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November 3, 2012 19:10
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I don't have a blog, so I'm going to rant here. tl;dr: Apple is being | |
evil, and reinterpreting court orders to their own benefit. | |
So for those of you who don't follow tech news, let me tell you | |
something about Apple. Recently, Apple and Samsung have been in legal | |
battles over the design of some Samsung tablets. Apple claimed that | |
Samsung was blatantly copying the iPad's design. There have been several | |
court cases in serveral countries over this matter, but today I am going | |
to tell you about on in the UK. | |
In the UK, Apple lost this debate. Samsung counter attacked, and won. | |
The judge in this case ordered Apple to publish on it's UK home page | |
(http://apple.co.uk/) a message stating that Samsung did not copy | |
Apple's design, since that is the ruling the court gave. The court also | |
ordered Apple to take ads out in several publications stating the same, | |
but they aren't the focus of this story. | |
So Apple "complied". In the bottom of the page, they posted a small | |
link, to a page devoid of logos, that would be hard to identify as an | |
Apple page, except the text of it. On this page they quoted the court | |
ruling, and explained that no, Samsung didn't copy Apple, because Apple | |
was so much cooler than Samsung. Although they said what they were | |
required to by the letter of the order, it was still a slap in the face | |
to Samsung and the judge. Everyone knows that if you piss off a judge, | |
you're gonna have a bad time. | |
The judge followed up, and was quoted in Bloomberg as saying "I'm at a | |
loss that a company such as Apple would do this. That is a plain breach | |
of the order." Judge Robin Jacob told Apple to change the the wording, | |
to comply with the intent. The home page now says, "On 25 October 2012, | |
Apple Inc. published a statement on its UK website in relation to | |
Samsung's Galaxy tablet computers. That statement was inaccurate and did | |
not comply with the order of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales. | |
The correct statement is at Samsung/Apple UK judgement.". Apple has | |
still not, on it's home page, claimed that Samsung did not copy Apple, | |
and the linked page is still a bare page without logos or | |
identification. It is no longer a slap in the face, it is just two short | |
paragraphs quoting the court order, which is a pile of legalese. | |
Apple claimed to need 14 days to get accomplish this task. The judge | |
gave them 2 days. Now we know why Apple wanted the extra time: Some | |
bright eyed reporters noticed that there was something different on | |
Apples home page besides the new disclaimer. As the size of the browser | |
window changes, like if you look at the site on a larger monitor, the | |
main image of the iPad Mini on the page changes sizes too. Ok, that's no | |
by itself horrible, it makes use of the available space. Someone looked | |
into the code. The code is explicitly designed to hide the bottom 310 | |
pixels of the page. In other words, Apple is manipulating the home page | |
to hide the "apology" that they were required by a court of law to post | |
on their home page. You can check this yourself, go the site I linked | |
below, and zoom out on the page by holding control or command, and | |
scrolling. Unless you zoom to 50% of original size, the message is | |
hidden. | |
So to sum up, Apple is taking court orders designed to punish Apple and | |
twisting them to either be beneficial, or not an impact. While you might | |
disagree with the court's decision to publish Apple is such a public | |
way, you cannot argue that Apple's dodging of punishment is in anyway | |
acceptable. | |
And yet Apple is the most profitable company in the history of modern | |
business. We give them money hand over fist, and they make absurd profit | |
margins on every device they sell. I don't know what the future of | |
computers looks like, but one thing is clear: Apple is at the front of | |
the charge, and now I know that this is not the company I want leading | |
us into the future. |
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