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(NEWS 6/11/10) HTC suing APPLE!?

WHAAAAT HTC trying to take down the iPhone!?
HTC has achieved somewhat of a moral victory when their May 2010 patent counter claim at the International Trade Commission against Apple was not laughed out of court.
The International Trade Commission said it would take up the investigation, which has to do with "certain portable devices and related software."
HTC claims Apple infringes 5 of their patents, and is asking the commission to ban the imports of key Apple mobile products into USA. Typically the ITC moves much faster than federal courts, and we could see the whole issue come to a head in only a few months.
HTC is responding to an earlier patent challenge involving 20 patents which Apple took to the ITC and the U.S. District Court in Delaware.
While the patents appeared mostly directed at HTC’s Android work, HTC has recently entered into a licensing agreement with Microsoft which ironically may provide some protection for their Android products.
So really what HTC is saying is: "WE ARE NOT! going to let you walk all over us" because suing... is a game of 2.
Full article can be found Here​

Oh thank God someone has the balls. It's probably too much to hope that Apple's new iPhone gets delayed, or even better...recalled...lolol.
Could you imagine the look on the poor schmucks face at the moment he goes to get his shiny new POS iPhone rung up and the clerk goes, "Whoops, sorry buddy, but I can't sell you this!". Will there be a black market for iPhones?
Again, if only if only...it's just too much to hope.
~Jasecloud4

lol I don't want to rain on anybody's parade through Cupertino, but this is actually fairly standard practice in patent law (and other types as well)...this countersuit is HTC's way of saying "No, we're not going to settle, and we're fully prepared to go 9 rounds with you over this". Companies often do this as a way to strengthen their legal position when defending against the original claims. i.e. "not only are we not infringing on your patents, you are infringing on ours!"
So, yes it's a good sign that HTC has chosen this route vs copping to a quick settlement or licensing terms...but it's not exactly groundbreaking either.

I know, but sometimes lawsuits can have unexpected results. Maybe I just hate Apple a little too much, but massive recalls, psychotic hysteria on the part of Apple users at the loss of their iPhones, and an overall general anger at Steve Jobs is a small part of dream I have lolol...

I think this was posted a while back on Engadget. Anyhow, this is a good thing. It shows how far HTC has come.
It's unlikely that Apple will lose the case, but I'm certain that HTC can get them to drop the bull****.
Patents in the US are so horribly executed.

jasecloud4 said:
I know, but sometimes lawsuits can have unexpected results. Maybe I just hate Apple a little too much, but massive recalls, psychotic hysteria on the part of Apple users at the loss of their iPhones, and an overall general anger at Steve Jobs is a small part of dream I have lolol...
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LOL yes I admit that's a damn funny vision
PoisonWolf said:
Patents in the US are so horribly executed.
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Amen! There's companies that make more off of their patent portfolios than from any actual prodcut or service they sell, and it's worse in the IP sector than anywhere.

Dude the only reason I hate apple is because they think they OWN YOU I mean think about it steve jobs iPhone is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT than HTC.
HTC says you need a phone that gets you and apple says YOU NEED THIS phone just because we are apple.
I hate that! its like monopoly all over again! ITS ABOUT DAM TIME SOME ONE STEP UP TO THEM!

even if HTC won, apple wouldn't be made to recall the product. They can't, once its sold it's sold (unless its an app from the app store, or a book on the amazon reader thingy where they can just delete it, of course, hehe, and even then, most lawyers agree that would be technically unlawful))
You, the buyer cannot be penalised for the sellers law breaking/mistakes. There won't and never will be a forced recall in these cases.

no they wont recall the phones yet they will spend millions rectifying software on the iPhone in order to step outside of infringements which is good enough for me as Apple are self obsessed wan**rs in my personal experience buying Apple products quickly reflects upon your own personality too,
HTC in my opinion are just flexing their Muscles that they have acquired by taking some microsoft steroids but in all fairness it is about time Apple get slapped in the face - maybe this will make them realise they cant do what they want
i love legal battles between companies especially smaller vs bigger, and in this case the smaller will probably win =]

I'm so happy this took a strange turn. HTC should have a voice... they have been producing touch screen phones far longing than apple. i think HTC knows they screwed up leaving Microsoft in charge from developing state of the art touch technology. i don't think its right for one company to with hold such a standard feature. Its like Intel saying they patented the computer's cpu and chipset, and motherboard, so anyone else following this directly be sued. also suing for monetary is lame, but suing to peace is acceptable in my book. everyone wins (besides neither will ever win the war, but rather pay to win one expensive battle, which are crippling fees to lawyers and officials who decide their fate. Since they both bring in lots of cash flow, this system wont allow this monopoly to happen) In the end they'll just compete with technology, which as a consumer we get the best technologies for the lowest price point (currently apple wants to put that hurting on consumers wallets.
Apple is afraid. it has been confirmed that T Mobile USA will launch apple product next month in July. Apple has expanded its market in despite of android replacing the popular growth of Blackberry users. Now apple wants a piece of that market, and they have agreed to jump into other markets to obtain that. apparently At&t can only pay for a timed launch for a product and can not force another company to deal directly with them, unless of course they purchase that company out...

This has been on the HTC website for some time now. I'm surprised nobody made a thread about this sooner....

Some (hopefully) interesting thoughts about Ipad versus Gtab

It seems everywhere I look while doing my g-tab research, this debate rages. And, just like abortion and the relative value of left wing versus right wing, most of the time the debate degenerates into name calling and general idiocy. I actually think it IS an interesting discussion to have.....and one with valuable points to be made on both sides. It is important for people to go into the decision of which product to buy with a full quiver of knowledge rather than buying something which doesn't meet their needs or wants. Whether we are talking about three hundred bucks or six hundred, it is not pocket change.
First and most out of character for me, I want to talk about the strengths of the ipad. It is, in typical Apple fashion, a beautiful, iconic, well designed gadget that makes gadget whores the world over salivate to get their paws on it. Despite the many negatives about a closed technosystem (which I will get into later) Apple's technosystem also provides a simplicity and elegance that is almost unmatched in the operating system universe (with the possible exception of Webos). When I am advising friends on what computer or gadget to buy, if money is not an object, I always say this: if you want to do ten things simply and elegantly, ios is a great choice. But if you want to do an eleventh thing, or any of the first ten thing in a different way, Apple won't let you.
Surprisingly, one of the arenas that Apple is really dominating is portable gaming. After years of being a PC gamer and scoffing at my Mac gamer friend with their pathetic game library, I thought that Android would at least be on par. Much to my shock, even Webos is a vastly superior platform for gaming when compared to Android. It is my opinion that Google and Nvidia need to address the sad dearth of good games ASAP if they have any hope of breaking into a race in which they are already a lap behind.
Finally, I will say that Apple has done a masterful job of building an absolutely rabid fan base. As an overarching company, it's frankly shocking the kind of product dedication they are able to inspire. A few years back when Apple laptop hard drives were failing at an alarming rate, my hard core Apple friends looked for ANY excuse to let the company off the hook. But they have worked VERY hard through marketing and mostly (minus Steve Jobs) fantastic public relationsto build that kind of relationship with the consumer. Android and it's various licensees need to develop an interface that is much more user friendly and accessable to the non technically minded public.
Now to my beloved Gtab. Clearly from a hardware perspective it is on par with, or arguably superior to, the ipad. What seems to be overlooked in these discussions over and over is that to compare the Gtab and the Ipad is essentially the same thing as comparing a Honda and a Lexus. A Honda will most likely last as long or longer than a Lexus, and run as well or better. But people who buy Lexus are willing to pay a tax on luxury and brand name. But the Lexus costs over twice as much, so ultimately comparing the two based on their merits is less valuable than asking what the owner wants from their purchase. Clearly the Gtab, clocking in at around half the price of the Ipad, is a far better bang for the buck. But if what the consumer wants is the brand name, cool factor, and the 'it just works' mentality, and they are willing to pay a premium for the 'privilege' of owning Apple, then an Ipad may very well be the right choice for them. However, I think that with VERY little
technical know how, the Gtab quickly becomes an obvious alternative. It obviously holds the advantage when it comes to the web (complete flash compatibility is a fairly huge advantage right now and could become a bigger one as people develop useful flash apps for business), and the open market is both an advantage and disadvantage. There is no quality control in the Android market, but there is also far more scope for creativity and innovation now, and depending on how Google etc play their cards, and most definitely in the future.
Obviously, cheap memory expandability is a massive advantage to the Gtab. Non- expandable devices, in this era of cheap flash memory, cannot be looked at as anything but simple greed. The same goes for proprietary ports and cables. Gtab has a clear advantage here with usb, micro usb, microsd, and the possibility of easy hdmi out in the future.
Android itself has major advantages and disadvantages. It is not nearly as intuitive or as easily picked up as Ios, but it has far greater room for quantum leaps forward. Ios, to avoid alienating it's core users, is forced to take a far more conservative, evolutionary approach. Android needs to use this to it's advantage by making bold, market changing leaps forward and continuing to undercut Apple on price point, rather than playing catch up and releasing expensive tablets and trying to compete with Apple at what they do best (I believe the Xoom was a fairly major miscalculation, but won't go into that now). Apple is at risk of falling into operating system complacency like Palm did in the early 2000s. Android should leap on innovation, and reward it well....swype is a fantastic example of this. I'm writing this on my Gtab with swype right now, and there is nothing in the virtual keyboard world that even comes close.
In closing, let me say that I choose Honda over Lexus. I choose an open technosphere where I can use technology as I wish. I love my Gtab and plan to use it for the foreseeable future...but I pray that Nvidia and Google get together and realize that an open system doesn't have to mean a system without a game plan. Nvidia needs to get on the stick and release a raft of games that show off the technology Tegra 2 can bring to the table. Android tablets, and specifically sub 300 tablets could be a real draw to young gamers as an alternative to the new DS and the forthcoming PSP IF they had a good library of possibilities. They need to continue to support those of us that have already jumped aboard. Make us be the missionaries of their coolness. Just in the Woot/Tigerdirect liquidation over 10,000 Gtabbers have been added to the ranks. That is NOT an insignificant number. They need to build as many IT/business friendly apps as humanly possible. Apple's insistance on doing things their way has left them extremely vulnerable to any companies that can offer a more business friendly solution. This and this alone is why RIM is still in business. If Viewsonic and all other licensees could get even a portion of the 18-25 portable game market AND get a portion of the 30-50 business market, they would be in an excellent position to take a bite out of the big Apple. Having said all this....I admire Apple. I admire their consistant refinement of already existing technology. They may only make evolutionary leaps, but damn they do it well. But as long as I can buy more product and more freedom for half the price, that's the way I'm walking.

I'll just say that I bought the gtablet for the family so that we could surf the web on a comfy couch. Web content includes flash. The ipad doesn't support flash.
The OS is irrelevant when you're surfing the web, so the choice is obvious.

What was the point of your thesis? Who and why would you go with any general consensus on any man made products these days especially when they are mostly made in China with the exception of the lexus Isn't that one of toyota's non-braking brands? Mostly people are swayed by emotional responses to what they feel they may be getting. It is sad to know so many are building their self esteem, self worth, value from having or owning innate objects including g tab. Enjoying is one thing but feeling superior as a result of is another.
I can't stand apple products for me they have no value. The company is not environmentally or human rightfully responsible. Coupled with the arrogance of jobs thinking the entire Internet should change their usage of flash because he doesn't have the capacity to put it into his products. And I particularly don't like the ipad because it is nothing more than a pictorial cash register with the lion's share going to apple. Nothing about Apple appeals to me not even the design. The fisherprice gui or the odd shapes and the rotten apple logo. Anytime you bite into an apple and leave it uneaten it rots. To each his own reasons to buy or not to buy.

edirector said:
Enjoying is one thing but feeling superior as a result of is another.
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Funny story. So, I was sitting on the train other day going home. Had my gtab out playing some games. Out of all the seats that were available around, one guy had to sit down right next to me. I usually don't mind so I usually have my stuff between my legs instead of taking up a seat like some people. So, without pausing, this guy got out his ipad 2 and started playing games with it.
What I found funny was that I was dressed practically in rags because I had spent the whole day in the concrete lab working on one of our test machines. This guy was in some casual business attire (very white collar-like).
The gtab really is the poor man's tablet while the ipad and the xoom are the rich man's tablets.
I can't stand apple products for me they have no value. The company is not environmentally or human rightfully responsible. Coupled with the arrogance of jobs thinking the entire Internet should change their usage of flash because he doesn't have the capacity to put it into his products. And I particularly don't like the ipad because it is nothing more than a pictorial cash register with the lion's share going to apple. Nothing about Apple appeals to me not even the design. The fisherprice gui or the odd shapes and the rotten apple logo. Anytime you bite into an apple and leave it uneaten it rots. To each his own reasons to buy or not to buy.
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I wouldn't go that far with apple. I do recommend apple to most people who ask for my advice. Let's admit it. Apple really is made for those who only sees the outside. And it works right out of the box.

goodintentions said:
Funny story. So, I was sitting on the other day going home. Had my gtab out playing some games. Out of all the seats that were available around, one guy had to sit down right next to me. I usually don't mind so I usually have my stuff between my legs instead of taking up a seat like some people. So, without pausing, this guy got out his ipad 2 and started playing games with it.
What I found funny was that I was dressed practically in rags because I had spent the whole day in the concrete lab working on one of our test machines. This guy was in some casual business attire (very white collar-like).
The gtab really is the poor man's tablet while the ipad and the xoom are the rich man's tablets.
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I can't stand apple products for me they have no value. The company is not environmentally or human rightfully responsible. Coupled with the arrogance of jobs thinking the entire Internet should change their usage of flash because he doesn't have the capacity to put it into his products. And I particularly don't like the ipad because it is nothing more than a pictorial cash register with the lion's share going to apple. Nothing about Apple appeals to me not even the design. The fisherprice gui or the odd shapes and the rotten apple logo. Anytime you bite into an apple and leave it uneaten it rots. To each his own reasons to buy or not to buy.[/QUOTE]
I wouldn't go that far with apple. I do recommend apple to most people who ask for my advice. Let's admit it. Apple really is made for those who only sees the outside. And it works right out of the box.[/QUOTE]
But it doesn't ipad 2 has serious operable issues and economic standing in life has no correlation to tech toys. Who can't afford an iphone they are selling for $49 and you can get ipad at walmart. People utter such nonsense in reference to apple products. I paid $500 for my cell phone cash.
It boils down to a matter of choice. For myself I will own 2 or 3rd of these products none apple. I will pick up playbook next as soon as I see what the development community can do with it. My spouse offered to buy me an ipad not costing me a dime I said don't waste your money.

I agree and have said much the same thing since I bought my first Droid 1. I have since upgraded to a Droid X and the Gtab.
Apple is great, if you like living inside a tight little box. Android is for those who like to express themselves and push the limits.
Then I started some new classes and they give me a Macbook Pro. I must admit, the packaging was very nice, especially compared to my last HP (that is now trash because HP won't support it...) but the first thing I did was pull out my copy of Windows 7 and partition the hard drive. I might have to do some of my design work on the Mac partition, but the rest of my time is spent on a "normal" computer.

I would agree with a lot of the thoughts already expressed on this thread, however I don't think that the gtab is a "poor man's tablet". To say so implies that our tabs are somehow less than the xooms and ipads. In almost every category the gtab holds its own or far exceeds the competition. In fact, with the exception of the display (which I actually don't have issue with since I'm in landscape all the time anyway), I think the hardware is superior in every way to the ipad. The fact that Viewsonic managed to make a product compete on a level playing field with the top tablets in the market today for less than half the price is incredible and goes to show how much the manufacturers (especially Apple) are making off of consumers.
I do recommend ipads for my friends who aren't tech-savvy. As was said before, Apple products just work and you do have to respect that. The completely closed system in which they operate allows for total control and an unparalleled experience for the AVERAGE user. My Evo and my gTab are inoperable for some length of time about once a week because I won't stop messing with them. And Apple products do look sexy, in a man-purse gucci sunglasses kind of way.
Comparing iPads and gTabs as Honda and Lexus isn't a fair comparison. A better comparison would be a modded out Nissan Skyline GT-R with twin oversize turbos, nitrous, and a shake-your-neighbor-out-of-bed-to-watch-your-burnout tunable exhaust (That's the gTab) versus an out of the box Ferrari. Both are fast. Wicked fast. And both look sexy in different ways. The most important thing is that they both run a 1/4 mile in pretty much the same time. The Ferrari has a v12 and a carbon-fiber monocoque chassis from the factory, but the Skyline has more cupholders. The guy driving the Ferrari gets out of his ride at the local Starbucks and has every money-grubbing trophy wife drooling on it. The guy with the skyline has to reprogram his standalone ECU to back it out of the garage, but gets his hood shined by models for Turbonetics. The Skyline has a back seat.
The gTab is not a poor mans tablet. The gTab is a tablet for people who want to smoke that d-bag in the ferrari but are smart enough not to drop $120k on it. And comparing the gTab to the iPad isn't even worth doing. The hardware is too close to call, the benchmarks are inconclusive at best. What we should be doing is comparing end users of these products.

I would say both have their places. I love my gtab and believe it suits my needs and temperament to a tee. However, I am by training and inclination a tinkerer and I don't mind the occasional lockup or reboot as the price I pay for the ability to tinker. My wife and mother, on the other hand, would be seriously torqued if it happened to them on anything approaching a regular basis. Consequently, they both have iPads and not gTabs.
I am the antithesis of an apple fanboy (my wife gets pissed because I constantly refer to her iPhone as an iSuck) but not really for any reason other than what I perceive as the inherent arrogance of The Steve and his minions. And I dislike being dictated to. But other than my philosophical issues with apple I really can't say too much negative about the iPad, other than I think it's ridiculous that they have neither SD card support or, and I consider this borderline criminal neglect, USB ports. For people like my technophobic mother though, they are just what the doctor ordered. The iPad is the only device we've ever found that will consistently allow her to access the web and email without turning her off or intimidating her.
On the other hand, I think the android tablet market has a lot of promise but is trying hard to strangle itself at birth with the pricing structures the manufacturers keep adopting. That's all I will say about that for now (though I did rant about it here: http://www.swamphole.org/content/tablet-computing-101). If the vendors can get that under control and Google doesn't piss too many people off with their to-date refusal to release Honeycomb, I think these tablets have a very bright future. Right now I don't think any of them are stable enough for anybody but the people who are tech savvy and/or don't want an iPad for whatever reason. For those folks that are willing to put in the effort I think devices like the gTab can be made into far superior tablets than any iPad.

Thanks, Macros764, for your post. This us (non-Apple users) versus them (Apple users) feeling has existed for ages now and it's good of you to remind us that there are 2 almost entirely different markets (and possibly mentalities) at work here. Another person noticed what you hinted at in your post (the Honda vs Lexus distinction) and commented on it long ago.
I'm talking about Neal Stephenson's interesting essay, "In the Beginning... Was the Command line", which you can search for on Google (as a new poster, I can't add a direct link here).
His essay written in 1999 was about Linux, Windows and Apple users, but you can replace Linux with Android everywhere in that essay and it will still all ring true.
I like Mr. Stephenson's terms for the different kinds of users. Android users are like H. G. Wells's Morlocks--they're the ones who like to tinker with stuff and tend to know how those things work. Apple users have always been the Eloi. They don't care how things work as long as it does (and it looks good).
I tend to be a Morlock (and I suspect a lot of the users on this forum are too, to varying degrees), but some days, I wish I could be an Eloi.
Enjoy reading the essay. Be warned that in true Stephenson style, it is a very long piece.

An enjoyable and thoughtful piece - better than the usual flames and rants that the word Apple usually provokes. Never one to miss an opportunity to add my two cents, here I go. To begin with I have many years experience - I was in IT before the PC was born so I've had a chance to watch the whole thing from start to finish. There was a time when there was just DOS and every computer ran it - branded or clone. There was another alternative CP/M and I used it but it died by natural selection. I think there was even Unix around at that point but it was specialized. Later there were a lot of different things to choose from Windows, Apple, Commodore and lots of other things that have disappeared. Windows evolved into the os for business (after IBM shot itself in the head with OS2) and Mac became the os for graphic arts. It kind of stayed that way for a long time and Apple really was a niche market. Linux appeared but it was brutal in those days. Everything was manual setup, X sometimes worked and sometimes didn't and you had no idea how things would work on your particular box. I have been playing with linux since those early days but ultimately in my business environment windows was the os of choice. Apple remained something that "the print guys" used. In my mind the displacement of the walkman by the ipod marked the shift of Apple's fortunes. Whether it was the cash or the public perception of Apple or both they suddenly became a much bigger player. They clearly "got" the marketing thing and their closed garden approach did make them very palatable for the masses who were willing to pay extra to be safe from the blue screen of death, endless virus attacks and debacles like Vista. Linux has continued trudging but the continued fragmentation still prevents it from really getting into the game. Ubuntu is the best hope for Linux in my opinion. They seem to have figured out that mainstream users don't need 10 different word processors in each distribution - just one good one that works something like Word that people are used to. I think that if Ubuntu continues the way it is going it will see more and more adoption over time especially as Windows becomes more and more clunky in the effort to squeeze cash out of increasingly savy users. The problem for Ubuntu is that it may be too late.
Increasingly, I find that the tablet idea that I once scorned is probably the direction that things will go in for many users. Executives where I work want to know if they can have a tablet - not a laptop to take with them. People at home are happy to curl up on the couch with a tablet to surf the web, read email and interact with friends. Apple knows this because they have had the experience with the ipod, the iphone and now the ipad. Their closed world gives them a huge advantage because they don't have to worry if google is going to release the source code for them or if Invidia will bother to write drivers for them. They control it all.
So, what's a g-tabber to do. Well we can't make Google release Honeycomb, we can't force Invidia to write drivers and it doesn't seem like we can even get Viewsonic to do much of anything. I worry that Android will fragment the way Linux did and all the competing versions will just sap the strength of the whole.
That said - I've got Vegan Ginger on my tablet, I've added Clemsyns kernel with CIFS support so I can access my files on my server. I've picked and chosen apps, 99% of them free so I can do almost everything on my g-tab that I can on my PC. It is fast, cool, and completely under my control. I keep pushing the envelope to see what else I can do with it. If it never evolves beyond where it is right now it will still be the best $300 I've spent on gadgets. The developer support in this forum is enviable and I know that I haven't done or learned everything about the g-tab yet. So my g-tab may not be the expensive fancy sports car ripping down the highway that the ipad is but man, when I go off roading and mud bogging with my g-tab, I have a blast! So choose your vehicle for you activities and don't try and second guess yourself or anyone else. Life is short - be happy!

austontatious said:
I would agree with a lot of the thoughts already expressed on this thread, however I don't think that the gtab is a "poor man's tablet". To say so implies that our tabs are somehow less than the xooms and ipads.
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I don't think it implies any such thing. It does, however, define your social status. It's like what school you went to for college. For some, the only reason they went to school A, which costs $60,000 a year, is because they're following the family tradition and the father is some lawyer or doctor. For others, a school like Iowa State or U. of I. looks just as good but costs only a fraction of what school A charges.
The ipad and the xoom really were designed for people to show off. Everything about them looks, exterior wise, looks good and classy. The gtab, for lack of a better word, is ugly looking. Here is what Robert has to say about the difference between an android device like the gtab and something more high class like the xoom or the ipad.
Android is like having an old beat-up Chevy - not much to look at at first, but after some tweaking under the hood, a good paint job and redesigning the interior, you have a great car that not only runs and looks good, but is designed for you because you made it that way. iOS is like a really nice looking car that came off the assembly line - looks nice, runs great and all the car shops have accessories for it, but there's nothing unique about it. Looks like everyone else's car. So it depends on what you want.
In almost every category the gtab holds its own or far exceeds the competition.
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And yet a lot of people on this forum have specifically expressed that if they had the money they'd buy the ipad or xoom.
In fact, I am convinced that if the ipad, xoom, and gtab all cost the same, nobody would even consider buying the gtab... except for me. I like to hunt down non-mainstream items to own. I don't like my stuff to look like everyone else's.

I have a G-tablet. I like it. I wish it had Netflix and HuluPlus like the Ipad. I wish it was easy to find accessories for it, like the Ipad. Having not ever actually used an Ipad, at this moment I sort of wish I had one, If I had one I would probably miss all the tinkering I can do with my Gtab.
If my Gtab could stream netflix and huluplus it would be no contest.

Pexcer said:
I have a G-tablet. I like it. I wish it had Netflix and HuluPlus like the Ipad. I wish it was easy to find accessories for it, like the Ipad. Having not ever actually used an Ipad, at this moment I sort of wish I had one, If I had one I would probably miss all the tinkering I can do with my Gtab.
If my Gtab could stream netflix and huluplus it would be no contest.
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I have both an iPad2 and a Gtablet. The iPad2 is very nice, and does what it does very well. And, it prints to the local laser printer. Streams netflix, etc.
You have to jailbreak it to get access to the stripped down MacOS that is iOS, with shell, etc, which I'm not doing - did that with an iPod Touch a few years ago, and although its fun it really doesn't add much now that the app store has soaked up most developers.
iPad2 = just works. If it does what you want, you're golden. If you're willing to risk a $600 device, you can jailbreak it and gain a level of tinkering that is about 20% of the tinkering you can do in Android on the GTablet.
So, yeah - GTablet is way more fun to tinker with, swapping in new kernels, playing with various roms... Android is still a lot rougher as well, and more open (you can drop in stuff *not* from a walled garden) but for the average person who just wants a pad to couch surf, read the news at breakfast, do their email, read books, or play games... iPad2 is going to do it. It's going to do it as well as a laptop, and a lot more conveniently, without the hassle of virus checking or other crap that most people would just as soon not deal with.
I feel like the "status symbol" argument is a strawman. If you're just a regular person, not into coding, tinkering, etc... not into more than surfing and email and maybe some games, the iPad is going to be as good as a laptop, and about as much if not less in cost. This is why the iPad is eating into laptop sales, and killed the netbook market.
Can Android get there and compete? Unless Honeycomb is way WAY better than Gingerbread, I think they're at least a year if not two away from parity with the current iPad2 just on software. Again, I'm not considering myself (or likely anyone who would even visit xda-developers) as the iPad target market. But there are way more people in the target market than are here

I have both. I bought the G tab back in January knowing full well the issues with it. It was my intention to mod it like most here but for one thing or another haven't done it yet. I do like customizing main screen anyway I like to, with widgets and such, something the IPad can't do. The fact that I can convert movies on my pc and copy by USB drive is great. Photo viewing, music, surfing the net, audio books are great on it.
I decided I really wanted the IPad for my business which has many more and better apps suited for it. I can take pictures of job sites , keep track of estimates and invoicing with some very good apps.*
The whole Mac cult is creepy but I knew about that. The display is very good, no denying. Form factor, great.
I am keeping both of them.

iPhone Patent a Huge Blow to Rival Smartphone Makers

Just released Today. Repost from http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1135896
I figured it get more exposure here than there.
Apple's newly awarded patent gives it ownership of the capacitive multitouch interface, spelling big trouble for rival smartphone makers, say patent experts.
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"Apple could conceivably restrict makers of touchscreen smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices from selling their products in the U.S. More likely is that Apple would reach a settlement with such competitors and start licensing its patented technology for a tidy new income stream.
If Apple does decide to play hardball and squeeze out rivals rather than set up cross-licenses, the source said, it's entirely possible that a court could find it in the public interest to scrap the patent rather than allow a monopoly on what has become a defining interface for an entire category of consumer devices."
Here is The Patent:

This changes everything. Now Apple can rest peacefully about it's continued existence in the face of Android's dominance in the smartphone market. Apple can require Google to license it's multi-touch tech and possibly throttle Android's dominance.

Wow apple... Yet another low blow to the Android community, how can they patent the idea of multiple inputs on a touch screen?
That's like putting a patent on fire...
Sent from my Zio using XDA Premium App

I'm gonna patent keyboards, then y'all be really screwed

NewZJ said:
I'm gonna patent keyboards, then y'all be really screwed
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haha for real huh? With this patent and the iPhone 5 coming out i guess we'll have to wait and see what happens.

How can you patent something that already exists elsewhere?

PharmCAT said:
How can you patent something that already exists elsewhere?
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It didn't exist when Apple applied for the patent. 3 years ago Apple started working on multi-touch display tech and it was unheard of until Apple revealed work on it. They just now got awarded the patent. It took 3 years of the the system to get to it.

This is really nothing new, companies do this all the time. In order to create x86 base cpu cores, AMD licenses out x86 and other instruction sets from Intel, Intel licenses out x64 instruction sets from AMD, and there are others to note.

If apple decides to sue everyone and becomes ridiculous and extremely lame, then it doesn't have to mean its the end of the world.. who knows, maybe someone such as htc will design a new line of touch screens that are superior to capacitive touch

Now is it for multi touch displays in general, or is it for like 2 finger touch or something like that?
Edit-It looks like it's for 2 finger touch, N and M being the amount of fingers. To get out of the license fee, they could try to use displays that use more than 2 fingers if the licensing fee is too much.

wow. Putting patent on multi touch screen is like Toyota (other auto maker) patenting number of tires on cars.

Sounds about right. I just hope this doesn't mean a price hike for non-Apple consumers. And I especially hope this doesn't somehow allow them to monopolize the touchscreen market.
Sent from my Inc using Nil's Business Gingersense. Now that's Incredible.

I know this sounds awful for us android users but it could be the greatest thing. With phone makers not allowed to use capaacitive screens, this almost forces them to use Surface Wave (SAW) screens. They also allow multi touch but are completely different. If you look them up they seem even better than capactive screens. They were considered unpracticle for phones because they were not resisitant to dust/water/dirt (meaning this stuff would just linger on the screen). But some phone makers have succesfully made covers, per say, for these that completely wipes out this problem. One major advantage is that they are scratch resistant and completely finger print resisitant. Also, while capacative screens only let through about 85% of the light, these screens let through about 92% on the low end. Some high-end screens have even let through 98%. This allows for theses screens to have the absolute best display/resolution. Look here to see the great specs.
http://www.softtouch.co.in/saw.htm

e334 said:
If apple decides to sue everyone and becomes ridiculous and extremely lame, then it doesn't have to mean its the end of the world.. who knows, maybe someone such as htc will design a new line of touch screens that are superior to capacitive touch
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Kind of like how some Japanese companies are investing in alternatives to rare earth minerals which the Chinese are considering restricting. There's always a way around an obstacle. HTC, the best phone maker in the world, will no doubt have an alternative to capacitive displays. It might be a few pennies more expensive than current displays, but would certainly allow the industry to continue on.

<insert your favorite lawyer joke here>
One day you will come to realize the scope of this idiocy and then you might even want to kick all the lawyer's asses, but it might be too late already. The rest of the world will be speaking Chinese.
P.S.
MartyLK said:
It didn't exist when Apple applied for the patent. 3 years ago Apple started working on multi-touch display tech and it was unheard of until Apple revealed work on it. They just now got awarded the patent. It took 3 years of the the system to get to it.
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Extreme BS. http://cs.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirtouch/

If you can't beat the competition, buy/patent it.

Microsoft Surface anyone?
They had the first prototype back in 2003.
I wonder how their patent differs...

Sometimes I wish I was a hitman. Id eliminate the idiots allowing these patents..
#FlameBait
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xaccers said:
Microsoft Surface anyone?
They had the first prototype back in 2003.
I wonder how their patent differs...
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Almost all these new patents are absolutely not new. The problem being the FUBARed U.S. patent system. In a sane system, you do no grant patents without any review like USPTO and do not tell the competitors "go sue them in case you have objections". (Will rather non commment the SW patents nonsense.)
Not to mention, that the language has become completely incomprehensible in order to obscure the nature and scope of the "patent" as much as possible for future patent racketeering purposes.

Just another example (probably, at least, though I'm not certain) of the patent and copyright systems running amok.
This better not put a major dent in the Android market. Hopefully at worst it'll force Android phones to become even more competitive.

Apple wins preliminary injunction against sale of Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in EU

Apple blocks sale of Samsung's Android fondleslab across EU
Stifle competition appears to be the corporate strategy of the day

With its German suit based on the Community Design, Apple seeks fines of up to 250,000 euros (roughly $350,000) for each violation or, if the alleged infringement continues, imprisonment of Samsung management for up to two years.
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Jobs has gone off the deep end... this is ludicrous.
IMPRISONMENT?
these are guys with families just trying to make, albeit rather opulent, a living... and Apple wants them thrown into jail?
terrifying. I seriously hope Apple's strategy backfires.. this kind of stuff scares the living daylights out of me.

Apple is evil. But noone cares besides people like us who see what goes on behind the scenes. The average consumer just wants the "best" product. I put best in quotes because the general public thinks anything with that Apple logo is automatically the best thing out there.

slapshot30 said:
Apple is evil. But noone cares besides people like us who see what goes on behind the scenes. The average consumer just wants the "best" product. I put best in quotes because the general public thinks anything with that Apple logo is automatically the best thing out there.
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1/3 of iPhone users mistakenly think they have 4g. That's including 3GS users. If you did a poll with just iPhone 4 users, I bet half of them would claim to have 4g.
Apples needs an injunction because half of Apple's userbase probably couldn't figure out that a tablet that says "SAMSUNG" on the front is not from Apple.

Closed
No need to open another thread on same topic
Here you can continue to post and comment

Niceeeeeeeeee

bleach168 said:
1/3 of iPhone users mistakenly think they have 4g. That's including 3GS users. If you did a poll with just iPhone 4 users, I bet half of them would claim to have 4g.
Apples needs an injunction because half of Apple's userbase probably couldn't figure out that a tablet that says "SAMSUNG" on the front is not from Apple.
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most consumers are basically whores who will buy anything they see on tv if a celebrity endorses it, or it has flashy graphics. i dunno, i spent to much time in advertising to figure out the tricks and gimmicks of tech companies.
why do you think ESPN uses whiz-bang graphics? of course, short attention spans like flashy colors.

Apple wins case against Samsung. $1 billion awarded

So Samsung was found guilty of infringing apple's patents and will have to pay $1 billion in damages.
http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-apple-samsung-verdict-20120824,0,7031929.story
The troubling thing in there is that one of the patents infringed is pinch to zoom. Does this mean Android may have to pay for it too?
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Pinch to zoom would more likely be a case of paying royalties. Microsoft currently pay Apple royalties for such features on their OS, so Google would have to deal with it. Google do have a little bit of a track record for taking code and using it like it's public property but I doubt it could do them any serious harm.
This was much more about the fact that once the iPhone popped up, Samsung's phones all suddenly changed to look and behave like Apple's, even skinning Android to look like iOS. The case was mainly about hardware design. I just hope the outcome doesn't damage their newer, more unique stuff, like the Galaxy S3 and Nexus.
There's not anything to worry about in terms of the future of the OS itself, Apple rely on their relationship with Google.

Sad day in technology land. Our patent system is really messed up.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1785833