Entering the World of Smartphones

[Guest Iain C]

that's just not true, benchmarks emulate processes that the typical applications are using. futuremark benchmarks for video cards, for example, are very indicative of the real gaming performance.

i have no problem with messing my phone to acquire optimal performance and looks, in fact im planning to do it when i get my s3 (unless something more l33t is out in the next ~two weeks).

 

I'm not convinced. My phone benchmarks lower on JB than it did on ICS, but the phone feels noticeably snappier and smoother in terms of scrolling, zooming, rendering web pages etc. Obviously those are subjective impressions but it really is night and day.

[eugene]

well no one's arguing that different OSes can affect performance, it's like vista vs windows 7, they may look very similar but are very different when it comes to performance.

[Guest Iain C]

Yes, but my point is you can't use benchmarks as an objective measurement of a phone's day-to-day performance.

[eugene]

the only thing i need from benchmarks is to show me which phone has a better hardware and that's what they do, i can deal with the software part myself. when the benchmark score of S3 is more than twice higher than that of nexus it means that with similar conditions (identical software) S3 will perform more than twice faster (with the operations that the benchmark app was testing, of course), i don't care if it comes with a supposedly bloated os as long as i can mess with it.

[mcbpete]

I'm not convinced. My phone benchmarks lower on JB than it did on ICS, but the phone feels noticeably snappier and smoother in terms of scrolling, zooming, rendering web pages etc. Obviously those are subjective impressions but it really is night and day.

No you're not imagining it, it's a result of the bizarrely named Project Butter:

 

[Guest Iain C]

Yeah, I read all about it when JB first leaked. It's a great improvement for Android - unfortunately with carriers and manufacturers being the shitheels they are, it'll probably be months before most non-Nexus users get a chance to take it for a spin without rooting their phones.

 

But it's interesting that JB is much more usable and fluid, on the same hardware, while at the same time scoring lower in benchmarks. Which was my point - your phone can have the slickest benchmark scores going but still have a laggy interface, force-closes and other dumb issues. They don't really mean anything except for willy-waving on forums even geekier than this one.

[eugene]

how come are we still stuck in this "benchmarks don't mean anything" argument ? they mostly showcase objective hardware power not some user experience rating of the phone with its current software, which is obviously very customizable with androids.

 

with that said, there's nothing surprising about OS affecting benchmark scores, just as different drivers may affect pc gfx card scores on all kinds of benchmarks

[chenGOD]

 

 

Can you tell me how Apple free rides on the rest of the market, btw? Is this still about the FRAND thing? How come you're so stuck up with that argument, even though various national courts denied Samsungs charges?

 

 

 

 

 

Some courts denied Samsung's ability to use FRAND as leverage in their cases. They have not invalidated FRAND.

Motorola also has issues with Apple and FRAND and Nokia has put their weight behind FRAND as well, and believes they should be used as leverage. So Samsung, Motorola and Nokia - three of the biggest cell phone manufacturers in the world all have issues with the way Apple approaches FRAND.

FRAND does not mean "royalty free." It means something like

"Fair, Reasonable, and Non-discriminatory." Now, whether or not FRAND

is a good idea if standards are involved is one question. Most FOSS advocates

think it is not a good idea. But Samsung accused Apple of wanting to use the

patents, not on FRAND terms, but completely free of charge. That is, Apple

specifically refused to pay anything at all for the use of the Samsung patents

and claimed that because the patents were used for the implementation of

standards Apple has the perfect right to use them with no license agreement and

to pay nothing even if everyone else in the industry is licensing the patents

for some kind of standard fee. The obligation for FRAND licensing of

standard-related patents conveys no such right. Apple was refusing to pay

anything at all and saying, more or less, "Nya nya nya nya! So sue

us."

above taken from the comments on this article:

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120828085512779

 

Some articles on the possible consequences of this verdict if it holds (which again i doubt it will)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerkay/2012/08/28/apple-a-monopoly-it-could-happen/

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-apple-samsung-patents-20120828,0,6151229.story

 

The thing that galls me is that US courts decided about a decade ago that "look and feel" design elements were not protected, when Apple sued Microsoft. What's changed since then?

 

The reason that Apple (in my clueless, wanker opinion ) deserve to lose goodwill is because of their aggressiveness in their litigation. It's fairly clear that Samsung sales were not harming Apple (you don't get to be the corporation with the highest market capitalization on low sales!), and even though Apple's market share of the growing market was decreasing, their primary user base was not shrinking. So what's the point of the lawsuit?

[goDel]

 

The thing that galls me is that US courts decided about a decade ago that "look and feel" design elements were not protected, when Apple sued Microsoft. What's changed since then?

 

The reason that Apple (in my clueless, wanker opinion ) deserve to lose goodwill is because of their aggressiveness in their litigation. It's fairly clear that Samsung sales were not harming Apple (you don't get to be the corporation with the highest market capitalization on low sales!), and even though Apple's market share of the growing market was decreasing, their primary user base was not shrinking. So what's the point of the lawsuit?

 

Thanks for the reply. Will read the articles later.

 

The look&feel argument is not an argument which holds in general. The outcome in the Apple vs. Microsoft case is that it didn't hold. There is at least another case where it did hold (because it was blatent copy paste):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_Environment_Manager

At this point Apple Computer sued DRI in what would turn into a long dispute over the "look and feel" of the GEM/1 system, which was an almost direct copy of the Macintosh (with some elements bearing a closer resemblance to those in the earlier Lisa, available since January 1983). This eventually led to DRI being forced to change several basic features of the system. Apple would later go on to sue other companies for similar issues, including their their copyright lawsuit against Microsoft and HP.^{[citation needed]}

DRI responded with the "lawsuit friendly" GEM/2, which allowed the display of only two fixed windows on the "desktop" (other programs could do what they wished however), changed the trash can icon, and removed the animations for things like opening and closing windows. It was otherwise similar to GEM/1, but also included a number of bug fixes and cosmetic improvements.

 

But this look and feel thing is besides the point, imo. The issue is more about margins and in the second place market share. The market share part is mostly relevant in the sense that the party with the biggest market share controls the margins. So, in the context of the market share of parts-manufacturers it is Samsung which controls the margins and as a consequence has a significant influence on the margins of the iPhone. That's where the core of the issue is, imo. It's not about the market share of iPhones itself. Apples attack on Samsung is a defence of their business model, imo. In their view Samsung has too much control over their business model (read: margins).

 

The FRAND argument is a bit sketchy. In a previous post you mention Apple wanted to pay a certain fee but not enough (!?), and now it is about Apple not paying at all. And the way it is generalised to "Apple freerides on the competition" is hugely opportunistic, imo. First, almost all of the components in Apple products are not made by Apple, but by other parties. Read: Apple pays a certain amount for these parts. Whether or not Apple pays enough is a matter of negotiating the right price (again, almost all of the courts wanted Apple and Samsung to negotiate in the first place). So again, this is all about escalating negotiations through a legal smokescreen of patents. Please, don't get carried away with all the patent crap, because it is just that: negotiating leverage.

 

Second, there's also things like exhaustive patents which could mean Apple implicitly pays for these FRANDs. The point that Apple free rides because they don't pay FRANDS is too simplistic, imo. If it was that simple, Apples ass would have been legally molested a long time ago. In some cases courts might have agreed, in others they didn't. I see no reason for the argument that Apple free rides on the market. In many cases it was about a patent holder only coming into action after Apples huge success. Yep, there's a business model for making money off of patents. Wasn't it Tim Allen who sued Amazon for their use of recommendations on some shitty recommendation-algorithm any first year computer science student would be able to produce? I'd rather talk about patent holders free riding the market. And again, I see Apples attack using their patents as a defensive move. It's leverage for negotiations which are still happening in the background.

[chenGOD]

As I said - Apple free rides because they haven't paid a cent in FRAND since they brought the iPhone to market. "Hey, let's build a phone that uses other people's technology on which they spent large sums of money for R&D, and not pay anything to compensate them!!" If that's not free riding, I don't know what is.

 

The fee Apple offered was $0.0049/unit. Fees are established by standards groups. Samsung, Motorola and Nokia all felt that Apple was not negotiating in good faith, yet they didn't launch any suits against Apple until Apple went lawsuit crazy. All companies pay FRAND licensing - they tend not to be unreasonable (hence the "R" in FRAND) amounts, on the order of a dollar or two per unit. Apple wanted to offer less than a cent!

So if you see Apple's attack using the patents (some of which are definitely on "look and feel" eg. colors, for which precedent was set by the MS case) as defensive, why is it ok for them but not for others? Apple has used the exhaustive patents argument, and been found wanting. This whole lawsuit is over patents, so that's why I'm focusing on them. It also illustrates how fucked up the patent system is. If you want to make the argument about market share - then it looks even worse for apple - they seem to be saying, we have to sue because otherwise we can't compete. Which is clearly not true, as their revenue stream shows. And I say this because the latest Samsung phones (the S3 for example) do not look like the iPhone and are selling well.

 

As to who makes money on the iPhone

http://gigaom.com/2009/12/09/who-is-getting-rich-off-the-iphone/

http://www.iphonelife.com/blog/11445/breakdown-iphone-components-assembled-china-us650 (from 2011, but cost to Apple remains roughly the same).

 

Samsung no more controls the margins of the iPhone than you or I do. They make $23, or about 12~13% off what Apple pays out for parts for each iPhone. Their business is quite dependent on Apple orders being steady.

 

And Apple actually pays less than other smartphone manufacturers because of their volume:

http://www.imore.com/iphone-4s-part-costs-breakdown-compared-nokia-lumia-900-illustrate-apples-insane-margins

 

So what's the point to all this rambling?

In my opinion, Apple in this instance are being quite hypocritical. In addition, the jury fucked up, because the jury instructions were quite clear in stating the damages were not meant to be punitive but compensatory, and then you have one of the jurors who clearly didn't get the memo coming out and saying they wanted to ensure they punished Samsung!

[goDel]

As I said - Apple free rides because they haven't paid a cent in FRAND since they brought the iPhone to market. "Hey, let's build a phone that uses other people's technology on which they spent large sums of money for R&D, and not pay anything to compensate them!!" If that's not free riding, I don't know what is.

 

The fee Apple offered was $0.0049/unit. Fees are established by standards groups. Samsung, Motorola and Nokia all felt that Apple was not negotiating in good faith, yet they didn't launch any suits against Apple until Apple went lawsuit crazy. All companies pay FRAND licensing - they tend not to be unreasonable (hence the "R" in FRAND) amounts, on the order of a dollar or two per unit. Apple wanted to offer less than a cent!

 

Can you explain to me why Apple hasn't been legally molested ten times over if it really is the case as you're describing? If it was that simple, even the best lawyer wouldn't help and Apple would have been paying FRAND ten times over.

 

Apple buys parts from all these instances they're supposedly free riding on. Explain to me why there should be more than just the negotiated price for these parts? Shouldn't all patent related costs be part of that price? Is it really logical that if you buy parts from Samsung (or any other company), that you pay them also a figure independent from the price you've already paid for these parts? Why shouldn't these costs be inherent to the pricing of the parts? And isn't this - again - part of the negotiations? In practice, it is, I presume.

 

So if you see Apple's attack using the patents (some of which are definitely on "look and feel" eg. colors, for which precedent was set by the MS case) as defensive, why is it ok for them but not for others?

 

Haven't said or implied that? I do indeed believe that these cases tend to be defensive in general (Apple, Samsung, etc). Except when it comes to those little companies which produce nothing at all, but in some magic way still hold patents. Those are aggressive cases.

 

If you want to make the argument about market share - then it looks even worse for apple - they seem to be saying, we have to sue because otherwise we can't compete. Which is clearly not true, as their revenue stream shows. And I say this because the latest Samsung phones (the S3 for example) do not look like the iPhone and are selling well.

 

You're looking at the current market. Apple's actions are focussed towards where the market will be in 5 years from now. Their actions are defensive in the sense that they want to protect their current business model towards the future. I'm probably repeating myself here, but whatever. Their current revenues are outcomes of negotiations in the past and recent sales figures. So there's little relevance in this argument, imo. Apple's current negotiations are about products in the future. Whether or not there's a threat visible in the current numbers, can't do any justice or in-justice to Apple's actions, imo.

 

Samsung no more controls the margins of the iPhone than you or I do. They make $23, or about 12~13% off what Apple pays out for parts for each iPhone. Their business is quite dependent on Apple orders being steady.

 

Any manufacturer which delivers parts for the iPhone has some control (or rather effect) on the margins. If a part is more expensive, something automatically happens to margins and Apple can do 2 things: make the iPhone more expensive, or have less margin. This is simple stuff you're already aware of, but I'm totally flabbergasted by your statement that Samsung has as much control on the margins as we do. I'd argue that Samsung has as much control as they are still co-dependent on each other. And the co-dependency between Apple-Samsung is of a totally different order than that of the co-dependency between Apple and an Individual customer. (Of course, all customers combined do have a significant impact on the margins.)

 

I'm still flabbergasted, btw. Must be a language barrier again, I guess.

 

And Apple actually pays less than other smartphone manufacturers because of their volume:

http://www.imore.com...-insane-margins

 

So what's the point to all this rambling?

In my opinion, Apple in this instance are being quite hypocritical. In addition, the jury fucked up, because the jury instructions were quite clear in stating the damages were not meant to be punitive but compensatory, and then you have one of the jurors who clearly didn't get the memo coming out and saying they wanted to ensure they punished Samsung!

 

All companies in cases like these are being hypocritical. Samsung is as hypocritical, imo.

[chenGOD]

Because the court cases regarding FRAND are just starting? Samsung and others have been trying to negotiate, and even though they believe Apple has not been negotiating in good faith, they haven't sued until now.

http://www.bgr.com/2012/06/20/samsung-apple-patent-dispute-dutch-court-rules-ipad-iphone-infringe/

Motorola was forced to settle with Apple over FRAND in Germany. I would bet that we'll see more rulings that force Apple to pay FRAND.

Buying parts and licensing technology are 2 separate things goDel. That's why it's not covered in the cost of the price.

 

You're assuming that Samsung has a choice in the price it sets for the parts it sells to Apple. Because of Apple's purchasing power, they have the ability to set prices via demand. If Samsung decides to raise the price of parts (and I'm sure that the long-term contract between Apple and Samsung is based on a certain price variation depending on costs of raw materials) Apple would probably sue for breach of contract. So while my analogy was certainly a stretch, it is fair to say that Samsung has virtually no ability to control margins on the iPhone.

 

More evidence that the jury fucked the dog big style

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120828225612963

[oscillik]

how come are we still stuck in this "benchmarks don't mean anything" argument ?

 

because on a phone they generally don't mean much anymore.

 

the only time you need to even worry about CPU / RAM specs on a phone is if you're planning on running games on it.

 

For everything else you do on a phone, your CPU is hardly being used.

 

bear in mind, everything I've just written applies to Android based devices.

 

but, if you wanna join the rat race of getting a phone with more and more guts, when in most cases it's actually the software that matters, then go ahead.

[eugene]

do you completely deny the possibility that there may be useful apps in the future that will require more cpu and gpu power from the phone ?

 

that kinda sentiment reminds me of that mythological quote by bill gates that 512kb of memory is all you will ever need (or something like that).

[chenGOD]

If you're big on Windows, Samsung just put out the first Windows 8 smartphone:

http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/29/samsung-ativ-tab-and-ativ-s-details-leak/

 

Personally i really don't like the interface, but some might.

[oscillik]

do you completely deny the possibility that there may be useful apps in the future that will require more cpu and gpu power from the phone ?

 

that kinda sentiment reminds me of that mythological quote by bill gates that 512kb of memory is all you will ever need (or something like that).

 

Like I said, if you wanna join the rat race, go for it.

[Guest Iain C]

Are you a Galaxy Nexus user Osc?

[eugene]

do you completely deny the possibility that there may be useful apps in the future that will require more cpu and gpu power from the phone ?

 

that kinda sentiment reminds me of that mythological quote by bill gates that 512kb of memory is all you will ever need (or something like that).

 

Like I said, if you wanna join the rat race, go for it.

you evade the question.

[Guest Iain C]

If you're big on Windows, Samsung just put out the first Windows 8 smartphone:

http://www.engadget....s-details-leak/

 

Personally i really don't like the interface, but some might.

 

A friend of mine has one of the lower-end Nokias with Windows Phone 7. I actually rather like the interface, it's quite slick - but I haven't delved very deeply into it. And he says the battery life is fucking appalling.

 

do you completely deny the possibility that there may be useful apps in the future that will require more cpu and gpu power from the phone ?

 

that kinda sentiment reminds me of that mythological quote by bill gates that 512kb of memory is all you will ever need (or something like that).

 

Like I said, if you wanna join the rat race, go for it.

you evade the question.

 

I'll answer it: no, I don't expect there are going to be any big game-changing, non-gaming apps in the next two years (which is about how long most phone contracts are) that will make ridiculous CPU/GPU demands of your Android phone.

 

But it doesn't matter really. Get whatever phone makes you happy.

[eugene]

If you're big on Windows, Samsung just put out the first Windows 8 smartphone:

http://www.engadget....s-details-leak/

 

Personally i really don't like the interface, but some might.

does windows-based phone mean it's compatible with typical pc-windows software ?

[Guest Iain C]

No, I think it's its own platform. But I'm not a coder so I'm not sure.

[goDel]

But all the multitasking things do require a good CPU (along with RAM), I guess. And also, a better CPU could be more efficient so might be able to improve the time you can run on a single battery.

 

(disclaimer: no technician, but seems logical)

[eugene]

If you're big on Windows, Samsung just put out the first Windows 8 smartphone:

http://www.engadget....s-details-leak/

 

Personally i really don't like the interface, but some might.

 

A friend of mine has one of the lower-end Nokias with Windows Phone 7. I actually rather like the interface, it's quite slick - but I haven't delved very deeply into it. And he says the battery life is fucking appalling.

 

do you completely deny the possibility that there may be useful apps in the future that will require more cpu and gpu power from the phone ?

 

that kinda sentiment reminds me of that mythological quote by bill gates that 512kb of memory is all you will ever need (or something like that).

 

Like I said, if you wanna join the rat race, go for it.

you evade the question.

 

I'll answer it: no, I don't expect there are going to be any big game-changing, non-gaming apps in the next two years (which is about how long most phone contracts are) that will make ridiculous CPU/GPU demands of your Android phone.

 

But it doesn't matter really. Get whatever phone makes you happy.

 

you "don't expect" that on what basis ? if anything i expect computing to go completely mobile in the future, with more and more apps moving from desktop to portable.

there are no contracts in israel, ~20$ a month for unlimited sms, internets, phone usage with no obligations.

[oscillik]

Are you a Galaxy Nexus user Osc?

 

I am a Nexus user, and always have been. Even so far as using the spiritual predecessor of the Nexus devices, the ADP1

 

do you completely deny the possibility that there may be useful apps in the future that will require more cpu and gpu power from the phone ?

 

that kinda sentiment reminds me of that mythological quote by bill gates that 512kb of memory is all you will ever need (or something like that).

 

Like I said, if you wanna join the rat race, go for it.

you evade the question.

 

IainC answered quite succinctly for me.

[Guest Iain C]

But all the multitasking things do require a good CPU (along with RAM), I guess. And also, a better CPU could be more efficient so might be able to improve the time you can run on a single battery.

 

 

Actually I get far better battery life by underclocking my CPU (with little to no impact on day-to-day performance).