#BoycottApple trending on Google plus due to Galaxy Nexus ban

https://plus.google.com/s/%23BoycottApple/posts

by saket123 • 14 years ago

425 343 14 years ago

plus.google.com

Not surprising. If it was trending on Twitter that would be news.

saket12315• 14 years ago

Its surprising because it has stayed their for 2 days. Also most of the technological world (including HN community, based on previous discussion) loath the present patent war which could stifle software innovation based on stupid patents. I wil say Google plus is reflecting the sentiments of Technology Community more then any other social network out there.

taligent7• 14 years ago

Be serious.

Google+ we know has a high percentage of technologically savvy users and in particular Android users. I would be surprised if it wasn't a popular topic on there. But it is no way reflective of (a) the general public or (b) the entire IT community.

raganesh19• 14 years ago

I agree. This is a trending topic on a Google property, to protest a court ordered injunction on another Google product. Unless this trends on Twitter or reaches Reddit front page, it is of no consequence.

saket12315• 14 years ago

Well..I did a quick search on reddit and found this..and it is trending http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/vv3v2/boycottapple_...

tikhonj2• 14 years ago

The injunction (but not boycotting Apple in response) made the front page via /r/technology fairly recently [1]. Judging from the comments, Redditors hate Apple's behavior fairly uniformly. However, Reddit (especially /r/technology) has a fairly well-known and pervasive bias against Apple, so do keep that in mind if drawing any conclusions.

mtgx4• 14 years ago

It did reach Reddit's front page...It's currently on 7th place.

davidlumley2• 14 years ago

Even then, I wouldn't be surprised to find the majority of people hopping on the wagon aren't consumers of Apple.

raganesh19• 14 years ago

Well said. Also, I don't remember anyone calling for Boycott of Google/Motorola products & services, when Motorola won an injunction against some Apple products in Germany.

josteink2• 14 years ago

Not surprising. If it was trending on Twitter that would be news.

You have news: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4187672

dude_abides• 14 years ago

The day that there is a #BoycottGoogle+ trending on Facebook/Twitter will be the day Google+ can claim to be truly mainstream!

saket12315• 14 years ago

Why should a product judge whether its successful or not based on other product. Google plus has some of the most tech savvy users and level of conversation is usually very high. I will say that most early adaptors of G+ are pretty influential in their domains.

technoslut3• 14 years ago

>Why should a product judge whether its successful or not based on other product.

I think it's his intent to show that nobody outside of tech really cares about this.

>Google plus has some of the most tech savvy users and level of conversation is usually very high.

The 'tech savvy' users are everywhere. What it shows here is what everyone already knew: that much of Google+ consists of Google fans.

I'm eager to see when there is a #boycottGoogle or #boycottMotorola for the Xbox ban.

quink4• 14 years ago

Just started http://www.reddit.com/r/boycottapple/

It's about time.

slater• 14 years ago

No, it's not.

baq• 14 years ago

Yeah, way too late.

taligent7• 14 years ago

I am assuming you are going to setup /r/boycottsamsung, /r/boycottgoogle, /r/boycotthtc as well ?

Because their FRAND abuses are 1000x worse than what Apple and Microsoft have been doing. When you have governments (FTC, EU) and non-mobile companies (Intel, HP, Cisco etc) complaining you know it's something serious.

quink4• 14 years ago

> I am assuming you are going to setup /r/boycottsamsung, /r/boycottgoogle, /r/boycotthtc as well ?

Samsung have given me a replacement for two monitors that were just out of warranty. They came over and replaced them right then and there. For free. They were just normal 17 inch LCDs. No extra warranty. Google has given me untold GB of emails and made it work just everywhere, even in every text browser. I love Google Authenticator. I use DuckDuckGo, but still acknowledge that Google are a company that knows how to put things together. They do charity, contribute greatly to open source, help endangered languages and at least seem to have a bit more of a conscience. HTC has taken the mobile phone and turned it into something a great deal better. I don't own any of their products, but I can honestly say that my mobile is better because of them.

I'll now let you compare all this to my experiences with Apple over the past two, three years: http://www.reddit.com/r/BoycottApple/comments/vvdfd/my_perso...

mythz• 14 years ago

1000x worse than than Microsoft's assault on Android for using their own technology and putting a mandatory tax on every on every Android device??

iamdave• 14 years ago

I realize this has been a community for less than an hour, but eight submissions on the front page of that are single-serving, meme/image macro photos.

Just my opinion, but maybe spend these starting hours educating people about the boycott and save the cute photos for later?

quink4• 14 years ago

I know that Hacker News has that 'go, fix it before I care' mentality, i.e. usually someone submits an article they have written or a product they have on Hacker News. But this is reddit, so feel free to submit whatever you have in mind, and there's only so much time I'm going to put into this. Beyond that, 8/21 isn't that bad considering it's reddit we're talking about.

weiran• 14 years ago

It's about time someone made a subreddit where all the links and almost all the comments are submitted by themselves.

Not to mention most of the links are months old and hyperbolic rather than factual.

drivebyacct23• 14 years ago

This is fighting stupid with stupid. Oh I know, let's make an online petition to let Apple know how upset we are. Between that and a trending G+ topic, surely they'll change their ways.

So that we're clear, since reactionary fanboy downvotes are popular here, I have no desire to part with my beloved Galaxy Nexus or new Macbook Air. I just find it completely inane that this is frontpage HN news.

lunchbox2• 14 years ago

So you're opposed to boycotts? Or are you criticizing this boycott because it's not (yet) big enough to influence Apple?

Lots of boycotts have been successful throughout history, and most of them started small.

drivebyacct23• 14 years ago

Yes. A trending G+ topic is basically equivalent with Rosa Parks. /s. When was the last time an e-petition led to actual change, because I've seen dozens of them signed by huge numbers of people and never any with a tangible effect.

But mostly, who honestly thinks Apple is going to change their policy based on a trending topic on G+, they're probably laughing hysterically at it.

Pigs will fly before this translates into any measurable decrease in sales or revenue for Apple.

boredguy8• 14 years ago

Wow that live stream update is a nightmare - I keep trying to read what's happened and things get pushed down almost immediately. A clickable (or w/e) "18 new posts" would make it usable.

saket12315• 14 years ago

You can hit the pause button or scroll down a bit.

anonymoushn• 14 years ago

After scrolling down a bit the content continues to jump, but not by as much.

ra• 14 years ago

Scrolling down a bit doesn't help at all. Where's the pause button?

That is unusable.

shimfish• 14 years ago

To save you the trouble, it's a stream of content free fanboyism and witless photoshoppery. Every single comment would be downvoted to oblivion if it were posted here.

Afal• 14 years ago

on reddit however...

jasonlotito• 14 years ago

> Every single comment would be downvoted to oblivion if it were posted here.

Well, after reading the comments in this thread here, and some of the comments over on Google+, I'm gonna have to say you got that prediction wrong. =)

ComputerGuru• 14 years ago

Every single site that has a live stream starts off thinking: "we're going to be cooler than the competition, our live stream will actually update in real time," then realizes "uh-oh, maybe there's a reason other sites don't actually pull the updates and show them in real time"

Facebook, twitter, stackoverflow, et. al. have all previously used the constantly-updating stream technique only to switch away to the "x new posts, click to view"

10dpd• 14 years ago

Has Apple actually posted the cash required to enforce the ban? Until confirmed, this is merely doublethink.

taligent7• 14 years ago

Apple posted the bond almost immediately during the Galaxy 10.1 injunction. I see no reason why would it be any different now.

saket12315• 14 years ago

I think the Judge is going to rule tomorrow (yes on Sunday) about a important matter in this case which will open the doors for injunction to be enforced.

zhoutong2• 14 years ago

I don't understand why #BoycottSomething should be used for protests. Boycotting an influential company is extremely hard.

I'm sure that there are more rational ways to protest, instead of trying to boycott a company that actually delivers some of the best products. No company is perfect and Apple's case is just a tip of an iceberg in the whole industry.

http://www.dontmakemesteal.com/ is a good example. We know the movie industry sometimes uses intellectual property rights against their customers but there are good ways to fight back without disregarding the merit of the entire thing.

pg• 14 years ago

What are the other ways to protest? I don't mean that as a rhetorical question. I'm genuinely curious.

zhoutong2• 14 years ago

On a small scale, petitions will work better than a hash tag on a Google-owned website. The person that made the decision is the judge. So a rational way to protest is to protest the decision itself.

On a large scale, make something disruptively innovative to fight back.

#BoycottApple may work by alarming and reminding Apple of their unethical act (to the crowd). But the effect is small because it has nothing to do with Apple's product quality and customer service. If no one buys Apple products any more, we won't necessarily be better off.

That said, I think Apple seriously doesn't have to go this far. If they have the energy to continue innovating there shouldn't be any fear.

gyardley• 14 years ago

Sit-ins have been extremely effective, where there's a free press and where companies want to avoid negative publicity. You can't eject people forcibly without looking thuggish, and reporters flock to them.

Only problem: you actually have to care enough about an issue to risk getting arrested. I'd be surprised if anyone cared that much about Apple's patent trolling.

marshray• 14 years ago

I believe Apple's success still depends on public image more than most. Their products are high quality but some of those from other vendors are very very good as well.

If this label of "evil ugly sociopathic corporation" were to stick they could end up in big trouble.

Check out this tweet: https://twitter.com/joeycmiller/status/219271776394412032

The guy's profile says he's a Marketing professor so he knows the angle he's spinning. But this is the kind of thing I would be really worried about if I were Apple.

bbrtyth• 14 years ago

The group of people that use Android and the group of people that are vehemently against Apple overlaps quite a bit, so this boycott costs them nothing. It's a bit of sound and fury slacktivism that makes them all happy but accomplishes nothing.

baby3• 14 years ago

I extremely disagree with you, a boycott is the perfect weapon again a big brand like apple. People just tell others about it, and it's just really bad for their image.

briandear6• 14 years ago

The average person doesn't care. I'm in this industry and I barely care. Watching Google and Apple is like watching NBA players scuffling over the last bottle of champagne. The average person just wants to use their phone, update their Facebook and find out what Snooki is up too. A boycot organized on a site that the muggles have barely heard of over an issue that they don't give two shits about isn't going to affect Apple's share price one cent. In fact their price will likely rise as the Street sees Apple defending their IP successfully.

calinet67• 14 years ago

Anyone who would write or respond to a boycott of Apple is already the sort who gets into flame wars against the company to begin with, so it is, as they say, "preaching to the choir." Not likely to have a big effect.

shmerl7• 14 years ago

If company behaves indecently (like Apple does) it deserves to be boycotted. The fact that it's influential is even a bigger reason to boycott it. Influential crooks are more dangerous.

jaebrown3• 14 years ago

Not to say you're not right but just about every company behaves indecently. Samsung, Google, Microsoft and others all have their offenses in the people's eye for what is right but this is business and we people should just let it play itself out in court.

sschueller• 14 years ago

Boycotting Apple is very easy. They have a very limited number of products sold in their own stores. Try boycotting Johnson & Johnson or Nestle.

pbhjpbhj3• 14 years ago

I've boycotted Nestle in the past and still err away from them as a producer.

It's right that it's hard to avoid buying any single product that sends money back to Nestle or PG or J&J or whoever but it's not hard to cut back practically. Search online for a list of the company's products and try to avoid them.

Like you said boycotting Apple [Computers] is very easy.

I don't think the parent understands how a boycott works. You don't say "I can't boycott company X because their coffee tastes nicer that company Y's"; unless having slightly nicer tasting coffee completely outweighs the moral wrong that you're trying to punish.

mryall• 14 years ago

More interesting than a bunch of chatter on Google Plus is this article on Forbes, "Could Steve Jobs actually win his thermonuclear war?":

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/30/could-steve-jobs-actu...

I don't think this will be the last of Apple's actions against Android. When Steve said they'd "patented the hell out of" the iPhone, I got the sense he really wasn't joking.

magicalist• 14 years ago

There is no content in that "article". He doesn't even attempt to answer his posed question. It comes up only in the last paragraph and all he concludes is "Apple may be tempted to request preliminary injunctions against newer products". What insight.

Gotta get more page views, and based on the comment count vs normal forbes posts, this is the right formula.

codeka• 14 years ago

This came up not that long ago on Hacker News. If the article headline is posed as a "yes/no" question, the answer is "no".

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4092880

buro9• 14 years ago

They've patented the hell out of everything that they've done in the last decade with the iPhone, but the very foundations that they stand on have been patented the hell out of by Motorola, Ericsson, Nokia, etc for the decades prior.

Standing on someone else's foundations isn't the best place from which to start a thermonuclear patent war.

pkulak• 14 years ago

If you have enough lawyers it is. You can do anything with enough money and lawyers.

astrodust• 14 years ago

If it's decades then you're in the clear since patents have a more finite lifespan than copyright.

The initial iPhone patents only have another ten years or so left in them, if that.

keithpeter• 14 years ago

Especially as the people you are aiming your thermonuclear weapons at happen to be part of your supply chain (or trading closely with them)

tedunangst• 14 years ago

But if those patents are part of necessary standards, they're required to license them to Apple. Apple is not required to license any of its UI patents to competitors.

andyman1080• 14 years ago

How are you equating standards essential 3G patents to software UI? They don't really have any correlation whatsoever.

natarius• 14 years ago

The Times They Are a-Changin'

awolf• 14 years ago

Our patent system is insane, granted. But in this case, at least Apple, ya’ know, actually invented some of the stuff they are using against Android.

shangaslammi2• 14 years ago

Have you actually looked at the four patents used in this litigation? I think it's highly arguable whether Apple really invented any of those concepts.

taligent7• 14 years ago

There is a clear and well understood process for invalidating those patents - prior art.

If you don't believe Apple invented them then come forward and provide some evidence. I would imagine Google and the Android OEMs would throw a few million your way for the trouble.

Tichy• 14 years ago

Using a mix of heuristics to rank search results? Sorry, but no.

jrockway• 14 years ago

This is really a non-issue. Tech companies sue each other and get import bans all the time. The victim eventually moves some UI widget three pixels to the right and the import ban is lifted and life moves on. The only real consequence of all this is that lawyers on both sides make a lot of money. Google is not going to stop making Android and Apple is not going to stop making iOS. Both will just advance more slowly because money is being spent on lawyering rather than programming.

molmalo• 14 years ago

Well, yes, you are right with this in that both will continue to manufacture and litigate each other...

Surely, efforts would be better directed against the broken system that is being gamed by those companies, instead of dividing consumer forces, you know: Apple fans vs Google fans vs Microsoft fans vs x Other fans....

It would be much better to have everybody in action vs Broken Patent System.

ralfn6• 14 years ago

It is generally acknowledged that Apple is at the offense. Google hasnt used IP laws in any way other than defensive.

Microsoft strategy is more interesting: they dont block products but rather use liscense fees that are slightly less than the costs of going to court against Microsoft. Eventhough, their patents are hard to enforce, and likely wouldnt win, its irrelevant.

So, to compare the behavior to other industries: Microsofts strategy is racketeering Italian mob style "we own this town", while Apple is raging a full on war, with any competitor, much like how a mexican drug cartel operates.

Google on the other hand, behaves more like a community bank. The members get free tech, but also take most of the risk, yet if they succeed, end up making Google more profitable.

The notion that all three companies are equally abusive, is ridiculus. They are definately operating with different policies. Whether that is due to convience or moral convinctions, is up for debate, but when looking purely at behavior in this space, Google is the good guy...

jclulow3• 14 years ago

I think suggesting that nobody is hurt by ridiculous injunctions like this is a bit disingenuous. Firstly, consumers are denied the chance to purchase a product that exists; it's been made! It's ready to ship! Sure, you might not want one, but it's certainly possible that other people do.

Something else an injuction does is robs a manufacturer of any time-to-market advantage that they may have had releasing the product when they were actually trying to do so. Holding sales back by even a month can mean the missing of critical retail periods throughout the year. I'm not even arguing either way about the validity of the claims behind the injunction here -- if it turns out they are in the wrong, then they should certainly pay damages to Apple based on how much damage that they caused by doing the wrong thing (i.e. profits from sales).

How much the target of an injunction benefits from being allowed to sell their product is concrete and measurable. How much Apple benefit by preventing a competitor from placing a product on the market is, in stark contrast, essentially unknowable and thus difficult to compensate for if Apple turn out to be wrong.

X-Istence• 14 years ago

If consumers want the device they can simply purchase an Apple device. If Google did indeed violate the patents in question the features the user want are available in Apple's products.

You mention first-mover advantage ... that is exactly what patents are supposed to grant, you invent something cool, you get a patent on it, and then YOU get exclusivity on that invention for X years so you can recoup your costs of R&D.

If company Y owns the patent and company X clones it and sells it for $50 cheaper company Y is now disadvantaged even-though it spent all of the money researching and developing it in the first place. Apparently the Judge agreed that company Y is in the right and that company X should no longer be allowed to sell their widget until the lawsuit is settled.

calinet67• 14 years ago

Well if you put it that way, why the hell would Apple not try to get this injunction? Any public company in their right mind should take advantage of this sort of market advantage.

The legal/patent system that allows this is broken, that's certain. But can we really blame Apple for using it to their advantage? It's sort of genius. Evil genius, but still...

flyinRyan4• 14 years ago

>Firstly, consumers are denied the chance to purchase a product that exists; it's been made! It's ready to ship! Sure, you might not want one, but it's certainly possible that other people do.

What kind of ridiculous justification is this? "But I had the car! It was ready to sell! I had someone who wanted to buy it! It's not right to stop me just because the car didn't actually belong to me, the guy I stole it from doesn't even know it's gone!"

fauigerzigerk2• 14 years ago

I think your last sentence shows exactly why it's not a non-issue as you claim in your first sentence. This nonsense is a drag on the entire economy.

Lawyers working on this issue is the equivalent of Keynes' digging holes and filling them up again statement. It's what makes Keynesianism so short sighted.

akldfgj• 14 years ago

For anyone, like fauigerzigerk, who doesn't know what Keynesianism is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_economics

Monetary stimulation buy the government or any entity that creates money is different from transferring money for unproductive uses.

Keynes point was that giving out money stimulates economic activity, dis-idling hands. The hole-digging argument was that, while handing out money for productive activity is best (it has two benefits: immediate production of value, plus money that stimulates trade), even handing out money for non-productive activity is still valuable for the stimulating effects.

The reason is that I have bananas you want, and you have oranges someone else wants, and someone else has dirt nobody wants, if the government prints money to buy the dirt guy's dirt, and the dirt guy buys oranges, and the orange guy buys bananas, and the banana guy has some money waiting for someone to make something he wants (maybe the dirt guy will make a cool cartoon about oranges), that is better in REAL terms than a pile of rotten bananas and oranges and dirt and nobody getting anything they want at all.

Even though the dirt guy got paid for worthless work, real wealth was created by better allocating resources.

kitsune_2• 14 years ago

Have you considered that while for huge conglomerates such as Samsung and companies like Apple this is a mere game for their law departments, it's much more serious for the small developer?

Big corporations could pretty much shut down any start up if they wanted to.

The reverse is not true. Could Panic Software have sued Apple because of the Audion / iTunes story?

So what good is the patent law if it only benefits the powerful?

JBiserkov• 14 years ago

What good is any law since it only benefits the powerful?

technoslut3• 14 years ago

I don't know if Panic had any patents regarding this.

The patent system doesn't really benefit the small developer. I was listening to Build & Analyze and Marco Arment was asked if he would patent features of Instapaper and he essentially said that it is more pain than it's worth. They don't have time time and money required to enforce it.

pillock• 14 years ago

The fact that "Tech companies sue each other and get import bans all the time" doesn't strike me as being "a non-issue". It's strange that your summary of said "non-issue" comes across so negatively.

gshakir• 14 years ago

Google would do the same if they were in Apple's position. So boycotting does not make sense.

creamyhorror• 14 years ago

Sure it does. If this boycott turns out to be effective enough, I think companies thinking of doing what Apple did will think twice before doing it.

I doubt it'll actually be effective, but hey, at least it sends a message about how some consumers don't like litigating over software patents.

thechut• 14 years ago

That is clearly untrue. When Apple wanted to make a phone they made their ecosystem a jail cell.

When Google was in the same position and wanted to make a phone, they started the Open Handset Alliance, and developed free software for manufactures and consumers to use and modify as they see fit.

How exactly is that doing the same thing?

acchow4• 14 years ago

I cannot upvote this enough.

I for one will never buy another iPhone. But I am in a jail cell. How can I leave iOS? My friend tried once and it bit him in the ass. He lost his iPhone (which never had iOS 5 and thus never had iMessage). But at some point between losing his phone and disabling his sim card, the person who stole/had his phone upgraded to iOS 5 and turned on iMessage. So his stolen/lost phone was now taking all his iMessages. My friend then bought a non-Apple phone and NONE of his friends (including me) that were using iPhones were able to text him. We received messages from him, but all our replies were being sent as iMessages to his stolen/lost phone. He had to change his phone number in the end. Who designs this shit?

franzus• 14 years ago

In other news: Katie and Tom are getting a divorce ...

Thank you google plus.

jusben1369• 14 years ago

Wait they are? Why wasn't that posted on HN? I'm off to TMZ......

In other news - it matters to Apple. Those that say it doesn't say that simply because they want to believe it doesn't matter to Apple. Who knows the exact day MSFT went from an exciting scrappy start up helping to put a PC in everyone's home and taking on the likes of IBM to the despised Death Star. I don't know - but it always starts with a change in public perception from doer of good to capitalist money hogging evil guy. It always catches the corporation off guard because they haven't really changed any business practises - it's just suddenly they're now Goliath and no longer David in the public eye.

I can see Apple winning the battle and losing the war here.

51Cards• 14 years ago

That fact that is trending at all shows that Google+ is not populated entirely by Tech-heads.

Heinleinian• 14 years ago

Funny, I thought the place to be right now would be "boycott Facebook". Where can I go to find that?

chmars• 14 years ago

Why is such a trend on Google+ relevant?

As much as I would like to embrace Google+ as a Facebook alternative, Google+ has still a very limited audience – and, of course, a very Android-focus audience …

EDIT: Downvoting my comment just because it isn't enthusiastic on Google+? Comm'on!

msabalau3• 14 years ago

It is appealing to see a down-voting complaint for an unpopular opinion related to a comment which dismisses a trend on Google+ being irrelevant because the network is relatively unpopular.

I doubt the 75 million people who use Google+ consider themselves a "very limited audience."

Regardless, not a reason for down-voting.

vacri• 14 years ago

I would have thought using a false claim to denigrate something would be a reason for down-voting.

mkr-hn4• 14 years ago

I downvoted because you presented opinion as fact with nothing to support the claims.

bound008• 14 years ago

I didn't know Google+ had trends?

v0cab3• 14 years ago

The South Korean government (owned by Samsung) has been blocking and putting up barriers to foreign phones for years, including delaying the introduction of the iPhone to South Korea, to give Samsung and co. a chance to develop competitors.

I'm glad to see the US government blocking a South Korean product for once, if that is indeed what is happening.

kitsune_2• 14 years ago

Where is the evidence that South Korea has blocked foreign phones?

I can do the work for you, South Korea for instance banned the sale of games inside the app store for a long time. I have a hard time finding examples where South Korea outright banned phones however.

Even if they did, why would you want the US to follow such bad examples. These policies are not healthy in the long term for a variety of reasons.

South Korea is a rather protectionist country, and drawing a line between the Chaebols (Huge conglomerates such as Samsung) and the government is often hard. By the way, this is not surprising considering South Korea was a US-backed and sponsored military dictatorship for a long time.

However, the iPhone 3GS launched in South Korea 3 to 4 months after its introduction to Europe and the US.

Nokia was active there for years.

Last time I was in Seoul, the new iPad launched to great fanfare.

v0cab3• 14 years ago

I mean that the phones were blocked for a while, before they were allowed.

I'm not American, but still I wouldn't mind seeing these South Korean chaebols get a taste of their own medicine.

Protectionism may reduce the overall efficiency of a system, but can be good for the individual actors within that system who implement it. I think Americans are more interested in their livelihoods than in the efficiency of world production. In fact total efficiency should never be our goal; that would make slaves of us all.

The original iPhone was blocked from South Korea for quite a while.

Here's more info on South Korean protectionism in relation to phones: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125367616595333125.html?mod=...

MaysonL• 14 years ago

Perhaps Samsung will consider not slavishly copying Apple design for their next products?

fauigerzigerk2• 14 years ago

Perhaps Apple should stop claiming that they invented everything they popularized.

zeru• 14 years ago

I have a hard time telling if you are serious or not. I hope not.

briandear6• 14 years ago

In Korea Samsung sells cars that are almost exact copies if American and German models. Korean businesses have no qualms about straight up stealing others designs. For example looking at this car, by a company called Ssangyang, http://www.jeepfan.com/readersjeeps/ians-korando/ it's an almost perfect clone of a Jeep CJ-7. This is exceptionally common with Korean Chaebols. Samsung getting sympathy over this is laughable. In Korea Samsung runs over the little guy all the time. It's a highly corrupt, politically nasty company. Spend more than 10 minutes in Korea and people would lose all sympathy for poor little Samsung.

kristofferR• 14 years ago

Well, to be fair, one of the main reasons for Asia's growth the last decades is exactly the blatant disregard for patents and copyright.

Sure, it may feel unfair to the original creators of the products, but it sure has forced them to continually innovate. I'd actually argue that cloning is a positive (as long as you differentiate it sufficiently, don't clone a BMW and call it a BWV) thing for the world. In my opinion, if you can create a better/cheaper version of something, you should be allowed to.

And if it's possible to easily duplicate your product and make it cheaper/better somehow (if it isn't better somehow nobody'll buy the clone), it's a strong sign that the original product/business isn't good enough and doesn't deserve to be the leader.

batiudrami• 14 years ago

I am genuinely confused by this. Definitely, the original Galaxy S could be mistaken for an iPhone 3GS. And the SGSII was black and rectangular with a similar speaker grill so I suppose there are some similarities (though I don't think anyone who can recognise that not all touch screen phones are iPhones will confuse the two), but seriously, the Galaxy Nexus looks nothing at all like any iPhone. It runs stock Android, not Touchwiz, which, again, could not be confused with iOS by anyone with any knowledge about smartphones.

prezjordan2• 14 years ago

What is the phone/design/patent in question? Is it just the Galaxy Nexus? It doesn't look like an iPhone, is it some internal component?

carlosrg• 14 years ago

The people that want to boycott Apple don't even buy Apple products. So good luck with that. And besides that, you should know that Google makes a lot more money from iOS than from Android ($10 average from each iOS device vs $2 from each Android device), so if Apple stop selling iOS devices Google would be harmed in their income.

At least Apple use legitimate patents, unlike the use of FRAND patents of Samsung and Motorola. Nobody is going to make a #BoycottMotorola for using FRAND patents to ban Xbox 360 in countries like Germany?

bond• 14 years ago

" I won't bother getting into how the judge who ruled on this injunction is a former lawyer from an intellectual property firm who went after companies for profit."

https://plus.google.com/101209004947484771936/posts/XcZFPu8q...

lnanek2• 14 years ago

Wow, so people who want to buy Samsung instead of Apple anyway are going to boycott Apple? Apple is quaking in their boots, I'm sure.

coopdog2• 14 years ago

I was actually thinking of buying a Mac for the first time just last week, even after being outraged by the Galaxy Tab 10.1 thing. They have good hardware and it's Linuxy, but thank you Apple for acting sooner with this Nexus rubbish rather than later..

So there you go, an actual sale lost and I'll remember this for a long, long time

davidlumley2• 14 years ago

While I understand your position, I find it interesting that there is no group of people who are similarly angry and loudly boycotting Samsung phones and other products for consistently taking design cues from Apple.

I personally don't buy many Samsung products, but if they released something that was a leader in its class (similar to how a Macbook is one of the best laptops you can grab) I know I'd buy it despite their current trend of mirroring Apple's designs.

mitchty4• 14 years ago

So then you're boycotting Motorola and Google products as well because they had a similar injunction against Apple in Germany right? If not why?

I find it amusing how emotional tech people get over these patent wars. Its one companies legal team versus the other over legalities and trivialities. If you looked at how often car companies sued each other over look and feel patents you would realize the whole thing is a non issue. If you want to change things start with the legal frameworks that allow it to happen. Complaining that companies are using every trick available is somewhat of a non surprise. You might want to start with the patent office and their granting of patents though.

But "I'll remember this for a long, long time", really? That is quite sad, evaluate technology for its tech, not for the companies legal team. But whatever.

Note: I'm not arguing for or against apple or google and their legal teams with this post at all.

reaganing• 14 years ago

Why do you feel so strongly about this but not about Motorola (and by extension, Google) trying to do the same thing to Apple's devices?[1]

Not that I like any of this, just saying Apple's hardly the only company that does this, they all do it.

[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-25/google-s-motorola-w...

vibrunazo3• 14 years ago

Same here. Up to last week I was actively looking to buy a Macbook Air. Was gonna actually buy it next month. If this happened a month later, I would own a mac product. Now I'm officially boycotting apple. I'll have to contend myself with a worse product because of social activism. Apple is making the world a worse place. I won't give them my money.

The comments about "they're all doing the same" are extremely close minded. No, they're not all the same. Look up context and who is defending instead of attacking. If microsoft and apple didn't start this. We wouldn't be in this whole mess in the first place.

damncabbage2• 14 years ago

What's the background on https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-aR5Kiv6yGJ8/T_AgxfYEw_I/A... ?

(It's the first time I've seen this comparison.)

TazeTSchnitzel2• 14 years ago

We've had smartphones as we know them for longer than people seem to acknowledge. Apple just made a slick UI and went with a capacitive touch-screen.

raganesh19• 14 years ago

That is over-simplification of facts. If that were true, why doesn't Samsung leverage the device shown in the comparison to counter-sue Apple?

Edit: Trying to understand the down votes. Would like to hear counter-arguments.

berberich• 14 years ago

Nilay Patel at The Verge had a good post[1] about this when it first came up in April 2011. Besides the fact that the F700 was announced at MWC in February 2007 (after the iPhone was announced in January), There are huge differences in the interfaces that matter in trade dress and trademark cases.

Basically, you wouldn't confuse an iPhone with an F700, while Samsung seemed to design Touch Wiz specifically to do that.

[1] http://www.theverge.com/2011/04/20/talk-picture-samsung-f700...

bearwithclaws• 14 years ago

What's the source of this news?

shawnee_• 14 years ago

Something about Koh's overwhelming bias for Apple seems really suspicious. It's one thing to preeminently ban sales of product A for reason X, but to also ban sales of product B for reason Y where products A and B have the same parent, and where reasons X and Y are completely unrelated? Something is wrong with this picture.

What else could be going on? Maybe I have a cynical view of humanity, but I spent a few minutes digging to see if I could find anything on requirements for District Judges to release tax returns (as they are essentially public officials, right?). Couldn't find anything on that, but generic salary data is available: http://www.fjc.gov/history/home.nsf/page/js_3.html

$175K is probably rather low when you're used to working in the high-stakes world of patent litigation.

It'll be interesting to investigate this with more depth. ( Another interesting / related read: http://articles.latimes.com/2009/sep/27/local/me-judges-pay2... )

raganesh19• 14 years ago

If you are accusing her of bribery, that is a very serious allegation.

Imagine if such a thing happens and is eventually exposed. What a scandal would it be. I don't think any large company, let alone Apple, would want to be involved in any such mess.

wtvanhest2• 14 years ago

It is completely reasonable to investigate bribery where there is a perceived unreasonable decision and a heavy financial motive.

Individuals working at large companies do bribe people in a variety of situations.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/30/business/wal-mart-bribery-...

mtgx4• 14 years ago

I don't know about this case, but I think ITC has been suspiciously anti-Google for the past few patent cases. In almost every single instance they've ruled in favor of Apple or Microsoft, and against Google.

neya3• 14 years ago

There's a valid point in his statement. Its just that you haven't thought about it deeply yet. A dozen OEM's including HTC, Samsung and the rest, have about a 50 phone models in total (assume 50 for simplicity). Atleast one phone model from these OEM's is under litigation and/or have been banned w.r.t patents. Apple, is a single company with just 2-3 phones and NONE of these phones have been banned yet. This must mean 1) ALL the phones, with various flavors of Android are some how violating Apple's patents OR there is something unfair happening here. The possibility of about 50 (remember, we're assuming 50 is for simplicity) phone models violating a single company's patents is just ridiculous. This must mean these makers of these 50+ phone models haven't thought about these patents OR it clearly means something unfair is happening. To assume, these WELL-EXPERIENCED (Eg: HTC) Phone makers of these 50+ models haven't thought about these patents is plain stupidity, which leads us to the conclusion, there's something unfair going on.

vibrunazo3• 14 years ago

Corruption isn't as straight forward simple as Hollywood movies make it out be "Here take this dollars and do this for me". It's usually a complex net of interests and favors trading, that's really hard to prove. Maybe someone at apple just happen to contribute to someone's political campaign, who is proposing legislation that just so happens would benefit the judge's family business. This level of corruption happens every day, everywhere in the planet. People are trading favors as we speak.

its_so_on3• 14 years ago

This isn't a corrupt country (there is a specific list of corrupt countries, this is a pretty objective statement.) It makes 0 sense for you to post "how far you got" as you didn't get anywhere.

koide• 14 years ago

The fact that a country as a whole is relatively non corrupt doesn't say anything about specific people and their corruptibility.

Also, the U.S.A. is number 24 of around 180 countries on the Corruption Perceptions Index and appears below countries such as Bahamas, Chile or Qatar.

sjwright6• 14 years ago

Apple isn't doing anything Motorola or Samsung haven't done. The only difference is the judge's decision. #BoycottJudges!

dhughes2• 14 years ago

AFAIK Apple is the only mobile phone corporation who refuses to pay Motorola a royalty for the fundamental patent of a "portable hand-held telephone device".

cooldeal6• 14 years ago

Didn't Apple start suing Android OEMs first? If I remember correctly, there was a mutual destruction pact before then.

jsz0• 14 years ago

What else could be going on?

Maybe Apple's case/patents are legally stronger than a lot of people are willing to admit?

beedogs2• 14 years ago

I doubt that, since they keep losing in courtrooms around the world.

siglesias4• 14 years ago

I'm wondering what kind of institutional respect for IP and spirit of innovation would lead Samsung to whip up this UI?

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

Sure, one can argue that Samsung and Apple both look to a common ancestor for their ideas, but I think Samsung is more insidious than people are willing to admit here.

aristidb• 14 years ago

The Galaxy Nexus doesn't use / have that.

siglesias4• 14 years ago

I'm not saying it does. I'm saying Samsung has no shame in copying this closely.

itp• 14 years ago

I'm not sure what that has to do with the most recent injunction against the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. The judge issued the injunction on the strength of U.S. Patent 8,086,604, which "provides convenient access to items of information that are related to various descriptors input by a user, by means of a unitary interface which is capable of accessing information in a variety of locations, through a number of different techniques". The infringing technology is specifically called out as Android's Quick Search Box, which has been present for years.

The Apple patent in question is obvious on its face. Off the top of my head, Google Desktop Search, which was released a month or so before Apple filed for the patent, is prior art. Nat Friedman's Dashboard project (http://nat.org/dashboard/) represents significantly more advanced prior art and predates Apple's patent filing by over a year.

Samsung may be insidious, but that's not the issue at play here. The judge ruled that Google's Quick Search Box violates an Apple patent that should never have been issued, and represents a toe hold to go after Android as a whole. This is a farce.

siglesias4• 14 years ago

I don't feel that this lawsuit is specifically over the four patents in question and only the four patents in question. It's punishment (in the game theoretical sense) for Samsung's institutional attitude. Obviously the discourse here has taken on import beyond the purely legal realities and into a more moral conversation about right and wrong. Morally speaking, I feel that many of Samsung's design decisions are wrong. This isn't to say that Apple is totally clean either, but it bears mentioning that the "victim" here has no problem with seeing how much copying it can get away with, and I see no problem with its getting punished for it once in a while.

flyinRyan4• 14 years ago

Well, if the laws and patents worked properly, Apple could sue them for the blatant copying they're doing. Since all of it is non-optimal, Apple just have to shoot what ever patents they can find at Samsung and hope something registers a hit.

If you don't like how the game is played you have to fix the rules. You can't expect companies like Apple to just take this blatant rip off lying down because there is no way to sue for what was actually done wrong.

jas_strong• 14 years ago

I find it ironic that people use Google+ to protest against this, as Vic Gundotra has alienated me a lot more with his stupid policies than Apple ever has. #BoycottGoogle+

saket12315• 14 years ago

Now its trending on Twitter (at least it shows up on my twitter home page trend as number 7, but these trends change very very quickly). Its still trending on Google plus after 2.5 days. This is going pretty viral. I so wish that this will put some sense into judge and Apple to not ban Galaxy Nexus - a unlock hardware phone which is made for developers, hackers and has pure AOSP experience.

admiralpumpkin4• 14 years ago

Or possibly it will put some sense into Samsung to stop infringing on patents...

saket12315• 14 years ago

Patent system is broken.If you look at those patents on which this decision was based , you will realize how bad and bucolic the whole patent game is.

fpgeek2• 14 years ago

Do you write code for a living? Care to estimate how many linked-list "patents" you've "infringed"?

mdkess• 14 years ago

What will the immediate consequences be, if the injunction actually goes into effect? I have a ton of questions about this, but basically:

- Will Samsung/Google just tweak the software to get around the patent, and continue shipping?

- Could Samsung ship the device sans-Software, and have a US based facility install the OS to get around this?

- What is the appeal process that Google/Samsung can take? That is, when Samsung files the appeal, how long does it take to be reviewed and considered? Can Apple appeal an appeal?

- What is the meaning of this 2014 court date?

- What defines the "Galaxy Nexus"? Could they change the colors on it, or tweak the case, and call it a different device to continue shipping?

Of course, any answers are basically speculation at this point, but mostly I want to get a feel for some of the possible avenues that the parties have to take.

mechnik2• 14 years ago

Good thinking.

I wish a high quality device without pre-installed OS was available.

Great specs similar to GNex, at an affordable price comparable to $350 Google charges for unlocked units.

Let customers run whatever OS they wish.

WebOS, Android, iOS, Windows, any one in particular or all at once.

alanh• 14 years ago

Scrolling through the results, I see:

- 50% Star Wars imagery (iPhone as stormtrooper once, but usually that ugly green Android guy using a lightsaber on something representing Apple)

- 10% Lord of the Rings imagery

- Many posts that “support the cause” without delineating any sort of argument

- No one disputing that Samsung ripped off Apple’s designs or patents

Interesting.

sangnoir• 14 years ago

Take a look at the Galaxy Nexus (the phone in question) and tell me which Apple design or patent it infringed. (Bear in mind the unified search patent has prior art - by Google to wit, and is likely to be invalidated)

bookwormAT• 14 years ago

Is this somehow started by or otherwise related to Joe Wilcox's boycott?

http://betanews.com/2012/06/29/apples-injunction-stopping-ga...

http://betanews.com/2012/06/29/preliminary-injunction-bars-g...

http://betanews.com/2012/06/09/im-boycotting-apple/

saket12315• 14 years ago

A recent development on this matter...Samsung has moved to ask the court to stay the injunction

http://www.slashgear.com/samsung-demands-apples-galaxy-nexus...

da_n• 14 years ago

"Well it looks like Team Android have conceded a penalty, but the players are crying foul play saying Team Apple dived. Some team Android fans are also attempting to stage a pitch invasion to protest, but are easily held back. Team Apple scores! The game continues..."

binarycrusader• 14 years ago

You folks have it all wrong. If anything, more product import blocks need to happen so people will start realizing how busted patents are.

saket12315• 14 years ago

Another very contentious patent granted to Apple http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4186731

wcdolphin• 14 years ago

In other news, #boycottApple helped Google+ realize that they need to design at least one feature correctly... If I am viewing a livestream, don't move the box that I am reading from. Goodness gracious.

ThePherocity• 14 years ago

I'm a huge fan of Google, Apple, Linux, Xbox, and Kindle. Apparently, I need to start insulting and belittling myself or something...

lolz• 14 years ago

Holy shit, it's trending on Twitter? Well that's going to change the world!

josteink2• 14 years ago

Now also trending on twitter:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4187672

89a• 14 years ago

Trending on Google+?

So all 5 Google+ users posted it?

#BoycottApple trending on Google plus due to Galaxy Nexus ban

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