Recently cell phones have been getting incredibly close to the bar set by Apple’s iPhone in 2007. Phones like the Nexus One, the palm pre, and many others have been giving the iPhone quite a bit of competition (especially the Nexus One, I have even considered swapping over to the Nexus One). Now with competition building it appears that apple has finally decided to sue one of their largest competitors, HTC for breaking over 20 patents related to the iPhone’s UI, underlying architecture, and hardware. I actually find it quite interesting that they took so long to actually break out a law suit. The reason why I say this is actually because companies like palm have been using this technology for much longer then htc has. In my opinion I feel that the only reason why they are breaking it out now is for two reasons. One the fact that HTC has actually made a dent in the iPhone sales (they have finally made phones that can actually compete with the technology in the iPhone. The second reason is that they wanted a company to start using the technology so more people can experience the feel of it, then when they break out the lawsuit for the technology to be removed the people who used it and want it will (hopefully) switch to the iPhone.
In the release Steve Jobs made a statement saying: “We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it…We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.” Now I personally consider myself to be a multi-platform man, I have Windows and Mac based computers. I also use an iPhone so I have mixed feelings towards this statement from Steve Jobs.
I see what Steve Jobs (when I say Steve Jobs I mean Apple as a whole) is saying, they patent the technology so other companies shouldn’t be using this technology and claiming it as their own. However the problem with this is the fact that competition builds innovation. I was happy to see that Android and HTC together creating the nexus one took a good amount of the rights that the Apple iPhone had since I knew that with this in the back of Apple’s mind, the next iPhone release will be amazing. Plus the UI really shouldn’t be something Apple should be complaining about, if it’s something that works let other companies use it (sure don’t allow them to do the exact same thing down to the icons but something similar should be fine). Let me put it in terms more people will understand: all car companies use the steering wheel but nobody claims it was their own invention. Now Steve Jobs of all people should be agreeing with what I say since everything I stated I learned from him (look at the video I posted below).
Now what the circumstances will be I’m not sure, it could range from anywhere between a money settlement to the features being removed (or it could end in a loss for Apple who knows).
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