Another reason to hate Apple

From Cracked.com

So they've obviously learned their lesson, right? Well, in October of 2009, a new application from Apple landed in the U.S. Patent Office. Apple's idea was to program devices to periodically interrupt users with unskippable ads. The ads would temporarily halt performance of the device in order to "compel attention." That on its own is pretty nightmarish but, innovators that they are, Apple found a way to crank it up to that hard-to-reach "Lovecraftian" level.

Their words:

"Apple can further determine whether a user pays attention to the advertisement. The determination can include performing, while the advertisement is presented, an operation that urges the user to respond; and detecting whether the user responds to the performed operation. If the response is inappropriate or nonexistent, the system will go into lock down mode in some form or other until the user complies. In the case of an iPod, the sound could be disconnected rendering it useless until compliance is met. For the iPhone, no calls will be able to be made or received." Ho-lee E36 M3.

http://www.cracked.com/article_18377_5-reasons-you-should-be-scared-apple_p2.html

So if there is advertising on it, it will be cheaper for me to buy, right?

My friend just updated her ipod touch and it is now showing her ads and you have to interact with the ads before they go away.

I'd be in there complaining to apple at the apple store right now, demanding my money back or the ad gone. That is really obnoxious.

That sounds horrible. I really couldn't careless how good any Apple product is, this right here makes sure I'll never own one.

so that's pretty much like saying "hey i just pissed on your cheerios and now you have to eat them."?

I'm glad this article is making people realize how Apple operates. They're worse than Microsoft in many ways.

There is something a little strange happening out there n Apple-Land at the moment and I don't think it's going to be too good for Apple per se.

I'm a software developer and while I do work mostly on Windows and Unix systems, I've been using Apple machines at home for a few years now. Quite a lot of developers I know also bought Apple machines because they offer the right balance of 'just working' and a powerful, Unix-based OS underneath the gloss. All of us like them and quite a few of us including myself develop software on them, just not for Mac OS (mostly web apps and similar stuff). I tend to us mine for farting about with all sorts of odd programming languages and that's something I would have done on Linux a few years ago.

And a lot of us also bought iPhones, probably thinking that we might write the odd small app for them. None of us really have because the economics don't work very much in favour of the small developer who's got a house, mortgage and car payments to make, plus a lot of us got frustrated at the hoops you have to jump through just to be able to develop something for the iPhone, let alone deploy it.

A friend of mine who's been somewhat instrumental on putting me onto Apple has recently switched to using a Google Nexus One. His iPhone is in the drawer, sitting out the reminder of the contract and the SIM is now in the Nexus One. I had a chance to play with it on Friday and while it's not as sleek and polished as an iPhone, I had no trouble using it and it came across as a rather nice phone. Not nice enough for me to buy one, but I'd consider one. But the killer part was when he said - "see that lava lamp-like background? I wrote that and just dropped it on the phone, no hassle at all".

This might sound a little daft but to a software engineer like me that's a big deal - I don't mind paying for development tools if I need to but if you want to make it easy for your product to be supported by a vibrant community, you make it easy for developers to get their wares out to the user. Putting the sort of Cerberus in between you and the user the way Apple has done it with their app store approval process and its seemingly random rejections and Joe Schmoe software will have to think thrice if they want to invest the time and money to develop something they might not even get out to the market.

Sorry for the long rant (which probably belongs on my blog rather than here and will most likely end up there) but with 'interesting' ideas like the non-skippable ads, I'll probably ditch the iPhone sooner or later and go play with an Android device instead. I'm only a single developer, but I don't think I'm the only one to feel this way about iPhones. And the one thing that MS mostly got right was catering to their developer community. I think Apple could potentially improve on that.

You guys don't understand what a patent is. A patent doesn't give you the right to do anything. It gives you the right to keep others from doing something. Second, what they're talking about is a patent application, not a patent. There's no guarantee that the patent will ever issue. Third, what matters is what is claimed in the patent, not what is described. I can describe sliced bread, the transistor, and the internal combustion engine in a patent, but it doesn't mean I can claim it.

In any case, even if they got a patent that covered the arrangement described (far from a sure thing), the only thing Apple could use it for is to stop another phone maker from using that particular arrangement. It's actually a net good thing if they get it because it means there will be plenty of phones out there that can't (legally) do that.

Several years ago, some animal rights do-gooder type organization (I can't remember which one) got a patent on keeping a severed monkey's head alive by connecting it to a machine. They did so just to be able to sue any researchers who might attempt to do the same thing. They never had any intention of actually practicing their "invention."

Some of us do understand what a software patent is[1] .

I'd agree that from a user point of view it would be a net win if other handset manufacturers couldn't use that sort of advertising in their products.

[1] Apart from it usually not being a good idea, but that's another flame war right there.

BoxheadTim wrote: Some of us do understand what a software patent is[1] . ... [1] Apart from it usually not being a good idea, but that's another flame war right there.

I'm going to have to call BS on that. More than half of the patent attorneys I know don't know the first thing about software patents. Normal people haven't got a chance.

Besides, until the Supreme Court rules on Bilski later this year, I don't think anybody knows if there's even such a thing as a software patent anymore.

But that's a rant for another forum.

Someone once mentioned to me that the reason Apple made such innovative products was precisely because they were a smaller company. They had to be innovative to survive.

I've watched Apple's growth for the past few years and felt all along that the more they became a mainstream company, the more their quality and reputation would suffer.

Their business models for the app store and the iTunes store are two good examples of why they will probably become another out-of-touch software giant eventually, if they aren't already.

billy3esq wrote: You guys don't understand what a patent is. A patent doesn't give you the right to do anything. It gives you the right to keep others from doing something.

More accurately, stops others from doing something without paying for licensing. It doesn't stop them from actually doing it, it just means that if they want to do it, they'd have to pay Apple for the rights to do so.

Filing for a patent means you want to be the first to do something so anyone else trying to do what you are doing pays you to do it. Don't make it out to be altruistic on Apple's part.

billy3esq wrote:

BoxheadTim wrote: Some of us do understand what a software patent is[1] . ... [1] Apart from it usually not being a good idea, but that's another flame war right there.

I'm going to have to call BS on that. More than half of the patent attorneys I know don't know the first thing about software patents. Normal people haven't got a chance.

"Trouble" . I've been involved in one application from a technical perspective. Doesn't mean that I understand the full implications though. Some of them are bad enough for programmers as is, though.

billy3esq wrote: Besides, until the Supreme Court rules on Bilski later this year, I don't think anybody knows if there's even such a thing as a software patent anymore. But that's a rant for another forum.

i thought the only reason to hate apple was that the "adult" apps have been disappearing from the appstore...

Yes, there's nothing that says they are going to do it, only they've developed a way and want to patent so that anyone else who wants to do it will have to pay them Just good business sense.

Chris_V wrote:

billy3esq wrote: You guys don't understand what a patent is. A patent doesn't give you the right to do anything. It gives you the right to keep others from doing something.

More accurately, stops others from doing something without paying for licensing. It doesn't stop them from actually doing it, it just means that if they want to do it, they'd have to pay Apple for the rights to do so.

BZZT, thanks for playing. The U.S. doesn't have compulsory licensing. Your patent law grade just dropped into the B-/C+ range.

If you want to be really pedantic (which it seems you do), a patent doesn't give you anything but a federal cause of action for infringement. Up until the ebay case a few years ago injunctions were practically automatic when infringement was proven. They're now a little harder to get, but far from uncommon.

Chris_V wrote: Filing for a patent means you want to be the first to do something so anyone else trying to do what you are doing pays you to do it.

Filing a patent application doesn't mean what you think it means. I've written, filed, and prosecuted several hundred patent applications over the last decade. I've also advised dozens of clients, including several Fortune 500 companies, on portfolio development strategy. In all of those applications, I can count on one hand the number that were filed with the intention of licensing, and every single one of those was essential to an industry standard.

In most sophisticated companies the overwhelming number of patent applications are filed for defensive reasons. The patentee wants to have a big stack of patents, so if they get sued they can retaliate. The second most common reason is being able to enjoin a competitor. New companies often apply for patents just to impress venture capitalists. Established companies like to have big numbers to impress analysts and inflate the share price. Monetization through licensing falls behind all of those as a reason for filing an application, even in companies with substantial licensing programs.

Universities, on the other hand, do tend to file a lot of applications with plans to monetize through licensing.

Chris_V wrote: Don't make it out to be altruistic on Apple's part.

I never suggested it was altruistic. My point was that with Apple's rather limited handset market share, I'd rather them have such a patent than Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, etc. Makes it far less likely that such an abominable system will become ubiquitous.

3Door4G wrote: Someone once mentioned to me that the reason Apple made such innovative products was precisely because they were a smaller company. They had to be innovative to survive.

Their suffering from "big business syndrome" is not surprising. It always seems that companies neglect their core values as they try to appeal to a greater customer spectrum and larger amount of investors. These companies pay the price by losing their most loyal advocates and facing a rapid implosion. Toyota is learning this now; Starbucks did a few years back, etc...

it's a tough lesson to learn...

billy3esq wrote:

Chris_V wrote:

billy3esq wrote: You guys don't understand what a patent is. A patent doesn't give you the right to do anything. It gives you the right to keep others from doing something.

More accurately, stops others from doing something without paying for licensing. It doesn't stop them from actually doing it, it just means that if they want to do it, they'd have to pay Apple for the rights to do so.

BZZT, thanks for playing. The U.S. doesn't have compulsory licensing. Your patent law grade just dropped into the B-/C+ range.

Said nothing about compulsory licensing. Had I , then I would not have said that it doesn't stop them from actually doing it. But, if you add the implied word "legally" to any of that, it's accurate. i.e. if you want to do something Apple has patented, you can do it even if there's no cumpulsory licensing. But if you do, and Apple proves they have a valid patent, in order to legally continue to do it you WILL pay licensing, or a compensation for infringement or stop doing it, as they won't stop going after you until you do.

billy3esq wrote:

Chris_V wrote: Don't make it out to be altruistic on Apple's part.

I never suggested it was altruistic. My point was that with Apple's rather limited handset market share, I'd rather them have such a patent than Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, etc. Makes it far less likely that such an abominable system will become ubiquitous.

Again, there is more than ample evidence that filing for a patent like this is not going to stop it from being ubiquitous, merely that by Apple patenting it, they will be the chief beneficiaries of the system, either if they are the only ones doing it, or if they end up licensing it out. I never said anything about INTENT to license, but more along the lines of making sure that they are the first on the block.

There is ZERO evidence that they patented this just to stifle it from becoming ubiqutous, or to inflate the numbers of patents they hold.

In reply to Chris_V:

When you don't understand the meanings of the words we're using and can't even characterize my argument correctly, anything you say in response is worthless.

The only thing you're right about is that Apple could choose to license the patent, if they ever get it, to competitors.

I'm done pig wrestling.

I think it's conceivable that Apple would file a patent like this not only to prevent other handset makers from implementing that idea, but also to be able to prevent AT&T from forcing ads like that on iphone/ipad customers. The practice sounds a lot more like something a carrier would want to do than a handset manufacturer.

96DXCivic wrote: My friend just updated her ipod touch and it is now showing her ads and you have to interact with the ads before they go away.

Did everybody miss this comment? If this is actually true (96DXCivic, can you verify it?), then screw the patent law. Apple has already done something that will make me switch back to my Sony Walkman phone and stay away from Apple for good.

I did a bit of searching when I saw 96DX's post, and the only instance I could find on the first few pages of google of that particular complaint was this very post. I am guessing there is some sort of misunderstanding, IE the "ad" was really a spam text message, or was presented within a free ad-supported app or something similar.

There is, oddly enough, a new apple software update available right now in iTunes. It's version 3.1.3 or something.

...

I am afraid...