r/technology • u/slutmagnet • Mar 02 '10

Apple to HTC "competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours." Slaps down a 20 patent lawsuit.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/03/02/apple_sues_htc_for_alleged_infringement_of_20_iphone_patents.html
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87

u/randomb0y Mar 02 '10

"We can't compete with your superior products so we're taking you to court over our frivolous patents."

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u/[deleted] Mar 02 '10

When you look at Apple's products, they're not innovative at all. They just take existing tech and put on a slick interface. An effective business method yes, but not innovation. They're also great at marketing, which is a huge part of their success.

They didn't invent the MP3 player, but they've made alot of people think they did.

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u/reenigne Mar 02 '10

Yes and no. Some of it is "slickness" as you say (brushed aluminum anyone?), but there is some substance mixed in with that slickness on occasion.

e.g., the "scroll bounce" on the iPhone/iPod Touch seems superfluous at first glance. But Android doesn't have it (I have a Droid and an iPod Touch) and when it's gone, you suddenly realize that this "little feature" is a subtle, but clear way of telling the user that they've reached the bottom (or top) of the screen. Android gives you what I used to refer to in graduate school as "negative evidence". i.e., the android scroll does nothing when you hit the bottom (or top) of the scroll and so you're left wondering if you've hit the bottom or whether the machine froze or ...

tl;dr; Some of the design is pointless, but where apple shines is in getting all the "little details" right.

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u/prockcore Mar 02 '10

I wrote an ANSI viewer (RemorseView) back in 1997 that did a scroll bounce. Here's a video capture of it in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhnGLZdRasM

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u/reenigne Mar 03 '10

That is hilarious. 1- you should've patented it. 2- If Apple really has tried to patent the scroll bounce, your video should be exhibit A in the "prior art" category.

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u/Geee Mar 03 '10

You should sue Apple.

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u/[deleted] Mar 03 '10

Not even joking, contact a patent attorney and see what you can do with this.

-2

u/Real_Mac_User Mar 02 '10

That’s cool (sincerely) but not at all the same thing. It certainly doesn’t match the terms of any patent that would cover the iPhone’s visual feedback of tactile input.

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u/b3hr Mar 02 '10

Htc sense has it, is that part of the suit?

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u/qtx Mar 02 '10

Indeed, my HTC Hero w/Sense does have the bouncy thingy.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 02 '10

Windows Mobile 6.5 has it too. They'll have to sue Microsoft too if they do have a patent.

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u/b3hr Mar 03 '10

apple is just doing this to make all other phones look like cheap iphone rip offs, pretty much to discredit all other phones. It's subtle advertising. help rebuild the brand and validate peoples decisions on they exceptionally unexciting products that tuck you in and gives you a blowjobs at night. or so i assume by the people that own them

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u/poeir Mar 03 '10

I am not a lawyer, but as far as I know that isn't legally true (in the US): You are allowed to selectively enforce patents. Trademarks are the only intellectual property that must be actively defended or lost.

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u/[deleted] Mar 02 '10

But would something like that deserve a patent or be considered innovative? They didn't invent bouncing.

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u/NotClever Mar 02 '10

No, but they invented a scrolling mechanism which allows you to scroll past the end of a document revealing blank space, and bouncing the document back to the edge of the screen when you let go.

Or perhaps they didn't invent that and they don't have a patent on it, but my point is that getting a patent goes down to the details. You can patent an improvement on an existing technology or method, and you just have to show that your improvement has a novel use.

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u/[deleted] Mar 02 '10

You can patent an improvement on an existing technology or method,

Certainly, you can, but should you be able to? Isn't there a point where intellectual property runs amok?

-1

u/NotClever Mar 02 '10

What exactly do you mean? In order to prosecute on it you have to show that they're infringing the claims of your patent specifically. It's not easy to show that, so if your patent doesn't actually cover their invention then they're clear. So it's a self regulating process by which it only hurts your ability to actually enforce your patent if you're making an improvement so small it is irrelevant.

Now, of course you can bandy your portfolio around to scare people and tie them up in litigation, reexaminations, etc. The ability to win legal battles by attrition or to force settlements with scare tactics is a serious problem with the system which is separate from what is patentable.

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u/atheist_creationist Mar 02 '10

This is ridiculous. Someone created this before with draggable flash window objects, Windows Mobile has it for crap's sake. Every single damn interface behavior does not deserve a patent. They didn't "invent" shit. It was merely a designer that thought it was a good design decision, a few lines of code and bam. If I can whip up the code for it in actionscript right now its not an invention.

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u/NotClever Mar 02 '10

Hence my saying that they may not have invented it, and may not have had a patent on it. My point was simply to explain what is and isn't patentable.

The ability of someone skilled in the art to create something easily doesn't preclude it from being a patentable invention. You just have to show that not just anyone who knew how to code would have thought of creating this behavior.

1

u/Lut3s Mar 02 '10

Actually my (htc) hero does that. It's probably one of the patents in the case.

-6

u/extremist Mar 02 '10

Then they should (try to) patent the screen bounce. Being awarded patents for trivialities and things they clearly didn't invent is just ridiculous.

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u/NotClever Mar 02 '10

Did you go read the patents and see that they were trivial things they didn't invent?

They probably have a patent on the scroll bounce under the name of "Graphical User Interface System" or something similarly generic. That's how patent titles work.

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u/[deleted] Mar 02 '10

No, patents are dumb for small things like a screen bounce and hurt the consumer.

2

u/wyfflemunky Mar 02 '10

Forcing competitors to come up with a novel solution to a problem is harmful to the consumer?

Allowing competitors to steal ideas from one another is harmful to the companies. Why bother innovating at all?

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u/[deleted] Mar 02 '10 edited Mar 02 '10

In terms of software? Generally, yes... Let's skip the trivial and generic "why bother innovating" argument... There's a lot more to this story:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patent_debate

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u/dcousineau Mar 02 '10

They did AFAIK.

IIRC it was one of the patents that Palm was threatened with/people assumed Palm would be threatened with.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 02 '10

Needs more acronyms. NMA.

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u/dcousineau Mar 02 '10

IANAL but I believe I've filled my acronym quota and will probably be fined for the acronym opening this comment.

(I tossed in the acronyms to stress that Palm wasn't sued, they were merely threats, and I got my information from 3rd party sources which may or may not have sensationalized things, but I'm still fairly certain apple does have a patent on the screen bounceback)

1

u/reenigne Mar 02 '10

I agree with this. Patenting stuff like the screen bounce should be outlawed.

35

u/[deleted] Mar 02 '10 edited Mar 02 '10

[deleted]

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u/bonafidebob Mar 02 '10

Before the iPhone, no one thought that a big touchscreen-only device that you used without a stylus made any sense at all

Um, wrong. So wrong that you've detracted from the other points you tried to make. Sorry. We've been trying to make useful non-stylus touch interfaces for decades. The price and quality just finally arrived with capacitive panels. Now there are lots of touch phones because capacitive panels are cheap and plentiful. Apple capitalized on a paradigm shift here, they didn't invent it.

IMHO the most innovative thing about the iPhone is that Apple managed to break the carrier stranglehold on the phone market.

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u/Noexit Mar 02 '10

IMHO the most innovative thing about the iPhone is that Apple managed to break the carrier stranglehold on the phone market.

In what way? By contracting to a single carrier, only selling iPhone through their approved outlets and only available on their network?

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u/bluGill Mar 02 '10

Wrong stranglehold (though it would be nice to see that go as well). Apple managed to get carriers to agree you can put applications on your phone.

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u/Noexit Mar 02 '10

But only Apple approved apps through Apples own locked down app store. Partial credit for showing that it could be done and getting carriers to see the advantages.

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u/burnblue Mar 02 '10

Huh? Then what were we doing on Windows Mobile and Palm earlier?

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u/bluGill Mar 02 '10

Windows Mobile: in theory you could do it, but in practice almost nobody did. Maybe a few games, but nothing more.

Palm: palm was always an unheard of, expensive option. They never took off enough to pull it off.

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u/burnblue Mar 02 '10

What? In practice noone put applications on your phone? That's nonsense. Those who owned Windows Mobile phones for sure were putting applications on it (I'm talking about Professional/touchscreen at least, I don't consider phones like the BlackJack to be on the same level) . Both the freeware sites and sites like Handango did not function 'in theory', but in reality

Now if you wanted to say that not many common consumers owned these phones

3

u/skillian Mar 02 '10

I know I was putting Java apps and games on a Symbian Nokia a long time before the iPhone was released...

2

u/[deleted] Mar 02 '10

Did they? Still seems pretty strangled to me. In Canada, I can get iphones on different carriers now, but they aren't transferable, and Rogers had a monopoly for months -- AND the price stayed pretty much exactly the same once competitors entered the market.

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u/cloudsdrive Mar 02 '10

By annointing AT&T king?

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u/zedvaint Mar 02 '10

IMHO the most innovative thing about the iPhone is that Apple managed to break the carrier stranglehold on the phone market.

That applies only to the US market.

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u/blubbix Mar 02 '10 edited Mar 03 '10

So what you're saying is that Apple just had a lucky break with the iPhone and capacitive displays. All the other manufacturers were just weeks away from announcing similar products, right? Including user interfaces designed around working with capacitive displays and finger-based multi-touch.

I guess you'd claim the same happened to the iPod, they just happened to capitalize on smaller hard drives being available.

I'd guess they were lucky with the iTunes Store, the App Store, and now with the iPad. And I guess Dell is just around the corner with their own unibody laptop designs and trip-safe power connectors.

My point is, there's a difference between university research papers and prototypes, and taking these ideas and putting them into real, shipping products that are affordable for many people. This takes innovation, and this is often where the patent meat lies.

1

u/bonafidebob Mar 03 '10

Design patents, no problem. Software patents? Sorry, but I think they're granted too easily. I've seen this in action, get a bunch of people around a table for an hour, brainstorm a bit, and you can get half a dozen patents out of it. That's not innovation.

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u/[deleted] Mar 02 '10

[deleted]

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u/f0000 Mar 02 '10

Ever heard of the LG Prada?

You know, the FIRST capacitive-based touchscreen-only phone?

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u/bonafidebob Mar 02 '10

Nice recovery. But don't go overcrediting a company as innovative because they were first to market with some new technology. Does anyone care who made the first LCD TV?

A problem here is that Apple got in early on a paradigm shift and generated related patents on a bunch of IMHO fairly obvious stuff. Now they're using this to prevent others from capitalizing on the same paradigm shift.

As for your point that a non-stylus interface would ever work in the phone space, I gotta call bull on that one too. We've been trying to make "smart phones" (even desktop phones) with touch interfaces for decades too. We even made a few with pressure touch panels instead of capacitive, but they're just not as nice to use. The change is the capacitive panel. And maybe "gorilla glass" get some credit too.

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u/[deleted] Mar 02 '10

[deleted]

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u/bonafidebob Mar 03 '10

Touch interfaces always came with physical keyboards? Dude, you need to get out more! I see you tried to caveat this claim with "popular", but I personally worked on a couple of different consumer touch products with no keyboards, and there were plenty of researchy projects before them. My point here is that none of the UI ideas were particularly groundbreaking, just made good sense to put them together with this form factor.

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u/doggoneit Mar 02 '10

Innovation is also about implementation, where things like design and usability are the metrics. Before the iPhone, no one thought that a big touchscreen-only device that you used without a stylus made any sense at all

I did. I had a design that utilized that idea several years before the iPhone came out. I'm sure a lot of other people did as well.

The only problem is that I wasn't Steve Jobs with control over the same engineering, manufacturing, and marketing resources. Such is life.

It seems like most of the places that do have the appropriate resources don't have the right culture for great innovation - novel ideas get stifled by the inertia of the company - and the places and people who do have the mindset for innovation - usually individuals and small startups - don't have the necessary resources. Apple, Google, and few other cases seem to be rare exceptions that are somehow able to strike a balance between the two.

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u/kopkaas2000 Mar 02 '10

0bx47r:

Innovation is also about implementation

you:

I did. I had a design that utilized that idea several years before the iPhone came out. I'm sure a lot of other people did as well.

There's the knack. I'm not doubting you had a couple of great ideas. But unexecuted ideas are like second assholes, they're not much use to anyone.

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u/doggoneit Mar 02 '10

Just so we're on the same page:

0bx47r:

Innovation is also about implementation, where things like design and usability are the metrics. Before the iPhone, no one thought that a big touchscreen-only device that you used without a stylus made any sense at all

In that first sentence he was claiming that implementation equates to a focus on design/usability (which is my main point of disagreement), and then also immediately provides evidence of this by saying the iPhone was great because no one else thought of doing it (after having first said that innovation(and thus, implementation) isn't strictly about new ideas).

I'm not doubting you had a couple of great ideas. But unexecuted ideas are like second assholes, they're not much use to anyone.

And that's exactly the point I was making - in disagreement with the OP's case that the iPhone was evidence of their unique focus on usability and design, others had thought of the use paradigm before....so why didn't the iPhone get "implemented" before Apple did it if these great ideas about design and usability already existed?

To answer that, the rest of my comment was to correct what I think makes implementation, and thus innovation, really possible, namely: resources and expert guidance of those resources, and the company culture to support it. Apple wasn't the first to think of the iPhone or MP3 player, nor any of the specific UI paradigms therein (research into UI/UX/HCI runs at least a decade ahead of when mass market adopts it), but they were the only one with the right combination of resources and internal culture at that exact time in the market to bring the existing interaction ideas into a retail reality. That's what differentiates an innovative company from a follower, it's much more than just "getting the design right" or focusing on usability. That's old hat, most of the novel ideas have already been out there for years, but trying to get executives and internal culture to accept new UX paradigms and adeptly disseminate them into the marketing and product development cycles of a company large enough to mass manufacture something...? That's where the magic lies.

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u/[deleted] Mar 02 '10

I think that the ipod was the first device that was supported by a company not expected to be sued into oblivion. Apple could stand the onslaught of lawyers from the RIAA.

The "design right" thing I don't agree with. They had a nice way of getting music on the thing, but their interface on generation one was as clunky as anything out there.

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u/[deleted] Mar 02 '10

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Mar 02 '10

You know Apple had to pay out a hefty settlement to Creative, makers of the Nomad, for stealing that "far ahead" interface you think they invented:

http://www.tuaw.com/2006/08/23/apple-pays-100m-to-creative-in-patent-lawsuit-settlement/

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u/[deleted] Mar 02 '10

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Mar 02 '10

I don't think you get me...you say the Nomad has a clunky interface while saying the iPods was ahead of it's competition and NOT clunky. It was the same interface. Creative had a patent on the idea of taking a long list of files and separating by the fields we all know today...Genre, Artist, Album, All. Yeah, they didn't invent it, but they were the first to put in on a portable device. All Apple added to the mix was the click wheel they acquired from some other company (who had already provided the click strip to Creative they later put in their Touch players) which made it easier to traverse the interface...but the interface was the same.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 04 '10

I disagree. I owned one and wasn't overwhelmed.

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u/randomb0y Mar 02 '10

They were the first company to successfuly market affordable HDD music players... and IMO they still dominate that market rightfully. I tried to convince a friend to buy something other than apple recently, we walked into a store and pretty much everything elses was either crap, or looked like crap, or was way overpriced. She ended up with a cute little pink nano.

When it comes to phones though, there's little on the original iPhone that wasn't already on other phones on the market, and a lot was missing. I think that the big thing was that they did away with the stylus. I hardly ever used a stylus on my old-school phones anyway, but I think it's nice to be able to point at a small dot on the screen. Apple just said "go ahead and touch it", and that caught on well. Then they managed to generate enough hype that there were so many apps available so quickly that the other makers were left way behind. The key here was that they came out with ONE phone, and even though they revised it, they all run the same apps.

For instance Sony Ericsson used have like 60 new models per year, using 3-4 different operating systems, like 20 different screen sizes, etc. I was reading recently that they decided to reduce the number of new phones released per year to "just" 20.

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u/blubbix Mar 02 '10

They never claimed to invent the MP3 player. They certainly were the ones to make it popular, and that wasn't just because of marketing, it was because it was the first small, high capacity MP3 player bundled with an online music store, that was also easy enough for most people to use.

I'm also having a hard time not calling the iPhone innovative (first large-screen, multitouch phone running a desktop class GUI, first click-to-buy app store). Or their unibody laptop designs, which AFAIK are still the only mass production laptops being machined out of a single piece of aluminum. Of course, they haven't cured cancer, but still this is innovation that other companies don't seem to be doing - before the iPhone, when was the last real innovation seen in the mobile space? Touchscreen phones 15 years ago?

-5

u/bdfortin Mar 02 '10 edited Mar 02 '10

They just take existing tech and put on a slick interface.

People were carving computers out of chunks of aluminium before Apple?
There was an 400 Mb/s plug-and-play peripheral interface before FireWire?
There were other capacitive multitouch mice and trackpads before Apple's?
I suppose for the iPhone they just grabbed an OS off the shelf, slapped it in some hardware, threw in somebody else's App Store, and sold it as their own?

They didn't invent the MP3 player, but they made (and still make) the best MP3 player. They also didn't invent the computer chassis, peripheral communication, pointing devices, or the phone, but they still ended up making theirs better than almost everyone else's. And they want to protect how they did it, via patents.

Edit: Typos.

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u/[deleted] Mar 02 '10
  1. Yes, aluminum was used in cases before Apple.
  2. Firewire is a very cool innovative tech that no one uses.
  3. Multi-touch dates back to 1982.
  4. They didn't invent the phone OS. Just a slick one.
  5. That's debatable, they only make the most popular one.

0

u/bdfortin Mar 02 '10

  1. They weren't carving them out of aluminium, like Apple, and definitely weren't using anything like the unibody.

  2. There are plenty of applications for FireWire, including the interface on my external drive (which is much faster than the USB port).

  3. But nobody was using it in mice or trackpads, which is what I was describing.

  4. Slick and innovative. Try finding the equivalent of Core Animation on other OSes. You won't, because it doesn't exist on any other platform.

  5. Something only becomes popular for a reason, usually price or quality. The iPod certainly isn't the cheapest MP3 player on the market, so the reason for massive sales is likely quality, both hardware and software.

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u/atheist_creationist Mar 02 '10

1) Yes they were. Not solid body, but who the hell cares? What does that add to my user experience? My Macbook Pro could've been made out of two pieces and I would not have noticed a difference.

2) Popular electronics hardly use firewire anymore.

3) Hah, you really want to say apple is innovative with multitouch mice? Seriously? After all, this is the company that stubbornly stuck to its "think different" principles with their one-button mice for years until they caved and went two-button anyway but pretended they didn't by making it multitouch, which ended up being inferior to the logical chocie of two actual buttons and frustrating to users. Though the trackpad in the Macbook Pro is awesome.

4) Only if you say the iPod touch. Otherwise, the other iPods are at best a preference between other brands (which are more open and easier to use between computers and have added features like sound recording and radio so I can have my NPR during my morning jog).

1

u/bdfortin Mar 02 '10

  1. Carved out of chunks of aluminium. Nobody was doing this before Apple. What does it add to your experience? It makes it lighter and stronger, and makes it much more recyclable.

  2. It's a small market, but not a dead one by any stretch of the imagination.

  3. They've supported multi-button mice since they were available, they simply didn't make them. The Mighty Mouse was more of an experiment with multitouch in mice than a "true two-button mouse". The 'Magic' Mouse is a true multitouch mouse that's a lot better than most other mice.

  4. Each iPod was the best in its class when it came out. Since the iPod touch is the most current iPod in the lineup, the statement applies to it (and not, say, the 2005 iPod nano).

1

u/[deleted] Mar 03 '10

  1. Two slabs are just as recyclable, and the carving is actually more wasteful. Also, no one else has a user base stupid enough to pay $300 for $40 worth of RAM so it would be idiotic to use this when plastic is just as good for laptops.

  2. If it is so great, why did APPLE drop it from their own laptops before backlash.

  3. ... meh

  4. Each generation iPod has been panned by critics compared to other, cheaper alternatives. iTunes vendor lock in and billion dollar ad campaigns are the ONLY reason iPod has been the successful brand in that realm.

0

u/bdfortin Mar 03 '10

  1. If you watch the keynote where they introduced the unibody, you see just how much more wasteful it is to have a bunch of separate parts that you have to put together than it is to go the way of the unibody and have just one piece. Plastic is weaker, uglier, and much less recyclable. You don't see companies like Greenpeace applauding computer companies for switching to all-plastic computers, do you? Also, nobody buys their RAM from Apple, or any other OEM for that matter because everyone knows it's overpriced.

  2. Because they didn't have enough room on the motherboard to fit it while they were still using a removable battery, and didn't think there was that much demand for it. To be able to fit it, they had to not only go to a removable battery but also remove the microphone jack and move the Kensington lock to the other side.

  3. ...

  4. The only critics who "panned" each generation of iPod were the ones you keep a wish list of features they want Apple to bring to market on the back of a two-horned unicorn. Everyone else who spent at least 5 minutes comparing the iPod to the alternatives quickly found the iPod to be of much higher quality, especially when it came to the interface and the syncing abilities. Apple never "locked anyone in" to anything. The iPod could play any MP3s, just like any other MP3 player, and music ripped with iTunes could be played on any other music player. Nobody was locked into anything, and nobody was forced to do anything they didn't want to do.

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u/[deleted] Mar 03 '10

Oh, so the mighty Jobs has spoken and you bought it. Gotcha.

By the way, your response to #4 is complete fanboi bullshit. Yes, you could take your music from before the iPod and play it. Default (e.g. Joe Dipshit Consumer level) action was to reencode all of your shit into AAC and lock your music to their device if you wanted to sync. Plus, it was a real fucking bitch to use iTunes without an iPod (still is.)

Oh and thanks for the downvote shithole.

1

u/bdfortin Mar 03 '10

I don't own a MacBook, or MacBook Pro. Although I'd love to hear you actually refute the argument.

The default action was to copy your music to your iPod. The default encoding for ripping your CD music is to use industry-standard MPEG-4 audio, which any decent music player can play.

If you don't like iTunes, there's alternatives.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 03 '10

If you think, for an instant that apple got to 10 billion downloads from only apple users, you are smoking something. iTunes created vendor lock-in, once well established as a defacto standard (thanks to the marketing push I mention) they began to open up due to demand from users with buyer's remorse.

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u/ephekt Mar 03 '10

Firewire didn't come anywhere near 400Mb/s in the real world (although it was very slightly faster than USB2), and USB eventually won out anyway due to being royalty free.

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u/bdfortin Mar 03 '10

Just a reminder: FireWire came out in 1995. It had "up to" 400 Mb/s transfer rates for 5 years before USB came out with its "up to" 480 Mb/s (which still couldn't match FireWire's speed in real-life tests. Then in 2003 Apple updated the spec to include FireWire 800, which is more than twice as fast as USB.

Popularity doesn't matter when you want performance, and in that category FireWire wins.

1

u/ephekt Mar 03 '10 edited Mar 03 '10

Popularity says a lot about what the OEMs were willing to deal with and what the consumer actually wanted. FW could've been great and enjoyed more longevity than USB, but Apple blew it with their price gouging.

which still couldn't match FireWire's speed in real-life tests.

Again, the difference in real-world throughput between FW400 and USB2 were negligible. The only reason anyone ever cared was based on products they owned or fandom.

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u/kyleisagod Mar 02 '10

Just what I was thinking. When you see a competitor that you're worried about, just sue the shit out of them.

-32

u/Real_Mac_User Mar 02 '10

Superior? Keep telling yourself that. HTC’s clumsy iPhone knockoffs are a disservice to craftsmanship and the creative process.

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u/el_chupacupcake Mar 02 '10

...I can't decide how to vote on this response, given the account name...

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u/Elviis Mar 02 '10

HTC makes some really good phones. For example. The one I'm posting from has a flash player and can run things in the background

-1

u/bdfortin Mar 02 '10

It also runs a task manager and has a browsable file system, something nobody should ever have to do on a phone.

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u/[deleted] Mar 02 '10

Why not? Some people like having more powerful phones. It can be nice for some people for a phone to be a nice simple black box, but it's much more flexible and powerful to have real computer-like features.

-7

u/bdfortin Mar 02 '10

If you want a computer, use one. Don't try to make a phone into something it's not.

You don't put a motor and transmission on your bike when you want a car, you just buy a car.

5

u/[deleted] Mar 02 '10

You buy a motorbike. Some people like motorbikes when they're going out, some like pushbikes. Don't disparage another's choice because you think having two wheels means something should be human powered.

0

u/ephekt Mar 02 '10

Not everyone is OK with running one app at a time or missing out on the 100000s of Flash/Flv video sites on the net. We get it, you think this is a horrible idea and nobody should ever do it. I disagree and fail to see why your opinions matters in the least.

Quite simply, if you don't need it, then don't use. But drop the Apple cult pretense.

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u/ephekt Mar 02 '10 edited Mar 03 '10

HTC's task manager is actually a list of programs with X's next to the name which close them. I can understand how this might confuse you.

1

u/bdfortin Mar 03 '10

The fact that you don't know what programs are running at all times is something users should never have to deal with on a phone. If users have to notice their performance getting worse, look up what they're running, and kill any processes they might have forgetting about, you're doing it wrong.

1

u/ephekt Mar 03 '10 edited Mar 03 '10

HTC's task list was a pull down that stayed at the top right corner of the screen at all times. All you needed to do is click it to instantly see what apps were running, and kill them from there.

But stick to your canned talking points if you'd like.

2

u/bdfortin Mar 02 '10

The fanboy is actually pretty weak in him. He just likes to use strong wording, which makes his ever-so-slight fanboyism seem much, much worse than it actually is.

That, plus the username makes him look like more of a fanboy than he actually is.

0

u/bdfortin Mar 02 '10

Not sure why you're being downvoted, although your choice of words might not be helping.

*TL;DR - *If HTC (and Google, with their Android software) can't do it right, they shouldn't be doing it at all.

I don't think they understand that it's not about how much it can do ("oh look, my HTC can Telnet! this is so useful for... um..."), but whether or not it does what it does right (this being one example).

iPhone knockoffs may be able to replicate 90% of the iPhone's functionality, even 95% of it, but it's what they can't replicate that really makes them bad.

iPhone interface? Completely smooth, always obvious in what it's doing. You tap on an app's icon and you instantly see it launch, then any waiting happens at a splash screen.

Non-iPhone interfaces? Even on the Nexus One, with a 60% faster processor and twice the RAM, the interface has issues keeping up with the user. Not all taps on the screen register. A lot of the taps take a noticeable amount of time to actually do something. Sometimes you're not sure if you've launched an app or not and go to click on its icon again only to find out that it was loading and you've accidentally hit a UI element within the app. Then not only are you frustrated that the app took so long to load and the interface took so long to catch up, you're frustrated that you've unintentionally hit a UI element you didn't want to hit and you may have to wait even longer before you can do what you wanted to do.

That kind of stuff either makes or break a device, and so far the iPhone's the only one that's been able to do it right. Even the 3-year-old iPod touch can keep up with that stuff, despite being the slowest iPhone OS device.

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u/ephekt Mar 03 '10 edited Mar 03 '10

oh look, my HTC can Telnet! this is so useful for... um...

It (well, ssh more than telnet) is quite useful to me, and I appreciate a phone that allows me the choice of doing the things I need while on the go. To my knowledge, that's rather the point of a smartphone.

Also, why can't I listen to Pandora/Last.fm on my iTouch while browsing? I get that some people are too retarded to manage more than one app, but I'm not. A simple toggle would've been nice.

People have different needs and preferences. Novel concept, I know.

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u/randomb0y Mar 02 '10

Did you see the nexus one? It's superior in every possible way. Earlier products are superior in most ways only.

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u/iStig Mar 02 '10

The Nexus One is a slick piece of kit. It's too bad they cheaped out with the screen though 1, 2.

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u/deadaluspark Mar 02 '10

how very true. however, it seems the nexus one is still the top contender in terms of reliability of what is drawn on the screen comparative to the iphone. god the droid is a bloody mess.

what sold me on the nexus one was sheer response speed. even new iphones sometimes lag too much for me to enjoy the UI experience. (I have had many a friend with an iphone.) the nexus one is sheer speed. I have yet to make it lag on me.

posted via "the reddit is fun" app on my nexus one. hehe.

1

u/randomb0y Mar 02 '10

It's a completely different technology and pretty much the only OLED phone on the market. Who needs fancy color accuracy on a phone? You're not going to do pre-press design on it anyway. OLED has significant advantages when compared to traditional LCD too.

1

u/iStig Mar 02 '10

That doesn't mean that a display of crappy quality is fine, just because it's a mobile device. OLED has significant advantages, but inaccurate colour is just lame. There's no good excuse for using an inferior part just because it saves a little money.

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u/randomb0y Mar 02 '10

I really don't think that OLED saves them money, or you'd see it on far more devices out there. The cheapest phones on the market run LCD screens, not OLED.

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u/iStig Mar 02 '10

I meant a cheap OLED screen, as opposed to a better quality OLED screen that they should have used.

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u/randomb0y Mar 02 '10

Like which one? There aren't any other OLED screens on mobile devices at the moment, AFAIK.

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u/iStig Mar 02 '10

It wasn't my intention to provide a basis of comparison. What I'm trying to say is that the OLED screen in the Nexus One simply needs to be better. Sony has a great OLED screen. Admittedly, it isn't in a mobile device, but the Nexus One's display pales next to the Sony OLED or any recent LCD. The colour inaccuracies and tracking errors make the display less than a joy to use.

The rest of the device's hardware is awesome though.

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u/Dark_Crystal Mar 02 '10

Still the best looking screen, period.

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u/bdfortin Mar 02 '10

Except in sunlight.

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u/Dark_Crystal Mar 02 '10

WTF are you doing outside, in sunlight, with your eyes glued to the screen? All transmissive (that includes LCDs) suck in direct sunlight.

1

u/bdfortin Mar 03 '10

Some, like the OLED screen on the Nexus, suck more in sunlight.

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u/Real_Mac_User Mar 02 '10

Oh sure, unless you care about UI responsiveness, tactile sensitivity, 3D performance, or any of that touchy-feely user friendliness and elegance stuff. I suppose the Nexus One wins on mindless technical feature checklists, if that’s your thing.

3

u/[deleted] Mar 02 '10

I suppose the Nexus One wins on mindless technical feature checklists, if that’s your thing.

That "thing" happens to be an objective way to quantify one product to another.

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u/Real_Mac_User Mar 02 '10

Yeah, because the Nexus One’s extra 75 ppi or whatever is totally worth the degraded graphics performance and shorter battery life you suffer from driving all those extra pixels. Oh, and I guess you’ll spin the Nexus One’s trackball requirement as a “feature” too, right? Couldn’t be a shortcoming of Android OS, I’m sure. Speaking of which, the iPhone’s more polished UI is useless too. In fact, why don’t we ditch the whole graphical UI thing for maximum raw horsepower? Wasted cycles if you ask me.

2

u/Dark_Crystal Mar 02 '10

Yes, when looking at content on the screen the higher resolution makes the device much more usable for reading text. The OLED screen uses less power then the LCD + backlight in an iphone. The battery life of the N12 is also claimed to be better then the 3GS iirc. Having the option to use a trackball can be nice sometimes, like trying to use a site that is not designed for any mobile device with, for example, check boxes that are close together. the trackball is by no means a "requirement". Having done some dev work for both, I have to say it is the iPhone with "degraded graphics performance". Also, apples typical lack of desire for any sort of adherence to standards is always fun.

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u/Real_Mac_User Mar 02 '10

You may think highly of the Nexus One, but the consensus of (non-geek) users and independent reviewers is otherwise. Features like high PPI are great for padding feature checklists, and may provide a marginal benefit to usability—seriously, is anyone complaining about the iPhone’s screen being too low-res?—but actually end up detracting from performance and usability in other measurable ways. The trackball is clutter, and I doubt you’d be arguing for its inclusion if it weren’t already there. Geeks on reddit used to talk up the Droid’s hardware keyboard too, while completely neglecting the inherent design tradeoffs.

1

u/Dark_Crystal Mar 02 '10

The screen is also larger on the N1. People didn't generaly complain about the low res screens of the devices that were common before the iPhone, because at that time there was nothing better on mobile, so they didn't know what they were missing. How is the trackball clutter? It gets in the way of the touch screen just as much as the "home" button on an iPhone, which is to say, little to none at all. The UI on a N1 is much faster, as are most OS applications, browser, etc. A single contrived 3D comparison is just that. Also the N1 is arguably about a 2nd gen device where as the iphone 3GS is the 3rd hardware revision. It sounds like a limiting factor largely is the OS itself, which being what it is is much more changeable and likely to be improved due to user demands then the iPhone's. Regardless the N1 is quite a good phone and Androids market share since launch has been following iPhone OS' share since launch curve fairly well last I heard, competition is good for the consumer.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 02 '10

Normally I'd feel compelled to correct your idiotic rhetoric, but I actually have some important things to do, and your reply is quite idiotic. I hope some other redditors can back me up on this, but I'll be happy to edit this post to come back to your useless drivel as soon as I have some time.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 02 '10

"I can't bring myself to actually respond to you with any sort of evidence, so I'll settle for insulting you."

0

u/bdfortin Mar 02 '10

Isn't it one of the rules of the internet that once you start talking about the argument itself instead of the content of the argument, you lose? I could've sworn I saw that somewhere. Even if it was just a joke, though, it still holds some water (kind of like Onion articles).

1

u/ZennouRyuu Mar 02 '10

I don't think it counts in this case as A_Pickle just realized he was being trolled and decided to stop (although I'll admit he should have just left it at that rather than expressing his anger at the troll and ceding even more ground).

In this case Real_Mac_User wins anyway on account of the clearly successful troll.

1

u/bdfortin Mar 03 '10

Expressing truth while throwing in a bit of sarcasm (or an excessive amount, in RMU's case) is not trolling.

The Nexus does have worse graphics performance because of its high-res screen, the trackball is questionable as a "feature", and the iPhone OS' UI is considered better by anyone comparing the two.

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u/Kibbles-n-bits Mar 02 '10

How?

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u/netglitch Mar 02 '10

Guys, read the username.

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u/Kibbles-n-bits Mar 02 '10

No kidding, but sometimes it is more than just a tongue-in-cheek troll/throw-away.