The court case between Apple and Samsung just got more interesting. Apple are always touting their innovation and Samsung has just pointed out in court that the iPhone would not exist had it not been for Samsung Technology. I have covered the non Apple innovations that the iPhone takes for granted before, but it’s nice to see others have noticed too.

I badly want to see Apple lose this case big time, and I want to see Microsoft’s license agreement with Samsung come to light in this case too. I also want to see Microsoft lose their case against Motorola. I want all of this for the same reasons. Apple and Microsoft want to use Patents to hold back competition so people have to accept less impressive technology for more money just so these two companies can profit more. Samsung was developing phone technology before either of the others and shouldn’t have to pay now just because they didn’t think it made any sense to patent crazy and simplistic ideas and designs. (Samsung could have patented music playing phones had they wanted too.) My message to Microsoft and Apple is a simple one, compete on your products merits and stop gaming the court system to get ahead.

I’ve recently been reading the Oracle verses Google court case at Groklaw and I must say I am surprised at one thing. Apache Harmony (an Open Source Java SE.) has been around for a very long time, Sun has known for many years exactly what was in Harmony and who put it there and why (by their own admission) and Apache has been hassling Sun to certify Harmony as Java compliant without having to pay for a TCL. (Apache give it away for free so non free terms are difficult for them). Because Apache were not able to get a free TCL to certify Harmony was fully Java compatible, they never stipulated that it was. That doesn’t mean it’s illegal because the Java language is free, it just means that without the certification they couldn’t claim it was Java compatible, or use trademarks owned by Sun.

Not only did Sun never go after Apache Harmony (which contains ALL the API’s that Oracle is suing Google for), the then CEO of Sun (Jonathan Schwartz) is actually on record as saying Harmony was fine to be released as it was. Since Sun also knew that Harmony was under an Apache license (which is the same license that Google used for that part of Android), How can this not be viewed as anything but an implied license?

It goes further than that even. The same CEO is on record as saying he approved of Android and they welcomed the Java language being brought to a lot more people. In fact he will be testifying at trial that Android had his full approval a the time.

If the boss of the company who actually made Java (as opposed to Oracle who just bought Sun after all was already said and done) said on more than one occasion that Harmony was fine and legal as is, and that Android is welcome and they’d like to help however they can, again, how can this not be seen as an implied license?

Sun tried to make a popular mobile OS and failed, Oracle looked at it themselves and realized that they didn’t know enough to pull it off. Someone at that point appears to have decided “stuff it, this is too hard, lets just take a slice of Google’s pie.”

Simple facts (as I understand them),
Sun had no issue with Apache harmony with all the API’s in question under an Apache license and said so publicly and on the record.
Google uses those same Apache harmony API’s in Android under the same Apache license.
Sun (prior to Oracle buying them) also publicly endorsed Android on more then one occasion.
Oracle came and bought Sun after all of this happened and started looking for ways to monetize their investment. (In fact I believe ex Sun employees have said that Oracle were already looking for dirt on Google prior to the Sun sale even completing.)
Oracle are now claiming that Harmony is infringing and that Google is too as a result.

Is it even legal for a company that buys another company to retrospectively contradict their previous CEO’s public announcements when they don’t agree with them? I’d love to hear some explanation of how that is possible.

It seems pretty certain that our future is going to involve mobile internet devices if it doesn’t already. By that I mean tablets and smart phones. We already have phones with resolutions higher than the 800×600 that I used to code for back a few years, (the new Google Galaxy Nexus has 1280×720 resolution). Between Apple and Google, about a million of these devices is sold a day now, so if you are not already testing your site/webapps at smart phone resolutions, you’d best be starting.

Anyway, all that aside, I’ve been reading about how Steve Jobs from Apple was determined to destroy Google Android Linux because he viewed it as stolen product. He was also prepared to blow all of Apple’s money and kill himself to do it.
So I started wondering. What in Android was stolen product from Apple?
* Was iPhone the first touch screen phone? (Nope, IBM Simon did that in 94.) There were others too, like the Motorola Accompli 008.
* Was multitasking what Google stole from Apple? (Nope, the first Iphones had no multi tasking and it was added in much later than Androids arrival which had it from the start.)
* Was iPhone the first B/G/N wireless connected phone? (Nope, this Accton page shows they were already selling Mobile wireless chips in 2006 and PDA’s with wireless were already about.)
* Was iPhone the first phone with a browser? (Nope, that happened in 1997.)
* Was iPhone the first phone with an icon based layout? (Nope, lots of phones were doing that before the iphone)
* Was iPhone the first camera phone? (Nope, Phillipe Kahn did that back in 97)
* Was iPhone the first music playing phone? (Nope, that one goes to Samsung back in 1999)
* Was iPhone the first GPS phone? (Nope, people were doing that back in 1999.)
So, what did Apple “invent” that was so ground breaking? Pinch to zoom maybe? because it seems to me that all they did was combine the functionality of a touch screen PDA with a GSM phone. And they were not the first to do that either.

So, the “invention” that Apple made that was so worth defending, was actually taking everyone else’s ACTUAL inventions, and putting them in one device and marketing it really really well.
Doesn’t seem revolutionary enough to blow 40billion dollars trying to defend though, because if you removed all the shoulders that Apple were standing on to make the iphone, you’d be standing on the ground holding a Nokia candy bar phone from the 90’s.

Steve Jobs said he’d fight to his dying breath to destroy Android, and in the end he did exactly that. He is dead and Android has never been bigger than it is today. The shame is that if he’d innovated instead of litigated he may actually have gone down in history as an real inventor rather than just a marketing/stylist/CEO guru. As it is, they are no more revolutionary as innovators than Microsoft are, and that is precious little in this persons mind. So guys, forget what everyone else is doing, and concentrate on thinking of new things you could be doing. Then you can call yourself innovative inventors of revolutionary products. (A little humility with regards to mentioning the people who’s innovations you are using wouldn’t go astray either.)

Regardless of which company you give your loyalty, the mobile future is here. If you are not targeting them in your development, you are going to lose customers because this a growth industry that will very likely soon outweigh desktop browsers.

After my recent post about the X10 taking too long, it finally came out and I bought one almost instantly.

It hasn’t been out for a fortnight yet and it’s already downloaded a firmware update that fixes the few issues I had with the phone. To be honest I got excited and thought I was getting 2.1 Android while it was updating. Was quite disappointing to discover I was still running 1.6 at the end. Still, it is good news that they are following up with usability updates.

Fantastic phone I have to say. If you are looking for an Android phone, they don’t come better than this yet. Once I know all of its little issues I’ll add more, but I’ve been stoked with it so far.

Update: Interestingly, the GPS has been really slow to start up since the update, i do not know if it is related or not.

It isn’t exactly new news for Linux folks now, but for those that don’t know. SCO’s slander of title claim against Novell has been found in favour of Novell (and Novell have been found to have kept their Unix copyrights). Linux is for now, once again out from under the shadow of legal action. Anyone that delayed deploying Linux for fear of SCO may now go ahead, and anyone who bought one of their licences can now feel very silly and lament the loss of vast sums of money that was wasted.

For the most part, that is show over for SCO. They are going to try to continue by begging the judge to give them the copyrights since the APA said something to the effect of “copyrights as required”.

What SCO are hoping nobody notices, is that “copyrights as required”, intent wise, was referring to the copyrights that might be required in the general daily activities of an actual working Unix business (like oldSCO were for many years before Caldera and Darl Mcbride got involved). NOT the copyrights required by a company who’s only remaining business is trying desperately to find someone to sue for some code somewhere. SCO argued that the “intent” of the APA was more important than the wording. They don’t get to change that now and claim it the other way around. The Intent was never to provide copyrights simply for the purpose of creating a litigation business.

SCO have also said that they will continue to litigate the IBM case where they claimed among other things that IBM put code from Unix that SCO owned the copyright to (though we now know they didn’t) into Linux and thereby made it an awesome competitor that stole Unix’s market share. In 7 years I don’t believe SCO revealed any code they claimed was in Linux that belonged to them that wasn’t almost immediately found to be from free unencumbered sources. Obviously SCO can’t fight this any more since they have been found to not have the copyrights to Unix anyway. Instead they are going to continue on some contract issues. IBM have counter claims as well so it may well be that SCO leaves this world owing IBM some money as well as Novell and dozens of others. Special thanks to Groklaw for making sure that the inconsistancies in both SCO’s public announcements and those of the traditional media were pointed out and corrected thoughout this long saga.

Recently, Sony released the latest update for the PS3’s firmware. It’s been a while so I was excited to see what new features we’d have that would improve its useability. In particular I was hoping for an improved web browsing experiance because currently the system is quite cumbersome to use.

What did I get new from this update? In short, nothing that I can find. It’s all about Sony this one. They made me download a couple of hundred MB of update simply so they could remove the option to install Linux from my PS3. Since that was a point of advertising when I bought it, I feel that they have breached their contract of sale with me by not providing what they advertised.

Other than removing that option, there was nothing I could see about 3d related updates or UI improvements anywhere else. If you are going to remove something from users that you previously sold to them Sony, you should at least make an effort to give something back. Improved useability in browsing using the bluetooth remote would be nice. Or being able to navigate the menu’s using a bluetooth keyboards arrow keys would be likewise helpful. How about some tie in between the new Xperia X10 and the PS3? There are so many things that you could have done to soften this blow that I am left wondering if you people will ever learn that the reason for your lost sales in TV’s and other lines is because you just don’t seem to listen to or think about the user experiance and impressions of your own customers. The PS3 is definately superior in value to the Xbox 360, the included Blueray drive, included wireless, superior CPU power, wireless 6 axis motion controller and bigger hard disks make it fantastic value for the price they now are. The reason you are not in front is simply bad PR and marketing of which this is just another example.

Releasing an update that is basically a downgrade in functionality is bad PR Sony. I don’t think you can’t afford more bad PR at this point.

Update: I just notice that the playstation site says this about the update:

This system software update includes all features contained in previous versions.

This is obviously not correct as they have removed the default system and other OS options. It’s a small thing but I’m feeling rather petty about it right now.

My average day has me logged in and working from about 6 different computers. Some are Linux, some are Windows and one is a Mac. Up until now, on all of these machines, I had separate different browser favourites\bookmarks, passwords, histories, preferences histories etcetera, and if I needed a bookmark or whatever on when computer when I was on another, I’d have to remote control or walk there to get it. Until now that is. Mozilla Weave has changed all that and now I have the same settings/history/bookmarks on all of my machine on all 3 operating systems. Best of all, it’s a free service!

What is Mozilla Weave I hear you ask? Well, think of it as an online service that stores your browser details in an encrypted state on one of Mozilla’s servers and you can access that data using the weave browser extension installed into as many different Firefox browsers as you like. In my case, my 6 different Firefox installs over Linux/Mac/Windows all have the weave extension installed and configured to use the same weave account, and as a result all of them now have the same browser details.

Case in point is this post, I’ve never posted to htmlfixit.com from this computer before, but because this computer and my home computer both have weave installed, this computer “remembered” the post address and the user-name and password to log in.

This is the way things are destined to move, all your data available all the time from anywhere. I’m a fan.