“Way to go with the slavish imitation of concepts captured in Cupertino, all you Android-loving automata out there — years of defending the indefensible ‘copy, litigate and settle’ approach of the great pretender, Samsung, and now there’s a new imitator in town, the Xiaomi iPad-u-like,” Jonny Evans writes for Apple Must.
“Apple must be absolutely furious,” Evans writes. “‘From our point of view it’s important that Apple not be the developer for the world. We can’t take all of our energy and all of our care and finish the painting, then have someone else put their name on it. We can’t have that. The worst thing in the world that can happen to you if you’re an engineer that has given his life to something is for someone to rip it off and put their name to it,’ Tim Cook said in 2012. Except that’s exactly what’s still going on and the flawed patent system doesn’t seem able to stop it.”
Evans writes, “Apple must be pissed. I would be. Any reasonable person who cares about human achievement should be. It means there’s no protection for your ideas any more. In the long run there’s no point having them. Welcome to the new reality in which imitation becomes ‘innovation’ and the inventors stay at home. This gives me little hope for humanity.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
Related article:
Chinese budget device maker Xiaomi aims at Apple with first tablet: 7.9-inch ‘MiPad’ – May 15, 2014
The Simpson’s game “Tapped Out” introduced the “MyPad”. And a “Mapple” store. Life imitating art.
Cant wait for Bart to sue.
Somehow I doubt that the sort of people who buy these will be the sort to buy iPads thankfully. Ironically far more likely to hit Samsung et al which is always the problem for the branded copiers for they get out copied by the cheap skate copiers who steal some of the mass market they need to succeed.
That’s what you get when ripping off IP cost virtually nothing. Be prepared for me. Instead of setting an example with Samsung and punish them with several billion in fine they opened the door to more slavish copies. Will the consumer benefit by getting inferior imitation product? That’s what they want us to believe but the fact is we crime on big scale remains unpunished and it shows the way to go. Invest in marketing let others or Apple in this case do the research and set the trend. Welcome to 21st century.
Thank you, Judge Lucy Koh.
And the US Federal “Justice” System.
But, but, but …consumers will benefit. So it must be okay. Or something…
Funny isn’t it by the same logic the same sort of consumers benefit by illegally downloading music and films but for some reason the Courts attitude is different then. This is a world designed to suit business (where it suits the Government ‘big picture’ anyway) not the individual.
With the Marketing Talent Apple gets from Beats it can generate a lot of new “marketing” driven product innovation. It won’t even need new technology products after it releases:
“Yo”Pad
“Biotch”Pad
“Ho”Pad
“Pimp”Pad
GangstaPhone
“UncleTom”Phone (comes in white only)
“Killa”Pad
“Dre”Phone
“Hood”Pad (not the KKK kind, the other hood)
Lots of possibilities here once we get the talent from Dr. Dre and his homies.
You’re in trouble now.
Some may be offended. But you have to admit that was funny!
I see Apple designs are identical, it is copyright infringement. Mi Pad using MIUI OS version, the operating system is modified based on the latest Android 4.4.2 KitKat. No wonder, the user interface of MIUI is designed for Mi Pad 7 is quite similar to Apple’s iOS. I do not like this
I see Apple designs are identical, it is copyright infringement. Mi Pad using MIUI OS version, the operating system is modified based on the latest Android 4.4.2 KitKat. No wonder, the user interface of MIUI is designed for Mi Pad 7 is quite similar to Apple’s iOS. I do not like this. !
Kizi
I don’t really get it. It’s mostly a form factor. That and a graphic UI. Some features of the UI are patented (for all the good that has done Apple so far), but beyond that, is it so hard to believe that, given Apple’s success with the iPad, there would be other companies that would come along, especially given that Android is licensed for free, and copy the whole shebang? Anyone with any discerning taste will see this for what it is and not buy it. These will likely sell, to those for whom money is the bottom line, but as MDN has said time and time again, these are not Apple’s customers and never will be. Apple has a healthy business with the iPad. Trust me, Xioami is not going to impact it with their MiPad (I think it’s a sort of a clever name, BTW).
You answered your own questions. If it is “just” a form factor, why those just fall out of the sky like rain and such an insignificant thing ought to be easily replaced wit something better. Same with a GUI – all those icons and OS rules… dime-a-dozen! Why it is just child’s play, these tiny little considerations. So simple that anyone can create a version that is completely new and different, right?
I don’t remember asking any questions, nor did I say it was “just” a form factor. I said it’s mostly a form factor and what I don’t get is why people are up in arms that other companies are making copy-cat products when Gaggle has made a very similar OS available for free. Xiaomi is not to blame for this, just as Samsung is not to blame for their blatant theft. The thief is Gaggle who has played the whole thing brilliantly.
Apparently, MI means ‘rice’: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiaomi
Xiaomi uses ‘MI’ the name of most of their device models: http://www.devicespecifications.com/en/brand/1e7667
Xiaomi’s owner/founder is a great admirer of the late Steve Jobs: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/29/technology/challenging-apple-by-imitation.html
Stop getting things made in China if this sh1t flies.
Where is Howard Roark when you need him? A few well placed sticks of dynamite and patent law becomes enforceable. Oh well….
Haha. Good one. We need him
They can’t even think of their own unique name? Might as well have called it the iPád running iÖS 8.
Blatant copying with No Recourse! Thanks lame Justice System for taking away all the fear in stealing IP. Well the Chinese government wholeheartedly supports this. Screw tacky junk from China.
Apple should sue the U.S. government. Oh wait …. You can’t.
What a cesspool the U.S. Government has become and will continue to be without a new revolt from “WE THE PEOPLE”. Asian scum and ALL illegal squatters have NO CLUE about American history & innovation. Nor do they care with all the handouts and backing from such a corrupt government. FCK’n SAD.
Innovation drives prices up (R&D has a cost).
Competition drives prices down.
The notion of intellectual property was that by protecting, for a period of time, the exclusivity on an implementation the R&D could be recouped and the enterprise duly rewarded for having taken the risk.
I guess in our era of “corporations are **baaaad**” protecting the “rights” of the consumer are paramount.
But without the balance between innovation and competition the consumer will ultimately be harmed because innovation will suffer. Consumers will have cheaper and cheaper products but those products will be stagnant. This is what happened to the PC base. Ironically, it’s what opened the door to iPhone and iPad. It helps explain why disrupting staid industries is taking longer: the base has to be well and truly cheapened before a disruptive company can afford to release a ground-breaking product: Such product needs to be wildly successfully very quickly because, as Judge Koh has shown us, competition will be allowed to copy the innovation all too soon.
We here are concerned about computers and tablets, which, in the grand scheme of things, aren’t all that important for living out one’s life. Contrast that, however, with the specter of Samsung copying pharmaceuticals. If they cause innovation to stagnate there we are all well and truly – uh – harmed.
It disgusts me reading twitter and finding former heroes David Pogue Andy Inhatko reviewing and/or complimenting (even switching) Android, Microsoft phones, even Windows 8! Pogue has become a tech whore, having sold his soul pre- NY Times and Yahoo, while Andy is just a glutton for new toys, even if they suck overall. Salivating over a Windows phone because of its camera? Happy there are so many valid and good choices? really? Maybe if you’re in the market for junk food.
Chinese, Korean are only good at copycats, counterfeit products, prescription drugs. etc. R&D is costly either hit or missed, copy is fast and costless.
I can not wait for the “my Android piece of shit doesn’t work, but I hate Apple so much that I will happily take some Malwaredroid in the ass every day” apologizers and paid Samsung shills to post things like rectangles can’t be patented.
Usually to prevent a particular behavior you need to:
1. Reward the behavior you want.
2. Punish the behavior you don’t want. Punishment must be greater than the reward of the infringement.
If you don’t do these things, the behavior will not change.
If Android is sooooo much superior to Apple’s iOS, why do they put so much work into it to make it look exactly like everything Apple does?
The patent system is flawed on so many levels when it comes to technology that it is virtually worthless. Patents get issued all the time because one small aspect of an existing, patented process is “changed”; the USPTO does a horrible job at forcing patents to be something difficult to obtain and only for true innovations, and then there’s the litigation side, which takes years, tons of money, and in the end a decision comes after most of the patented technology is bypassed by new tech anyway.
Then throw in Korean and Chinese businesses which have no morals about stealing your tech, your look, your work, and you really have a mess. I don’t envy Apple’s position, but I also see where Apple is going — Apple is putting its resources into creating technology that cannot be copied quickly or easily (e.g., 64 bit processors, sapphire glass, etc.). These things will distance Apple from the copyKoreancats, but it will take time and resources. But in the end we will have far better products, and people hopefully will see the crap coming out of Asia for what it really is.
Yes, I’m waiting for the Android people to pipe up on that article. Even though I’ll delete them
I can only assume my website hasn’t got the SEO ranking it needs before they get paid for doing it. I do assume they get paid? They always seem to have the exact same sentence constructions, so I always imagine them to be in some office somewhere, tapping out their dross.
I knew Judge Koh was in the tank for Samsung all the time, Koreans are very nationalistic. Now that the “Judge Lucy Show” has set off a wave of copycat products from Asia because everybody knows the American courts are ineffective when it comes to protecting American Intellectual Properties.
Judge Koh’s small fines and court delays for Samsung’s willful infringement of multiple American patents (as two juries have found) shows the World that American patents are toothless tigers and are free for everyone to steal. The solution is injunctions (maybe the ITC) against these patent infringers and if that fails maybe the American consumer might go viral and get a boycott of Samsung going along with other patent thieves. Just take a look at Samsung’s criminal record and unethical behavior over the years.
Didn’t Apple just win millions on someone stealing their patents?
On Bloomberg and other business channels no one has mentioned how much this looks like an iPad.