Apple Fears Samsung Tablet Will 'Seduce' Customers, Court Told

[Crushdepth]

Apple fears Samsung tablet will 'seduce' customers, court told

Read more: http://www.smh.com.a...l#ixzz1ZL93KOIO

Interesting article, but many of the arguments are specious - apparently Apple fears that users will become entrapped in the open ecosystem that is Android, and will be unable to use competitor's products

I recently bought a Galaxy Tab and it is a serious challenger to the iPad. Not as polished on the UI front, but a lot more flexible and (I think) fun to use.

[Gary A]

I think Apple should worry about the Amazon $199 tablet rather than Samsung.

[lomatopo]

There is no question Apple are concerned about Samsung, both on the tablet and the higher end Smartphone segments. The SGS2 and the SGS Tab10.1 are direct competitors for the iPhone 4/5 and iPad 1/2. Further complicating matters is the fact the Samsung supply Apple with a lot of critical components.

It's not surprising that Apple are trying to thwart Samsung with injunctions as a way to maintain market share/dominance, but these cases (Germany, Netherlands, Australia) may just be chess moves in a broader game where Apple needs Samsung's support for the iPhone 5/iPad 2 supply chain, and they need to come to some sort of agreement?

I wouldn't be surprised if Steve Jobs saw a tablet on his famed tours of Xerox PARC (when he purloined the graphical UI and mouse ideas, legally).

Seriously the tablet idea has been around in science fiction (2001: A Space Odyssey) and general public (Roger Fiddler, 1994 Knight-Ridder) for ages. And manipulating a touch screen with your fingers hardly seems "patentable"?

[nikster]

There is no question Apple are concerned about Samsung, both on the tablet and the higher end Smartphone segments. The SGS2 and the SGS Tab10.1 are direct competitors for the iPhone 4/5 and iPad 1/2. Further complicating matters is the fact the Samsung supply Apple with a lot of critical components.

I think that's why Apple has an issue with it. Samsung as a supplier of many of the main components of the iPad and iPhone is / has been in a unique position to best copy Apple devices. And copied they have.

As for tablets "not being unique" and "not a new idea" true on a general level but one has to wonder why all post-iPads look like copies whereas all pre-iPad tablets look TOTALLY DIFFERENT - a picture says more than 1000 words:

Pure co-incidence, I am sure

Anyway this is all normal proceedings. Apple came out with this first, naturally patented the sh**t out of it, others copied them, now they get sued for that. How much copying is or isn't permissible will be up to the courts. I am not convinced that designs can be protected all that well - just look at other industries; car manufacturers copy each other all the time.

BTW Apple is getting out of supply agreements with Samsung as fast as they can... which is probably not very fast, given their propensity for signing multi-year supply contracts.

[lomatopo]

I think that's why Apple has an issue with it. Samsung as a supplier of many of the main components of the iPad and iPhone is / has been in a unique position to best copy Apple devices. And copied they have.

I was referring to Samsung's supplying Apple with displays, CPUs, memory so not sure how that allowed Samsung to "slavishly" copy a finished product?

There are some rumors that the iPhone 5 utilizes some Samsung patented technology, and that Samsung is poised to block the iPhone 5 launch. And that they will come to some agreement soon.

And that "before" and "after" picture has been around the Apple fanboy sites for a while. Those older tablets were a result of available display technology, and targeted for mobile "ruggedized" applications.

FWIW, I never understood why Apple's touch-screen patent ( 7663607 ) wasn't granted until 2010 even though it was filed in 2004?