Apple serves notice: Don't rip off the iPhone
Does Apple think the Palm Pre, shown here, rips off the iPhone? We might find out later this year.
(Credit: Corrine Schulze/CNET)Like most people who paid attention to Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month, Apple noticed the Palm Pre.
In response to a question from a financial analyst about Palm's new smartphone and its multitouch interface, Apple COO Tim Cook, without addressing the Pre directly, made sure that everyone on Apple's quarterly earnings call Wednesday knew how Apple feels about intellectual property.
"We will not stand for having our IP ripped off," Cook declared, perhaps firing a shot across the bow of Palm and executive chairman Jon Rubinstein, a former Apple employee. To be clear, Cook did not accuse Palm of such an act, explicitly saying "I don't want to talk about any specific company."
But the context--in which Cook was being questioned about the rising threat to the iPhone from competitors like Research In Motion, Google, and Palm--was clear. Palm showed off some some remarkably iPhone-like traits on the Pre earlier this month, such as swiping the screen to move between windows and using multitouch gestures to zoom in and out of Web pages.
Palm--full of ex-Apple engineers brought over by Rubinstein--has not announced a launch date for the Pre yet, but Apple is clearly watching developments closely. Cook promised to use "every weapon at our disposal" if the company felt the iPhone's intellectual property was at risk, and I'd bet a house in Puerto Vallarta that he's talking about Apple chief legal officer Daniel Cooperman.
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Internet search, including Google, Yahoo, online advertising, and portals, as well as the evolution of mobile computing. He has written about traditional PC companies, chip manufacturers, and mobile computers, spending the last three years covering Apple. E-mail Tom. 
[CNET editors' note: Prohibited content deleted.]
that would be the day the sky falls down and the world ends !
BTW Apple's multi-touch patents were made in 2004/05
and IPhone development started 2 years before the announcement in Jan 07 !
I'm not saying that the Pre copied the IPhone
but saying Apple copied LG is just Funny as hell !
And Palm probably "stole" the idea from some 1950's sci-fi author.
Applefans are always quick to point out that competition (to MS and others) breeds improvement and lower prices. But god forbid if it happens to Apple. Wahhhh!
How about everyone **** and enjoys the innovations we're so privileged to have. If someone steals your code and implements it, fine- sue. Otherwise, deal with it and stop crying. Ideas are stolen every day.
>BTW Apple's multi-touch patents were made in 2004/05
>and IPhone development started 2 years before the announcement in Jan 07 !
The earliest application was from Sep 2006, not that far from Jan 07.
and was the head of the Ipod division !
No wonder he's so brilliant !
Your I.Q. is showing. My condolences to your parents.
Better yet, get ahead. Playing catchup to Apple doesn't work when Apple continues to innovate.
Absolutely, guys- right on! Palm enjoyed dominating the handheld market for a long time, but they didn't innovate to the point that no one's heard from them for the past few years. Their stuff was boring and old and no one wanted it. Now they have something worthwhile. If it's a copy of the iphone, people will buy the iphone. If it's better, people will buy the pre.
As long as Apple continues to innovate, they have no need to worry. If they want to follow in the old palm ideology, then they will, too, be soon forgotten. Either way, the consumer wins by having revolutionary (or at least evolutionary) devices.
But Palm Pre on the other hand mimics a lot of the IPhone UI
and is clearly inspired by the IPhone in many ways
but i wouldn't call it copying
As your comments show, Apple is still up to their old tricks, pretending that they invented a lot of stuff that really came from other companies.
(Besides, I suspect Google and Apple have a patent cross-licensing deal anyway, which would mean that Google can do whatever they want.)
apple would like to think it's trendy and original, or at least would like other people to think that, fact is, they have almost no original ideas and steal from other people. then get pissed when other people start using the idea as well (point in case). do they really think it's alright to claim ownership of a gesture? get real apple, or just get lost.
Yes, but no other companies succeed at misleading the public so well. No matter who actually invented it, Apple manages to get people to believe that it is their innovation.
that would make my day !
they basically built the company by copying from Japanese companies
and I'm pretty sure
no one with a sane brain would want to copy the Prada n e way !
it's a pathetic excuse for a Smartphone !
Agrainofsalt is right, you should be able to defend what you have, and if it isn't actually yours, then the rightful owner has every right to defend THEMselves.
I will guarantee you this: Apple is scared to death of this device , not because it`s an iPhone killer , it`s not , it is much more and does much more than their phone does. The Pre does not require you to connect to a PC/Mac to sync , it does it over the air where data is pushed to the device. Even updates are pushed out over the air. Even the charging of the phone is wireless and magnetically holds the phone on an angle so you can watch videos , etc while it is charging. The Pre has the most powerful most advanced CPU ever put into a smart phone. It is well known the iPhone is unable to multitask and that is because porting OSX to the iPhone was a bad idea. http://i.gizmodo.com/5130785/palm-os-x-is-too-fat-to-run-well-on-phones The Pre`s WebOS is Linux at the kernel and has a smaller memory foot print and is much more nimble. The innovation of turning running programs into small "cards" which can be dragged around and re-arranged , and closing the app by just flicking the card off the top of the screen is pure genius. The way Palm`s "Synergy" pulls all your social networking sites contact info into one list which updates on it`s own is another BIG thing I could see Apple trying to copy. The size and shape of the Pre combined with the gesture area allows it to be used one-handed , ambidextrously ! Try that with an iPhone ;) Gesture area allows you to go forward and back without touching the screen. Next to the Pre , the iPhone looks slab-like and dated. The Pre has no hard edges and provides a curved shape between the ear and mouth...like a real phone. The real keyboard allows you to type effortlessly. Why would you want to type on the same screen you are trying to look at ? Pre does Google search by just typing a few letters ; no need to open a web browser. A replaceable battery ! The innovations of the Palm Pre go on and on. Imagine music , IM , email , Facebook , etc....all running at the same time. All you have to do is read the comments on YouTube to realize Apple really is scared. And will be (trying) to catch up.One video is worth a million words.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLLfV0V-ABc&feature=related
Leo, some paragraph breaks would help get your message across.
As I recall Apple lost a lawsuit where it claimed that MS ripped off MacOS.
Now I think there was some sort of issue where Apple had licensed some User Interface elements to Microsoft originally, but I thought the end result was that you "can't patent and UI"....?
Or am I way off here?
Steve Jobs tried to make everyone think Apple invented Visual Voice Mail. They didn`t. They LICENSE it from the patent holder , just like others do. Notice that Instinct and others use VVM ?
A. The tech for multi-touch screens are different than regular touch screens.
B. Multi-Touch was originally created by fingerworks and is patented the **** out by them.
C. Apple bought fingerworks inc.
D. Apple thus holds all rights to multi-touch.
E. Apple did originally create visual voicemall. The other phones got this feature as an add on a couple of months before the iphone 3g for $1.99 a month.
My point was that Apple already tried suing another company for allegedly copying an Apple UI.
Basically they claimed that a graphical computer desktop that you navigated with a mouse was their idea and that MS had copied that illegally. They lost that case, and as I recall, the basic ruling was that you can't patent a UI.
The multi-touch and gesturing system on the iPhone (and Pre) are just another type of UI, so as long as Palm doesn't rip off any actual hardware technology, I would think they'd be pretty safe from Apple, based on the original MacOS/Windows ruling.
Did Apple invent it? No, but they did get approval from Xerox to use it before they put out the Macintosh.
Microsoft had better lawyers and deeper pockets and thus won that battle.
Leo, why do you hate Apple so much? Your parents bought you a TRS-80 instead of an Apple II huh?
Multitouch interfaces predate Fingerworks by a long time. What FIngerworks did is create low-cost multitouch based on trackpad-like technology. They may have succeeded in patenting multitouch in general, but if they have, their patents should be invalidated.
But this is classical Apple: don't invest anything in creating the technology, just cherry-pick from the market and then try to beat everybody over the head with patents. Users end up being the losers in all of this.
The computer industry will be a lot better off once Apple has been gotten rid of.
Did you watch the Youtube video of the how the dock worked? I find it hilarious. The guy calls himself to show something about how the phone works. What phone does he pull out of his pocket? An iPhone. What does that tell you?
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2009/01/pre-deet-1234.jpg
A company that bought GUI to computers
which invented the IPOD and brought a revolution in the music industry
and The IPhone,{which sure as hell is changing the mobile phone industry}
is called a parasite !
BTW those Palm Devices your mentioning were based on the Newton
again a device made by no other that good old Apple !
Yes Apple may nor invent everything and no one can
But they bring all those innovations together in a way which others can't
the Ipod is a great example, Mp3 players were here long before the Ipod
But no one used them !
then Apple came out with the brilliant Ipod+itunes combo
and now everyone copied them but still can't get it right !
It's the same with the IPhone,
the Finger input,the App store and the whole software platform
which competitors r struggling to copy ,
all revolutionary features which Apple brought to the table
wat did Palm bring
Cards interface and notifications, kinda lame in comparison don't you think
The Iphone has changed the mobile phone industry for the better !
So yet again , Apple innovate others follow
Ok I am going to come out and say it!! THE ONLY TIME YOU CAN USE "MULTITOUCH" ON THE IPHONE IS TO ZOOM IN AND OUT OF STORED PICTURES!! THAT'S IT!! The Palm Pre lets you use two fingers to rotate images by moving them together in a circular motion! And you can use the "pinch" method to zoom in and out of web pages!! BOTH YOU CANNOT DO ON THE IPHONE!! Let's be frank, nobody gives a damn about zooming in and out of pictures that you have on your device, but zooming in and out of web pages for reading small text, links, small images, etc is so intuitive that I can't believe that the iPhone does not give you this!!
However, the Pre's "gesture area" is completely novel and is actually a tangible element of the device, and should be patentable! It's not a just a series of motions that is integral a particular UI, it is actually part of the phone!! BIG DIFFERENCE!!
The moral of the story is: APPLE, GET OVER YOURSELF!!
As for your multitouch on the iPhone rant: you obviously have never used an iPhone. You can "pinch" to zoom in and out of pages on the iPhone (one of the first things demonstrated when announcing it). You can rotate two images (or more) at a time using various apps out there. And there are many other uses for multitouch in games, utilities, even typing.
And yes, the gesture area on the Pre sounds pretty cool, but until _anybody_ has used one, who knows how integral or even useful it actually is?
- by miles4444 January 22, 2009 7:18 AM PST
- This will only bring more attention to the Pre and make Apple look bad.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (69 Comments)The Pre is not an iPhone killer, its the anti-iPhone!