If the rumors are true, Motorola is about to blow away the iPhone (1 Viewer)

[Sam Posten]

And this justifies Apple's actions how, exactly?

Cause this is how patents and trade dress lawsuits work? If you don't proactively protect yourself you lose.
See Robert Keehey's response here:
http://www.focus.com/questions/does-apple-have-strong-case-their-trade-dress-lawsuit/
Also see the entire oeuvre of FOSSPatents:
http://www.fosspatents.com/
While I personally currently believe the patent (and copyright for that matter) systems are a mess that are the weapons of both incumbents and trolls, I am at least smart enough to admit I don't know enough to judge more than the symptoms I see, not the whole ball of wax.
All I can do is keep following sites like FOSSP and Groklaw and try to remain up to date, I have no hope of gaining proactive expertise and no lay person who isn't spending their lives doing so really does.
This one is a doozy tho, if you are an Apple hater you will feel right at home:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120902120442355
But it's NOT all black and white.

 

[Sam Posten]

Is your white knight expected to be unveiled at this event at 2 today?
http://live.theverge.com/live-motorola-on-display/
Or is that cable box related?

 

[Hanson]

As I understand it, the "take you to the edge" invite was for the Sept 18th event in London. From the slate of phones rumored to be revealed today, none of them appear to be the edge to edge phone. There are images of the three Razr branded phones already, and none appear to be this mythic device.

 

[Sam Posten]

Okie doke. Listened in on the Nokia Liveblog, nothing earth shattering there. Will probably listen in to the Moto one if I have time...

 

[Hanson]

I really don't know what Nokia has to do to make me even bother looking at their phones. I have zero interest in Windows Phone. And I used (and loved) WinMo for years. But it has all the limitations of iOS with a tiny app store in comparison. But if I had to make the choice, I'd grab the 4.5 Lumia 920 over an iPhone.

 

[RobertR]

Cause this is how patents and trade dress lawsuits work? If you don't proactively protect yourself you lose.

Every time I see this kind of "they're just acting according to the law" response, I think of the scene in Scrooge, where he tells the old ladies "if you'd prefer me to confiscate your store, as is my legal right, I will do so". His "legal right" is not the point. And no, I do not believe for ONE SECOND that Apple's motives are purely defensive. If you do, you are either incredibly naive or choosing to be very obtuse.

 

[Sam Posten]

They announced the bezeless Droid RAZR M today, that's not the one you are talking about?

It has 4.3-inch with "almost no borders."
The Droid RAZR M.

If they are announcing a true bezel-less phone on the 18th what is this one's reason for being?

 

[Sam Posten]

Hoo boy.

Every time I see this kind of "they're just acting according to the law" response, I think of the scene in Scrooge, where he tells the old ladies "if you'd prefer me to confiscate your store, as is my legal right, I will do so". His "legal right" is not the point. And no, I do not believe for ONE SECOND that Apple's motives are purely defensive. If you do, you are either incredibly naive or choosing to be very obtuse.

I don't even know where to begin with that Robert, no matter what I say and you are just going to stew over there in your own bile so I think I'm done with this part of the conversation.

 

[Hanson]

Originally Posted by Sam Posten /t/323420/if-the-rumors-are-true-motorola-is-about-to-blow-away-the-iphone#post_3970797
They announced the bezeless Droid RAZR M today, that's not the one you are talking about?
If they are announcing a true bezel-less phone on the 18th what is this one's reason for being?

The Droid Razr M is a mid-priced $99 phone and definitely has bezels. None of the phones they've announced are the bezel-less phones. What's your source?

 

[Sam Posten]

The Verge Live blog. That's pretty much all they said about it at the time, but the pictures show that the bezels are still there, and don't seem any smaller than usual....
Edit; Nope, Moto IS touting it as the first edge to edge phone. See the video here:
http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/5/3293556/motorola-droid-razr-m-4g-lte-announcement/in/3058570

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

I'm not a subscriber, but do all these legal battles really matter? Maybe not...

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/09/04/apple-will-lose-this-patently-absurd-thermonuclear.aspx


RE: the Windoze Phones, I guess there's the very off chance that Microsoft's variation on a convergence strategy might garner some noteworthy interest in the Windoze Phones along w/ the Slate, Windows 8, etc. Not likely from me though as neither my work nor I will likely be upgrading to Windows 8 anytime soon... if ever perhaps...

_Man_

 

[Sam Posten]

I simply don't know Man. I suspect it is a distraction for all involved and it never should have happened. Software Patents were not allowed until the Mid 80s. We knew it was a mistake as soon as it happened, does anyone remember the .GIF disaster? The 1 touch ordering patent?
As Kirby notes everyone steals and then they get pissy about it when they reach some modicum of success:
http://www.ted.com/talks/kirby_ferguson_embrace_the_remix.html
But.... where was all the outrage when it was APPLE paying royalties to Nokia?
http://www.mondaynote.com/2012/08/26/the-apple-tax-part-ii/
It's a complex problem, nobody is innocent, and it's going to get worse before it gets better.

 

[Hanson]

Wow. Well, that rumor promised waaaay too much. Not the kind of state of the art I had envisioned.

However, it is clearly designed to be a $100 iPhone alternative. Verizon is going to love that.

 

[Sam Posten]

Dunno Hanson, maybe there is another for that date, who knows.
Here's a good question tho:
http://gizmodo.com/5940715/hey-google-why-cant-motorola-put-out-a-jelly-bean-phone-when-you-own-motorola

 

[Hanson]

I don't understand why Moto phone don't sport stock Android anyway. Who needs that Motoblur shizz?

I'm going to assume that the actions based on locale thing is baked into Motoblur and that's what's hanging up the JB update. I mean, I hope it is.

And yes Sam, it's still possible that there is a completely bezel-less phone coming later. We'll find out in a week.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Originally Posted by Sam Posten /t/323420/if-the-rumors-are-true-motorola-is-about-to-blow-away-the-iphone/30#post_3970823
I simply don't know Man. I suspect it is a distraction for all involved and it never should have happened. Software Patents were not allowed until the Mid 80s. We knew it was a mistake as soon as it happened, does anyone remember the .GIF disaster? The 1 touch ordering patent?
As Kirby notes everyone steals and then they get pissy about it when they reach some modicum of success:
http://www.ted.com/talks/kirby_ferguson_embrace_the_remix.html
But.... where was all the outrage when it was APPLE paying royalties to Nokia?
http://www.mondaynote.com/2012/08/26/the-apple-tax-part-ii/
It's a complex problem, nobody is innocent, and it's going to get worse before it gets better.

The Motley Fool article speaks beyond that -- they don't really care who's to blame, but rather that it won't matter in the end, pointing back to what should really matter most for these companies, especially Apple. Their point is that technology moves too fast for all this to really matter. For instance, the suits against the Galaxy S3 won't even go to trial until 2014 at this point...

As they say, "the devil is in the details" which probably applies so aptly here. Who does all this benefit most? The lawyers and all their cohorts I gather. You know, this brings me back to what my Comp Sci Dept Dean/Director told all the new freshmen looking to major in Comp Sci -- probably no more than ~60 in all -- while I was graduating back in the early 90's: seriously consider going either pre-med or pre-law while majoring in Comp Sci. Great advice me thinks though it was obviously too late for me... at least if my goal is to make buku bucks w/out getting super lucky anyway...

But seriously, law is where the big $$$ is (outside of being exceptionally smart and also at the right place at the right time to come up w/ the next big thing -- and actually managing to hold it until you can cash in), and I can tell you that from experience w/out actually studying law as an IT guy for a couple decades now -- and you probably knew that already yourself... But unless Apple, et al. intends to make law a core part of their business rather than innovation, making great products, etc. then that's probably a dead-end for them even if that might sustain them toward becoming an eventual also-ran in the long run...

_Man_

 

[Hanson]

The article doesn't even touch on the other part of the "litigate rather than innovate" story:

http://gigaom.com/2012/08/05/apple-and-microsofts-patent-troll-spells-trouble-for-smartphone-innovation/

So not only are they suing for dubious patents themselves, they're facilitating honest to goodness patent trolling to fight Google by proxy.

I'm not going to make judgments about who's right and who's wrong in these patent wars since everyone's hands are dirty. But propping up and bankrolling patent trolls is absolutely revolting.

 

[Sam Posten]

I have a crazy theory about that... Take it with a huge grain of salt.
Nathan Myrvold doesn't even believe his own bullshit. And Apple and Microsoft are using his company and others like them to accelerate the patent nonsense to get beyond it. It will cause 15 years of pain and suffering but the mess will be rolled back and we can get beyond it with something sane.
I hope I'm right. Very good chance I'm not. If I'm wrong and these guys really believe that these troll shell companies have a right to breath the same air on our earth let alone profit from their empty patents, then we are in a huge storm we haven't even begun to consider yet.

 

[Hanson]

BTW, the London event is to introduce the European version of the RAZR M which will feature an Intel chip instead of the standard ARM processor. So as far as a bezel-less phone is concerned, it looks like "wait til next year".

 

[Robert Crawford]

Nobody should be crying for Apple. Galaxy 3 or not, this next iPhone will sell a bunch.

http://money.cnn.com/gallery/technology/2012/09/07/apple-iphone/index.html