Apple's War On Android

The apple logo hangs outside the Apple retail store along the Magnificent Mile on June 17, 2010 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

In her black robe and strand of white pearls, Lucy Koh projects the serious, deliberate demeanor befitting a U.S. District Court judge. The Harvard-educated former federal prosecutor has served on the California state bench and as a partner in a Silicon Valley law firm, where she litigated technology patent lawsuits. For all her earnestness, Koh, 43, could not resist needling the lawyers skirmishing before her at a hearing last June in San Jose.

Read the whole story at Bloomberg Businessweek

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Comments

[InABox]

10:38 PM on 03/29/2012

If you get this torqued over Apple vs. Android, pull the stick out. Here's a novel idea: use what you like and be done with it! I enjoy my Apple toys, but I'm considering replacing my old iPod Touch with an Android player.

[Gravenstein]

12:33 PM on 03/30/2012

I actually touched a Galaxy S II the other day, and I did not burst into flame, so I think you may be right.

[InABox]

02:01 PM on 03/30/2012

My brother has one, and they're quite nice. I like the larger screen. If the iPhone/iPod Touch ever gets a 4"+ screen, I'll stick with them. If not, Samsung or Sony, here I come!

[Samuel Bun]

07:07 PM on 03/30/2012

We have a mixed household and get along fine. I have a Galaxy S2 and my wife an iphone 4 and we can even call and text each other, but if we switched phones and then placed them next to each other I may feel a little inadequate.

[JoeMomma]

10:31 PM on 03/29/2012

Steve didn't like it when others used his tactics.

[Stoopid American]

10:22 PM on 03/29/2012

Apple is the new Microsoft.

[MRb1000]

06:45 PM on 03/29/2012

Look others need to make their own product and stop trying to copy Apple products. If Apple stole idea from these other company they would be screaming murder.

Look make your own products and be original and not a copy cat.

[BrianDaubachFan]

06:54 PM on 03/29/2012

I don't hear Knight-Ridder or Xerox screaming murder.

[ResearchtheFacts]

07:40 PM on 03/29/2012

Samsung wants their 2006 photo frame apple stole the ipad design for back, along with LG for the iphone candy bar design also 2006. Read the article.

[ykk9]

12:45 PM on 03/30/2012

Check this out from 1994:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=JBEtPQDQNcI#!

[Gravenstein]

05:45 PM on 03/29/2012

Don't see what there is to fight about. There's plenty of dough to had for everyone.
Google makes 4 times as much money on Apple products as it does on Android.

[icposse2000]

05:43 PM on 03/29/2012

The iPhone-Android "war" has been blown out of proportion. As is pointed out in the business week article, Apple and Samsung do about $7 billion a year in business. Apple is not out to destroy Android. Sure, Steve Jobs claimed to go "thermonuclear" over Android, but he had a reputation for being mercurial and bombastic.

Realistically, Apple's goal here is not to "kill" Android, but rather to protect their IP that makes the iPhone user experience as good as it is. Their goal seems to be to provide a distinction between iPhone and Android phones, where they hope users will prefer the former because of a smoother, better-integrated experience. Overall, their efforts in court have been much more mixed than the business week article reflects. Their *design* patents on the iPad have not stood up well in court; however some of their technical patents have done quite well, including their patents on (a) 'rubber-banding' of web pages to let the user know they have reached the end of the page, (b) 'data-tapping' where the computer recognizes strings like phone numbers, addresses, etc. and knows what to do with them, (c) 'slide-to-unlock' of the phone screen, and (4) the realtime API patent that was upheld by Judge Posner, the most-cited legal scholar in the US in the 20th century. None of these will kill Android, but they may significantly degrade the Android experience to the point where users would choose iphones.

[ResearchtheFacts]

07:41 PM on 03/29/2012

Total lie they feel threatened.

[icposse2000]

08:00 PM on 03/29/2012

You missed the point. I didn't say that they didn't feel threatened. I'm sure they view Android as a competitive threat.

I said they weren't trying to destroy Android...they are trying to create differentiation between Apple products and android phones by protecting their own IP. And to date they've been reasonably successful in doing so in court.

[linbianism]

05:15 PM on 03/29/2012

steve jobs calling android a "stolen" product doesnt make it true

[Gravenstein]

05:38 PM on 03/29/2012

Doesn't make it false, either.

[linbianism]

07:11 PM on 03/29/2012

youre right, the FACTS make it false

[ehjay]

07:31 PM on 03/29/2012

ProView (Chinese) has Apple in Court saying that Jobs stole the IPad brand name from them. Apple is an assembler of Chinese manufactured and Chinese patented products marketed under the IPhone - iPad brand. Who do you think FoxConn and Innolux are and is Chimei their parent company?
www.cmcs.com.tw/en/1-5link.html
www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id...cid=1206
www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?cid=1102...

[theveggiedude]

11:20 PM on 03/29/2012

There was no Smartphone that looked and operated like the iPhone before Apple released it. IPhone was the first to have a real web browser, among many 'computer like' features that we all take for granted today because so many Android phones have them now.

[linbianism]

03:05 AM on 03/30/2012

er, uh, WRONG!!!! nokia had symbian touchscreen phones with icons land a full browser ong before the iphone was a glimmer in steve jobs eye. of course there were windows phones as well. and of course samsung had iphone like phones with touchscreens as well. apple contributed to the refining of the concept, as did many other companies, like google

[Blackspeare]

05:14 PM on 03/29/2012

Let them slug it out! Like I say, Apple for the elites, Android for the geeks, and Windows 8 for the meeks.

[ResearchtheFacts]

07:43 PM on 03/29/2012

Elite, all men were created equal. Apple for the not too bright.

[bring in swat]

04:59 PM on 03/29/2012

let's not forget, the LG Prada came out first...Not the iphone, funny how $ trumps history. jobs never liked OpenSource, took away from his Profits and encouraged open thought and sharing discovery not selling it for the sake of profit.

[icposse2000]

05:57 PM on 03/29/2012

True, the LG Prada did come out first...it was the first smartphone with a full-screen capacitive touch screen. I haven't seen anybody deny that. But the reason iPhone was a success and the LG Prada a comparative flop had everything to do with the software that powered the phones. The LG interface was essentially little more than a feature-phone packaged into a touchscreen format. In contrast, the iPhone was the first phone I ever held where I knew immediately I wasn't holding a phone but rather a small computer in a phone package.

Apple haters (not you, necessarily) often accuse Apple of never inventing or innovating anything. The former is perhaps true...there is very little that Apple created from scratch. But they are masters at taking elements that others have used before (capacitive touchscreens, mobile phones, and mobile operating systems) and putting them together in ways that are simply far better than anything else on the market...the definition of innovation.

[ResearchtheFacts]

07:46 PM on 03/29/2012

Delusional much, must come with the product packaging.

[bring in swat]

07:55 PM on 04/05/2012

the "masters" is Purely Opinion...i have Zero use for apple products...although i was a mac advocate for decades until they became crap, to me. i used windows smart phones Long before the iPhone and to me the iPhone is hooked on phonics phone and i can't stand the interface...it feels like a toddler toy...i'm an Android user now and couldn't even begin to think about using the iOs...it's a joke to me...but again this is My personal opinion based on the functionality and performance i desire. apple has become a lifestyle identity which to me is Very disappointing!

[jayjay00]

04:27 PM on 03/29/2012

apple is a religion for its users, they're all likely declaring jihad on android right now

[ResearchtheFacts]

07:47 PM on 03/29/2012

lol

[bosd]

09:34 PM on 03/29/2012

too funny!

[PrimoPablo]

04:21 PM on 03/29/2012

If you followed the geek squad, one would think Microsoft was going bankrupt.

[Blackspeare]

05:19 PM on 03/29/2012

From what I've heard the Nokia/Windows 8 phone is going to be an Apple/Android killer. Microsoft didn't get to where it is because it was lucky-----they knew what the majority of users needed and wanted!

[icposse2000]

05:59 PM on 03/29/2012

I see Windows 8 and Android fighting over market share. I think people who buy into the iPhone/Apple brand are going to get that no matter what else is available, but people who *don't* want an iphone will then decide whether they want Android or windows 8.

[Maxedaddy]

03:57 PM on 03/29/2012

Apple is finally going down on this one! Their constant bull that they created this and that they created that has brought out the army of tech historians to show that Apple's designs have already pre existed in previous patents which basically makes Apple's infringement claims null and void! I saw the video on the 1994 reader and Apple sure is in trouble and then the Sharp phone puts Apple in real trouble. Apple basically brought this on, on themselves! Steve Jobs is the biggest pattent infringer of all time!

[grant06]

03:22 PM on 03/29/2012

So Apple wants to go "thermonuclear" on every company using the Andriod OS? Good luck with that. Too bad all that money for these law suits is going to lawyers in the Bay Area instead of long suffering Apple workers in China. Guess Talk about sick prioities.

[Aardvaark]

04:27 PM on 03/29/2012

I'm no fan of Apple, but the report made by Daisey about Foxconn are shown to be fabrications. Yes, Foxconn has problems, but not the type Daisey made up. He took examples from other companies and tied them to Foxconn. There have been some underage workers, but not hired on purpose by Foxconn.

I agree otherwise with the whole waste of money, spending it on attorneys.

[grant06]

05:52 PM on 03/29/2012

I realize the abuses reported by Daisey were not truthful (can't say the "L" word without getting censored), but an 80 hour work week doesn't give a person much quality family time (unless your kids are on the line with you of course). http://technology.inquirer.net/7595/apple-admits-supplier-abuse-of-workers

[ehjay]

07:42 PM on 03/29/2012

Aardvaark - you need more research on FoxConn, Innolux, Chimei etc, to get a larger picture about your subject.

[BBackSoon]

03:14 PM on 03/29/2012

This is but an example of how we do not enjoy Free Markets.

We have a Fixed Market, where several major players do battle with each other while they buy up or muscle out the little guys.

[Barbarian At The Gate]

03:43 PM on 03/29/2012

Once upon a time technological advancements moved very slow. Now they move in rapid leaps. 20 years is a long time.

[BBackSoon]

04:21 PM on 03/29/2012

Actually when there are only a limited number of players competing the advancements slow down. Older more stable companies do not see a need to totally shake things up. Younger more aggressive companies make huge advancements.

[ResearchtheFacts]

02:57 PM on 03/29/2012

A good article, however the title should be "APPLE FACES A CIRCULAR FIRING SQUAD" I they aren't even good at the suing thing. HTC took them out like that and Motorola threw the first punch and landed it hard. As for Android, at warp speed Apple can't keep up.

Samsung is in a league of it's own with what was that 29 or 34 different offerings to Apple's meager 2. Really Apple is out of its league period going after Android with 51% of the market share. It is over and has been over for awhile. Apple has a few more good years before hitting rock bottom. MIT published a hardcore article about the cheap, downhill quality of Apple products comparing them to what Apple used to manufacture. The enterprise crowd is tired of the crashes, bad updates or lack of them, and overall cheap build quality of Apple products. Check out that article.

The ibots will hang on because that is their target audience--they can build cheap and sell unreliable consumption devices to them forever. Like the new ipad with 8 or 9 complaints a week after launching. In two years they play out anyway with no product support after the warranty expires which is MIT's chief complaint.

[Barbarian At The Gate]

03:45 PM on 03/29/2012

Apple already lost their top player to the War, Steve Jobs.

[icposse2000]

06:09 PM on 03/29/2012

I suggest you follow your microbio; none of your comments are close to being factually accurate.

It is hardly "over" between iOS and Android. Essentially, Android has found a niche of selling cheap phones in volume but are not in any way encroaching Apple's profits. In fact, Apple's percentage of the entire mobile phone industry profits INCREASED to 75% despite the fact that they lost some market share to Android.

Enterprise: Perhaps you missed the article showing that 10x more businesses were looking to deploy iPad tablets as compared to tablets from any other competitors. And knocking Apple for crashes, bad/lacking updates is preposterous given how badly Android is fragmented and Android apps crash.

As for Apple building cheap products, that is refuted by the fact that the iPhone has dominated every customer satisfaction survey since the iPhone was released in 2007. I haven't seen a similar survey for the iPad but since real Android tablets have been a complete bust, I'm not sure it's really relevant (note: I'm not including the e-reader, proprietary Amazon and B&N tablets here...but they simply represent more fragmentation of the Android platform)

[ResearchtheFacts]

06:49 PM on 03/29/2012

Fragmented is ipad 3 not being able to use ipad 1 &2 apps. Read the MIT Tech Review article. Just because you don't believe it doesn't mean other don't. All I said was in their article today. In addition, did you bother to read this article because what I said was based on what WAS in this article too.

[ResearchtheFacts]

06:50 PM on 03/29/2012

Also, I suggest you read more because the info is out all over the web.