People may be aware of ongoing legal cases between the smartphone manufacturers with accusations of patent violations and the like.
This brings me back to an event recently when I was approached in the technical office at my work by a manager who needed a charger for his Nokia phone. Both myself and the two other people I shared the office with stared at each other and then the manager blankly. We all had IPhones. Two years ago, the same question would have been greeted with the offerings of 3 Nokia chargers. Things change so quickly.
Does it affect my phone choice?
Moving on not long after, I find myself changing jobs and having to hand my treasured iPhone back. Without a phone I feel strangely naked. I let my personal phone expire and do not have any mobile phone at all. I need a phone quickly but I cannot let this decision be rushed.
Firstly, I’d like to get myself an iPhone because it was such a pleasure to use. However, Samsung’s Galaxy 2 is a cheaper offering and possibly just as good. I’m reminded of the words of Steve Jobs regarding how ‘they ripped us off’, referring to Samsung on their UI design. I feel a little bit hostile towards Samsung, but this is completely unjustified.
Chain of lawsuits
What people are quick to forget, is even with Apple chasing after Samsung, HTC and Motorola is that Apple themselves had only just settled with Nokia for using elements of their UI design.
So, with this chain of lawsuits occurring, what sense is there to be made of all this? It seems that Silicon Valley is in a constant series of legal battles against each other over various copyright and patent infringements. One of the more famous battles was SCO vs. the World as SCO sought to claim royalties from pieces of code that had found their way into Open Source systems. SCO chased after IBM and other big giants in an attempt to get money back. The case was horribly complicated and was viewed as a threat to the Open Source community, who on the back of this started to look far more sensible than ever.
What do I do?
The take home message is that this isn’t worth thinking about too much. Operating systems, user interfaces and electronic devices designers will be locked in constant battles for years to come. The design elements are regularly being patented by the large tech firms, but there will obviously be overlap between designs that come out via original thinking from more than one team of developers. It’s best to just sit back and enjoy the best gadget that the market has to offer.
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