How Apple cashes in on 'inferior hardware'

Copy the good bits and it'll sue, says patent lawyer.

Skilled use of intellectual property rights allows Apple to make money on technically inferior products, a leading patents lawyer said yesterday.

Andrew MacKenzie, a principal at intellectual property (IP) law specialists Scott and York, said Apple chairman Steve Jobs is "absolutely brilliant" at using IP.

"Current Apple products ... are not technically very good," he said. "They are usually about a generation behind. You get the Ipad launched without 3G, [products with] low resolution screens, poor battery life and so on.

"What Apple is fantastically good at is design. They produce mechanical designs that are really nice to look at, really nice to handle, and their user interfaces are wonderful.

"So why is no-one copying them? They are trivial to copy. There is no real technical barrier to copying Apple products. They are quite easy to manufacture. The reason of course is that Apple is extremely good at guarding its intellectual property. So it can sell what in hardware terms is really quite an inferior product to [those of] competitors at a fantastic premium."

MacKenzie was speaking at the launch of the 2010 European Satellite Navigation Competition, which offers €500,000 in prizes for different regions and topics for satnav applications, aimed at generating business from the Galileo satnav system Europe is beginning to roll out. But as Galileo is intended to complement rather than rival the US GPS system, the competition is not specific to the European project.

A €20,000 Galileo Masters prize is open to anyone from Europe or elsewhere. There is also a £10,000 prize for an idea submitted from the UK, the winner of which also gets help in protecting intellectual property.

MacKenzie said he was stressing the importance of IP because it is an area in which Britain appears to be falling behind. He said that in 2008 only four percent of patents granted in Europe came from the UK or Ireland, compared with 50 per cent from other European countries and 27 percent from the US.

He said after the talk that these figures might be distorted by the fact that so many companies in the UK are owned by outsiders, whereas countries in continental Europe tend to protect their home companies more from foreign takeover.

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23 Comments

bozo01 Apr 23, 2010 2:37 PM	Who cares if Apple products are inferior to their competitors? The iPhone/Pod/Pads are so good because of the software that's available to them and because they look good and are easy to use. The same is true with game consoles. The hardware in the PS3 and Xbox 360 is technically inferior to the hardware in modern PCs, but gaming on these consoles is popular because the games available are good (unlike the console ports for pcs) and because they look good and are easier to use than PCs.
Metasynaptic Apr 23, 2010 2:47 PM	I think the PC to console analogy you have here is an overly broad generalisation. I don't find PC games harder to use than console games.
fliptopia Apr 23, 2010 3:31 PM	the games arent harder to use but try tellin ma and pa that their computer cant play the latest games coz their computer isnt up to spec. if you buy a game for xbox/ps3 it just works (generally). no finding drivers, installing or really having to know anything. also i find the iphone annoying as hell to use. capacitive touch for the loss!
SceptreCore Apr 23, 2010 5:09 PM	Well that's their own ignorance issues. Im not really a fan of Apple products. They're quite dumbed down.. unlike Microsoft's products which a stubbornly difficulty... yet fantastically rewarding. Im a PC
Mademan Apr 23, 2010 5:53 PM	Its quite hard to make an inferior laptop or desktop PC, when you're using the same standardised components, from the same manufacturers, that everyone else uses. And if the iPod was inferior, it wouldn't have taken over the market.
strifus Apr 23, 2010 8:34 PM	I'd have to agree with SceptreCore on this one. As far as Apple products are concerned, I dont like its range of systems. They are, although aesthetically pleasing and have a good OS, they are generally poor performers in terms of benchmarks, upgradability is limited as is the available software for it (in some areas). I mean seriously, why wouldnt one use a PC. Its so "general use" and its so easy to upgrade anytime you want, especailly with the latest OSs and runs almost any software, that you dont even have to be a monkey to work it out. I am talking about desktops here, and not laptops and all the i"Devices" The Ipod (and its brethren i"Devices", however, is/are a different thing. They were designed to do one thing. They arent general purpose use devices like the PC. Marketing, and hype to a certain extent, saw the growth of these devices and their exceptance to the wider community. I can probably safely say that the iPod is the largest capacity MP3 player on the market today. And why wouldnt you buy it, it has iTunes that allows you to select any song from any album and download it individually at a low cost. Also, it has the biggest range of peripheral devices I have ever seen for a product. It is also aesthetically pleasing to boot. Quoting from the article above, What Apple is fantastically good at is design. They produce mechanical designs that are really nice to look at, really nice to handle, and their user interfaces are wonderful. Basically, the iPod, iPhone, and iPad share pretty much the same DNA, albeit with a few design changes to make them the distinct products that they are. They are, respectively (according to their release dates), evolutionary rather than revolutionary. The reason people buy such products is not because they are the screaming edge of technology but rather they look good and they have lots of options in comparison to their PC/laptop brethren.
siegfried Apr 23, 2010 10:32 PM	strifus, I'll tell you why I don't use a PC. I don't use a PC because when I use my computer, I want to do the job I'm using it for. I don't want to stuff around cajoling Windows into working properly. I have been using PCs since DOS 3.2, and have spent many years trouble shooting Windows, and am thoroughly sick of it.
fliptopia Apr 23, 2010 11:03 PM	Mademan: because nothing that is of inferior quality sells more due to good advertising...? iPod has inferior audio quality but excellent marketing behind it. This has meant a ton of ipod only accessories which makes it near impossible for anyone else to get a foothold. and siegfried: cajoling windows into working? You mac people make me laugh. My right click is useful!. Mac OSX interface just shits me no end. If something doesn't work first go it's a pita to get it going.
hazarama Apr 24, 2010 1:24 AM	LOL .. that's right cause there's nothing technical about Industrial Design or Software Development.
Athiril Apr 24, 2010 3:33 AM	siegfried: I dont buy apple because I dont want to stuff around cajoling Apple software into working, not crashing like it loves to do, or the various compatability problems and forced locking into inflexible workflows, esp FCP on all of those counts. Let alone actually trying to find software that actually does its job and lets you have control over it. The workflow and management on OSX is the worst I've ever used. I know people like to say everything has its good points, but honestly, its just the biggest piece of crap I've ever used, combined with crap colour management, terrible terrible screens with banding issues on basically their entire range, and absolute crap hardware for the price you pay with the total inability to run a up to date graphics card that costs more than $50 that's advertised as "bleeding edge graphics" on Apple's site - which they advertise their Mac Pro as as a super expensive optional extra of running 4 graphics and the options they give are still cheap budget pieces of crap cards. Though I guess I'll probably get jumped by fanbois for mudslinging against Apple and making shit up when I merely offer truthful observations, having more experience with and knowing more about OS X and apple products than the majority of people who use them. Truthfully, OSX is slow, has bad workflow due to poor interface design that focusses on looks and simplicity without being able to get into trouble for the illiterate (computer illiteracy should be looked at the at the same level as general illiteracy given the age we live), costs too much, doesn't work like advertised, forced incompatability to allow you to transfer to Apple but makes it very difficult to transfer back, extremely insecure (which afaik has yet to be targetted by mainstream commercial malware), and the most instable current OS by a long margin when actually trying to use it for anything its supposed to "good" for, like various media/creative work.
SceptreCore Apr 24, 2010 10:38 AM	Glad to see other people who feel the way I do about Apple. A mate of mine has a mac. He loves it and talks it up all the time. Then when we were having a friendly chat... being completely honest. He confessed, my iMac runs really hot. "That's because its a computer with and nVidia GPU, bad airflow, and it's sitting right behind the monitor." I said. Now he's found a program that lets him adjust fan speed, and it's cooler, but still quite warm. Also I've observed it generally running slow, and this is just while it's at the desktop. Yes they are quite stylish, except for the keyboard and mouse which look like shit. Yes it does have some nice styled themes and icons to make it look good, and the dock feature is pretty cool. But other than that.... it's a piece of crap. And no... there is no such thing as Mac being free from viruses. All it needed was to gain popularity and market share to be targeted by hackers and malware scams. You can now even buy Norton Mac Anti-Virus, for those who think their Mac isn't slow enough. Personally, I'd love to see MS make some PC vs Mac adds.
Mademan Apr 25, 2010 10:21 AM	Running slow + hot graphics card = temperature safety cutoff? No, I will agree that the iMac desktop computers really don't give you what you pay for, but the laptops are very much on par with other makers. HP and Dell know how to overprice too, remember. It just shits me that people pick iMacs "because the screens are like better, for like graphic artists and stuff, aren't they?". FFS people, that was 1992, and it had nothing to do with Apple, and everything to do with Adobe.
bbjai Apr 25, 2010 9:08 PM	I've changed to a Mac since last year and whilst I wont say one is better then the other I will say that the Mac is alot easier to use. Everything is spoonfed to me and most things just work. This is particularly true if you have all apple products, with the Time Capsule and Iphone. I like how the things are designed together and they work together as stated. It works for me and I'm happy. The only thing that really craps me is moving files in Finder. The funny thing is it doesn't crash much, and when it does its usually Microsoft word of Adobe flash. Its for some people and not for other people. To be fair on a website like Atomic I don't see it meeting their needs. Why would you when this site/magazine is about building computers and the passion for it
Athlonite Apr 26, 2010 1:42 AM	just like paying $150 bucks for for an Service Pack
TastyWheat Apr 26, 2010 11:08 AM	"because the screens are like better, for like graphic artists and stuff, aren't they?" With the current generation, this is actually true. iMacs use IPS panels, which is a requirement for accurate colour work with photos, print or graphics. It also makes them reasonably good value when you compare them on a spec by spec basis to other vendors, and even custom built PCs.
qwakqwak Apr 27, 2010 9:16 AM	oOoOoOo apple v pc fight fight fight
sirtrancealot Apr 27, 2010 11:24 AM	the thing that gives me the shits with apple is that it's all well and good to make a nice easy to use interface, but what happens when you know what you're doing? you're severly limited by the poor amount of options available. The other thing is that apple doesn't seem to give a crap about fixing known issues (iphone especially) since day 1, smart playlists haven't worked on the iphone, every time you sync with the itunes it wipes your song ratings and playcounts.. that was my fav feature of my old 4G ipod. and something that's never been fixed in the 2 years i've had my iphone. that and they steal ideas from the dev community and flog it off as a "new feature" for software updates... quickgold.. perfect example
DDevine Apr 28, 2010 5:43 PM	There is nothing magical at all about Apple or Mac OSX. I'm glad that at least one person here agrees that the interface design is horrid. If I need to do things in OSX I generally open up the terminal quick smart and forget the GUI. Under the hood it is just a Unix based OS built around free software. KDE 4 and Gnome are way better interfaces with much more flexible workflows than OSX. As for the kernel, choose whatever the hell you want (Linux or FreeBSD :) - you can even use KDE Plasma Shell (the "Desktop") on Windows these days. Even though there is many heat issues with Macs they are generally more reliable than your standard whitebox PC, but you are a good 12+ months behind the leading edge and you pay the same amount or more. But back to the article - there is no doubt Apple certainly know how to guard their IP and if you take a look at their authoritarian tyranny over the iPhone/pod/pad platform and the dozen-a-day news articles about their ridiculous policies and rejections it noticeably juxtaposes against stories of Microsoft becoming more friendly -- such as even contributing to GPL Open Source projects such as Joomla! and the Linux kernel. Who is the evil empire now? Apple certainly makes Microsoft look friendly... Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me a dozen times and I'm a Mac user!
Harpy Queen Apr 28, 2010 11:28 PM	That article is so true. Unfortunately the sheep don't see it. I find it pathetic that to get an mp3 with decent sound quality (x-fi ^^) I'm importing from Singapore. That 32gb player with some decent head phones (decent, not brilliant) costs less than an 8gb itouch or a 16gb nano from Dick Smith. I went to check how much the sheep were paying for inferior to what I get, but I didn't realise just how bad it was. I actually find itouches and iphones really hard to use, because I hate touch screens. Mademan: "And if the iPod was inferior, it wouldn't have taken over the market." You must be joking. For most people it is all marketing, they don't see quality at all. They wouldn't see quality if they were beaten over the head with it and had it stamped on their faces. Don't ask how that can happen, just go along with my expressions :P. The older iPods, which were usually used with their original earphones, were physically painful to me with those earphones, a musician who can therefore judge these things well. The constant circular motion crammed my thumb. I gave them a chance, I used a friends original nano for a few months until I got a zen micro. I WANTED to like the iPod, I really did. The micro was cheaper and sounded strikingly better than the Nano with inferior headphones on the micro. It also didn't hurt my thumb. The more recent ones are apparently not as bad though. From this, I conclude: Ipods are definitely no where near as good as most people think they are, and they are killing the mp3 market. I should not have to import just to get something that sounds good. Also, most people don't give a damn about the actual quality, they just see and swallow the ads. Apple are good at ads, and protecting their IP, I'm not gonna debate the pros and cons of their software, but suck at making decent hard ware.
Harpy Queen Apr 28, 2010 11:36 PM	Oh, another thing. "I'm a Mac" "I'm a PC" "What are you doing PC?" "I'm playing games." "Which one?" -puts massive pile on table- "All of them." "Oh...I'll go and play sims 3 while hoping for steam..."
SceptreCore Apr 30, 2010 1:14 AM	lol Happy Queen... way to stick it to the Mac. It seems everyone agrees with what I said. Apple products are just too dumbed down for the minority to like. Us, nerds. But for everyone else... it's not an issue. It's the best thing since sliced bread.
darklife41 Apr 30, 2010 4:52 AM	Ironically, when I posted basically the same thing (Apple = crap components) on a thread about Apple on the forum I was flamed. I stick by what I said. My Creative Zen plays wav files, much higher quality than any mp3 or m4a. Even with the same bitrate of compressed audio, the Creative sounds much better. I also have a 160GB hard drive in it, something you can't do with any iPod. Their computers are the same crap as well. Our (custom) systems come with a 3 year warranty included in the price, and we haven't had one back for warranty issues in 6 years (other than a couple of failed hard drives and a single failed video card a few months ago). Those fixes were done in house in a matter of minutes, all included in the original price. I have 2 nephews who went to school in Adelaide for graphics arts and have many horror stories of how there were never enough working Macs to keep everyone busy. They now both own PCs. And as far as the price being similar for a better PC with panel screens, someone is spending too much time in the sun. You can beat all the components of a Mac Pro quad core for $1000 less, and $1500 less for a 8-core. And that's with my profit included. I do think Apple has decent interfaces, but that hardly justifies the prices of the 2nd rate components IMO. :-)
baalbeck May 3, 2010 10:42 PM	Now I drive a FORD and My mate drives a Holden, Oh wait that's the other argument.. Seriously Apple have always sold tech at a premium. We know this, it's not cutting edge but it works. I run a Mac for work, It runs solid for months on end with no chashes, no BSOD, no bullshit. If you aren't getting this sort of performance then maybe you haven't set your machine up right noobs!(or just blame apple). For those superior beings who can compare specs of all the up to the minute hardware, yes there are probably better options and always cheaper ones so don't trouble yourselves, your hourly rate will make it worth it when you eventually get a result. Yes we are on the ATOMIC forum and pledged to lust after tech and scorn the less then uber bleeding edge (even if we don't actually own it) but get over it, it's embarrassing. That functionality is what earns my money. I love to build PC's and constantly upgrade, that's where I spend my money. Thanks Apple you help maintain ATI and Intel's profits. Seriously people if you are having that much trouble with your Ipod cancel your subscription. Doesn't matter what you drive as long as you can handle it!

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Atomic Magazine

Issue: 137 | June, 2012

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