flaunt the law when it doesn't. From a company that advances the state of the art to a company that wants to freeze the state of the art for purely selfish reasons.
The next apology (Score:5, Funny)
Will be down in the basement, in the dark, with no stairs, in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'.
Code in question (Score:5, Informative)
That hides the bottom 310px of the page no matter what screen resolution is used.
Page with javascript [imgur.com]
Page without javascript [imgur.com]
Contempt (Score:3)
Clear contempt of court. Fine them so it really hurts. Say an annual Apple's revenue or so. Lesson will be learned and not just by them.
Re:Contempt (Score:5, Interesting)
You don't understand. This isnt about Samsung vs Apple. This is about Apple vs the UK.
A judge is god of his courtroom. Just as the saying goes don't fight the police, fight in court. Well the followup to that is don't taunt a judge in his domain.
Feel free to request a review of a judicial order, but you better be starting to comply immediately if you aren't granted a temporary stay on the order pending review.
A judge has the authority to toss your ass in jail if he thinks you show contempt for the court. Unless you are in the US and trying to perform civil disobedience in order to have standing to constitutionally challenge a law, its always bad to piss of a judge.
The judge can also find you in contempt even if you follow the exact letter of the law. That's why they are called judges. We give them the authority to use judgement in applying most laws. They can ruin your day.
"Below The Fold" (Score:3, Informative)
...Apple modified its website recently to ensure the message is never displayed without visitors having to scroll down to the bottom first.
The industry-term for something on your home page that you have to scroll to see is "below the fold." It comes from the newspaper industry. A standard broadsheet [wikipedia.org] format newspaper (as opposed to a tabloid [wikipedia.org]) would sit on a newsstand or in a news box folded in half. With this in mind, the layout editors intentionally put the most important stories "above the fold" on the front page, and the less-important stories that are still important enough to be front-page news go "below the fold."
Putting something below the fold, whether in print or online, is not hiding it. It's still on the front page. It's just saying "this isn't the most important content on the page." And in this case, the forced apology is not the most important content on Apple's home page... Apple sells products and services, not apologies. If the judges felt it was that important, they would have specified it had to be above the fold or at the top. But they didn't. Quite possibly because the concept of something being below the fold is foreign to them, since the British journalistic diet consists primarily of tabloids, which are designed to scream, "EVERYTHING ON THIS PAGE IS IMPORTANT! BUY ME NOW!!!"
Re:"Below The Fold" (Score:5, Insightful)
sosumi (Score:4, Funny)
Re:who cares (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:who cares (Score:5, Informative)
Re:who cares (Score:5, Informative)
Not only that, it appears that they've turned off the normal redirect from apple.com to the UK website and aren't displaying it on the main apple.com website for UK visitors, so it's not actually visible even with scrolling to most of the people it's meant to reach. They're literally begging to be found in contempt.
Re:who cares (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder if a creative judge wouldn't have an original redress, like:
On apple.com, and all your international sites, in the languages you already display, you must display the apology in a click-thru manner, such as NO customer to any apple property is unaware that
Dear customers, we've been found before British court to have falsely accused samsung of theft. Moreover we've been found also by the british court, in contempt of court for not informing our british customers of such.
Please click here to continue to your normal apple site.
They obviously value publicity far more than money, and should be hit appropriately.
Re:who cares (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder if a creative judge wouldn't have an original redress, like:
On apple.com, and all your international sites, in the languages you already display, you must display the apology in a click-thru manner, such as NO customer to any apple property is unaware that
Dear customers, we've been found before British court to have falsely accused samsung of theft. Moreover we've been found also by the british court, in contempt of court for not informing our british customers of such.
Please click here to continue to your normal apple site.
They obviously value publicity far more than money, and should be hit appropriately.
There's a good argument that the judge wouldn't have the power to order them to change any non-.co.uk sites, as they're not under his jurisdiction.
Re:who cares (Score:4, Informative)
Looks to me like Apple is complying and the Court of Appeal isn't too fussed in general.
Ha ha, you Apple apologists really break me up. Here's what really happened. [blogspot.co.uk]
Re:who cares (Score:4, Insightful)
its really a good thing that I'm not a UK judge.
I'd have zero problem fining them 10% of their annual UK profits.
10% isn't enough to kill anyone but it surely is enough to sting.
screw with the ruling again and it doubles. each fucking time!
look, apple is toying with the courts and laughing at them.
UK judges: strike back and show them who's boss. please! we're all hoping for a huge slap-down to put them back in line.
spoilt children do need to be taught a lesson. and one that actually hurts so that they remember it.
Re:who cares (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:who cares (Score:5, Insightful)
So tell me, which jobs would be shed?
Which people are Apple employing unnecessarily, that they could currently shed to gain 10% additional profits, and have decided against shedding, but would shed to regain 10% of their profits?
If those jobs were surplus to the efficient and effective operations of the business, a corporation would already have shed them.
Sorry, I don't trust you at all.
Re:who cares (Score:4, Insightful)
Since when are judges supposed to care about numbers of jobs? They're law-interpreting machines, not economic strategists. That's for the politicians to worry about.
Re: (Score:3)
they've turned off the normal redirect from apple.com to the UK website and aren't displaying it on the main apple.com website for UK visitors
I'm guessing, because Apple US, is a different company than Apple corporation (UK), and the court has no jurisdiction over Apple US.
Re:who cares (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't believe me then go to here [apple.com] and scroll to the bottom, then try to read the paragraph without your eyes wanting to take a holiday.
Congratulations to Apple web designers for using a technique that typesetters knew over a hundred years ago and yes unless the judge is ignorant or does not care about typesetting (in this case web layout) tricks like this then I can see Apple being found in contempt.
Re:speelling mistake (Score:5, Informative)
In English judgment [cambridge.org] is spelt without the extra e when it refers to a legal judgment given by a judge. I don't know why, it just is. Usually the two spellings can be used interchangeably [cambridge.org], but if it is an English legal thing, it never has the extra e.
Re:This stunt by Apple (Score:5, Interesting)
The space is occupied by an ad for the iPad mini, with a resolution of 1024x768. Yeah, you're full of shit. You only have a retina resolution on an iPad if it's less than 8 months old, or else it would be 1024x768 as well, so don't go talking about 1920x1080 being obsolete since the year 2000 as if you're making any damned sense.
Apple.com doesn't scale the ipad mini ad like this, it just has a static size. Apple.com/uk does. That much seems suspicious as hell. Now, that said, Apple.com/ca for Canada also does, despite not having legalese.
Viewed from my 1920x1200 monitor, landscape orientation. I first got something with this resolution in 2006 IIRC, maybe 2007. Clearly I'm a damned luddite.
Re:This stunt by Apple (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, even on my 145inch 8K monitor I have to scroll down... Oh wait, let me turn the magnification down a bit... Ah yes, there we go... Damn! Now where did I put my reading glasses?
Re:This stunt by Apple (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:This stunt by Apple (Score:4, Insightful)
I have no idea what I had for lunch last Wednesday.
Not everyone has a piss-poor memory.
I know what I had for lunch last Wednesday. Why? Because I don't stumble through life blindly moving from one moment to the next!
Had I checked out Apples page like the parent last week, I would have certainly taken note of both the position and content in the footer due to all the talk about how Apple was likely to bury the link there. Not that it would have been terribly difficult to call to mind the look of a page I'd seen recently!
Still, your argument boils down to "I have a bad memory therefore the parent is lying!" Not too convincing...
Re:This stunt by Apple (Score:5, Informative)
If you're going to make a claim like that, you might want to spare thirty seconds to check out the actual web sites.
US Site: [apple.com] No picture scaling
UK Site: [apple.co.uk] Picture scales to hide the bottom of the page. I had to turn my monitor on its side, making it 1920 pixels tall, in order to get the notice to appear.
I really don't understand how some people think they can get away with such obvious lies on the internet. Do they really think that not a single person will bother to check?
Re: (Score:3)
It's still exactly the sort of cheeky behavior one might expect from an unrepentant 4 year old. I thought managers were supposed to be adults.
Re:Must be fixed? (Score:5, Informative)
If you are in landscape mode, and enable scripting for "apple.com", then the bottom of the webpage will be just below the four images, every time.
Re: (Score:3)
I agree about litigation, it's what I've been hating about the company for a long time. Some of it I can understand, but some was just frivolous or Jobs' ego.
But you can't reasonably say they don't innovate. They basically defined the modern touch screen phone and tablet markets, and the all-in-one LCD market.Their manufacturing tech is pushing Foxconn to say the iPhone 5 is the hardest and most advanced thing they've ever assembled
Re:This is just stupid (Score:5, Funny)
Prosser: But the statement was on display.
Arthur Dent: On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar.
Prosser: That's the display department.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Even the judge admitted Apple is free to disagree.
Did Apple post the result of the judgement? Yes. Did Apple state there is no injunction in the EU? Yes.
The problem isn't that Apple included inaccurate information, the problem is that Apple included too much factually accurate information, information that the judge didn't care to be seen.
Nobody has been able to show me what in that statement is not factually accurate. The judge forced Apple to post a factually inaccurate statement in the revised text, the
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
He posted his screenshot, you post yours.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
NoScript disabled [imgur.com]
NoScript enabled [imgur.com]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I blacklisted Apple in my HOSTS file! (Score:4, Informative)
It's from the Time Cube [timecube.com] website. Ancient trolling [wikipedia.org].
Re:Judicial Ventriloquism (Score:5, Insightful)
For Apple to post a statement that purports to be from Apple stating that Samsung did not copy would be ridiculous, because it's already won judgments in other jurisdictions that say Samsung did copy.
Apple spread the suggestion that Samsung had infringed on their IP. A court found that Samsung did not infringe. The court has ruled that Apple make it clear that Samsung did not infringe, to correct the damage caused by their initial list.
You may call that juvenile. I consider it to be a reasonable request. Other jurisdictions are utterly irrelevant and the ruling didn't even demand that Apple state that Samsung didn't copy, merely draw attention to the lack of infringement and link to the case.
Let the people know their judges are looking to deceive them.
Please. Tell me how the judges are trying to deceive people. Quote the specific sentence or sentences in the transcript from the court. Because I've read it and the only attempts at deception that I can see come from Apple.