We finally have a verdict in the high-profile Apple-Samsung patent infringement lawsuit, and it involves Samsung paying Apple $290 million for copying key features of both the iPhone and iPad for its own line of smartphones and tablets.
The jury’s verdict covers 13 of the 26 Samsung devices.
Apple’s re-trial with Samsung over patent infringement has just concluded with the federal jury ruling that Samsung owes Apple an extra $290 million for infringing on the iPhone maker’s patents.
The award is significantly more than the amount Samsung hoped to pay, though Apple’s lawyers didn’t get all the money they wanted either. Including damages awarded from the original trial, Samsung’s bill for Apple now totals $929.83 million worth damages – unless they successfully appeal of course.
Remember that time Cult of Mac reported that Apple’s oft-maligned iOS Maps function steered people the wrong way across Fairbanks Airport Taxiway? If you’re anything like this writer, you probably either chuckled at the egregiousness of the error or else were momentarily aghast, and then went on with the rest of your day.
Well, in the eyes of some what you should have been thinking is: “hey, I could probably sue over that.”
Perhaps it’s better that you didn’t, however, because the class action lawsuit that has been filed against Apple for iOS Maps is a bit of a headscratcher.
Apple is close to buying PrimeSense, the company that invented the 3D motion tracking technology used in the original Xbox Kinect. Whispers of the acquisition were first reported by an Israeli publication called Calcalist back in July, and the site is now reporting that Apple has a deal in place with PrimeSense to the tune of around $345 million.
While Apple’s mysterious ‘iTV’ product seems like an obvious reason for the acquisition, PrimeSense has also developed a smaller 3D sensor called Capri that’s more suited for mobile.
Sir Jonathan Ive is extremely self-effacing. The only time he says “I” is when he’s talking about the iPhone or iPad. Talking about his work, he replaces “I” with “we.” It’s always about his team, his collaborators, and Apple, the company he works for. For Jony, it’s all about the work.
As senior vice president of industrial design at Apple, the world’s most valuable company, he’s been the world’s leading technology innovator for more than two decades. He’s led the design of a string of iconic products: the iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad, plus a score of other innovations in between. He’s won every design award under the sun. He’s even been knighted.
In 2011, Sir Jonathan Ive was promoted to Apple’s overall design guru, in charge of both hardware and software. It was a position formerly held by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. Jony provides direction and leadership for industrial design, the group primarily responsible for hardware, as well as the human interface software teams. Hardware and software have traditionally been run as separate divisions at Apple. Only one man straddled both groups — Steve Jobs. Jony has stepped into the role that Jobs left with his passing. Tim Cook is CEO, but Jony is Apple’s creative driving force. He’s Apple’s MVP.
You wouldn’t know it if you met him. Born in Chingford, Essex, the 43-year-old Brit is quiet, even shy. He’s super friendly and soft spoken. He is extremely private. Even Apple says it doesn’t know his precise date of birth. He dresses in jeans and T-shirts and always seems to be carrying something in a plastic bag. He speaks softly but he doesn’t look like a wallflower: he’s big and muscular, a legacy of a lifetime working out. He has close-cropped hair, which might make him look menacing if he wasn’t so obviously a nice guy.
Jony is the most celebrated designer of his generation. In 2002, he was named the first Designer of the Year by the Design Museum, which he won again in 2003. That year he was inducted as a member of the Royal Designers for Industry (extremely prestigious). The following year he was given the Royal Society of the Art’s Benjamin Franklin Medal and the BBC named him the “Most Influential Person on British Culture,” beating out JK Rowling and Ricky Gervais.
In 2005, Jony was presented with three Silver Pencils from the British Design & Art Direction (D&AD) association, some of the most prestigious awards in the industry. In 2006, he got a fourth, the most Silver Pencils ever awarded to an individual. One Silver Pencil is a career maker; four the mark of an off-the-charts genius. He subsequently got six Black Pencils, more than anyone else, ever. Jony has a record number of D&AD awards; and he got them in a stretch of just 10 years. In 2006, he was made a Commander of the British Empire; and in 2010 he was knighted by Princess Anne at Buckingham Palace. By March 2013, he was named in more than 600 design and utility patents.
In 2011, D&AD bestowed another giant award on Jony: it named Apple’s design team the best design studio of the last 50 years. It was one of the first public recognitions for the group as a whole, and Apple felt the award was important enough to fly the normally reclusive, ultra secretive group en masse to London to receive it — the first time ever.
While racking up awards, he’s helped push Apple’s sales off the charts. In the nearly two decades that Jony has been at Apple, the company has pulled back from the brink of bankruptcy and is now one of the world’s most valuable companies. In 1992, the year he joined Apple as a designer, the company made $530 million profit selling beige computers. In 2012, Apple’s made $41.7 billion profit on $156.5 billion revenue. Yeah, billion!
The company makes gorgeous products that compel customers to camp out overnight and sometimes even riot. AAPL, as it is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, currently has a market cap of about $475 billion, making it the biggest company on the planet after the oil giant Exxon.
A lot of this had to do with Steve Jobs of course, the genius who toiled for three decades to bring personal computers to the masses. Jobs always had an eye for talent, launching Apple in 1977 with the hardware genius Steve Wozniak. For the last dozen years, his chief creative partner at Apple was Jony Ive. Jony is a genuinely original thinker. His products are not just the same old things repackaged to look new; they are new. They are products no one could have imagined a few years ago.
Once I started iSpying in the crowded, bustling streets of Hong Kong, it was hard to stop. (Also, the IP lawyers must be seriously busy in these parts.)
These are some of my favorite finds of Apple-esque products and signs — minus the pics that didn’t turn out because my travel companions were trying to stop me from lagging behind or getting run over.
We’ll have more reporting from Hong Kong soon; a special thanks goes out to Truman Au for showing me around.
A judge has advised Samsung to prepare its defense after determining that the South Korean company probably violated a court order by leaking confidential Apple documents.
Apple provided Samsung with copies of its patent agreements with Nokia, Ericsson, Sharp, and Philips as part of the massive patent battle between the two that started last summer, but it seems the company ignored the protective order that said the information could only be used in the context of that case.
In the past three years, Apple has dared to be dull.
During Apple’s best years, between 2007 and 2010, Apple introduced the first iPhone and the first iPad, two world-changing products that now define the company (and bring in most of its revenue). These products, along with their touch interfaces and apps stores, were a shock to the industry.
That’s great, Apple. But what have you done for me lately?
Here’s one theory about how Apple works: The company finds a horrible content consumption experience. They figure out how the experience can be made wonderful. They work on the products until they’re ready, both from product quality and price perspectives. Then they ship it and spend the next few years refining and perfecting the original vision.
If that oversimplification about how Apple works is accurate, then Apple isn’t really in full control of when its groundbreaking new products ship. They have to wait for technology, such as Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), or for various industries to come around to making a critical mass of content deals.
In the past three years, every Apple announcement has been preceded by speculation and rumor that Apple would at long last announce an iWatch, an iTV set and other products that would signal a radical new product category for Apple. And every announcement ended in disappointment. Every announcement was about refinement of old products, rather than bold launches of new products.
Will Apple ever enter new markets again, including the ones perennially rumored?
I say they will. The fact that they haven’t shipped the long-rumored iWatch or iTV, for example, makes perfect sense from a readiness perspective.
In fact, I think the next three years will be twice as awesome as the iPhone-iPad years, in the sense that Apple will break into four new businesses. Why? Because the technology and content deals will fall into place during this time.
Here’s what I think is going to happen.
Apple’s iPhone 5s became the world’s first smartphone with a 64-bit processor when it launched this September, but as you might expect, it’ll have plenty of competitors next year. Unsurprisingly, some of those will come from Samsung, which is already planning 64-bit chips and 16-megapixel cameras for its 2014 flagships, according to industry sources.
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