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Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Does Apple Really Own Multi-Touch?

By: Chris Dannen

The Macintosh turned 25 years old this past weekend, and Apple [AAPL] seems to be celebrating the occasion by unleashing its blood-lusting attorneys on Palm [PALM] in a potential patent infringement suit.

The intellectual property in question is Apple's multi-touch software, which enables iPhone and iPod Touch users to interact with their devices using more than one finger; it's the technology that allows that nifty zoom-in, zoom-out pinching gesture. Palm's new Pre sports similar functionality, complete with pinching.

Jonathan Ive, Apple

While the lawsuit hasn't been filed yet, Apple COO Tim Cook made statements during his discussion of the company's financial earnings report that made legal action sound all but imminent. When asked about competition from other smartphone-makers, Cook said, "We like competition. As long as they don't rip off our intellectual property. And if they do, we're going to go after anybody that does."

While he didn't name Palm as the specific aggressor, industry reporters connected the dots. Cook then said he'd be willing to use Apple's entire legal arsenal to pursue the charge, adding, "I don't know that I can be any more clear than that!"

But Palm isn't the only platform seeking to democratize multi-touch. A savvy Google [GOOG] Android user has hacked his G1 phone to use multi-touch too, albeit with a lot of tinkering. After inserting a new string of code into the kernel of his G1, he was able to get two-fingered zooming up and running as a kind of proof-of-concept. He admits it needs optimizing, but the potential for fluid multi-touch on Android is clearly present.

So if Apple has a patent on this functionality, are Palm and the G1 hacker walking straight into a legal bear-trap? Actually, no. They probably know that Apple and its legal team will have dubious legal grounds for prosecution. Thanks to a recent federal circuit court case discrediting the patentability of financial products, all "business method" patents have been rendered largely indefensible. Such patents consist of any non-hardware-based intellectual property; that rubric includes formulas, language, and yes, software. Since the actual touchscreen -- the hardware itself -- the iPhone and iPod use to enable multi-touch is a commodity, salable to any smartphone maker, they'll have a tough time proving they're the only ones that should be able to write multi-touch software for it.

Of course, Apple could stand to lose the multi-touch battle and do just fine. With new, promising software being developed by third parties all the time, the iPhone and iPod will retain an edge over Palm's late-to-the-game Pre for quite some time. Take for example the new VOIP application that is rumored to be released for iPhone and iPod on the iTunes Store come February 1st.

The WiFi-enabled app, called De-Fi, will allow users to pay a flat fee to talk anywhere in the world over Wi-Fi, eschewing exorbitant global roaming charges. (Talking to users on Skype or GoogleTalk will be free.) The subscription-based service will also assign up to three international numbers to each iPhone or iPod, allowing business users to provide their overseas contacts with local numbers.

Until the rumored announcement of De-Fi, world travelers with iPhones were stuck with massive roaming bills. Since the iPhone is a locked device, users can't pop in a prepaid overseas SIM card to save money. And since the iPhone is constantly checking in with its towers, it liberally uses its data access and voice minutes without notifying the user. If software can be a write-around to short-comings in hardware, shouldn't those write-arounds take place on a level playing field? Toss a cool app like that on the growing pile of must-have iPhone software, and Apple doesn't need to be litigious to be on top.

Sadly for Palm, it doesn't have to lose a suit against Apple to be in deep trouble; the Cupertino-based technology company could easily bleed the little company dry by attrition, dragging out legal action and costing both companies millions. As Reuters reported today, recession is finally hitting Silicon Valley hard, causing thousands of layoffs and waves of renewed caution. This is not the time for Palm to fight one of the best-capitalized companies in the sector.

Coincidentally, Apple's fearsome reputation for innovation is the subject of a new documentary to be screened at the South by Southwest film festival in March. Made by the same documentarian who created Helvetica, a short history of that inescapable typeface. Objectified will take viewers into areas of Apple's design studio normally off limits even to most Apple employees, to inspect the company's prototyping equipment and talk with head designer Jonathan Ive.

Poor software guys; the industrial designers always get all the love.

Original here

Apple left out of Fortune's 'Best Employers' list

Apple has again failed to make a list of the best American companies to work for, according to Fortune. In its 2009 compilation, the top company is named as brokerage firm Edward Jones, which has managed to avoid any ties to the credit crisis and during 2008 hired 698 new financial advisors in the first 10 months. In the upcoming year, the firm is said to be building a headquarters expansion for 500 more people.

Jones displaces Apple ally Google, which had remained in the top position for two consecutive years. The company now resides in fourth place, as a result of slowed hiring, and fewer perks such as annual ski trips. Photoshop and InDesign maker Adobe has meanwhile jumped from 40th to 11th place, with commendations for its "humane treatment" of 600 workers moved out of the company. Another large gain is ascribed to Microsoft, which has risen from 86th place to 38. The company is said to keep "morale budgets" for fun excursions, though the appeal of the company may be dubious following 5,000 job cuts.

Apple has not held a position in the top 100 employers list since 2006, despite having reached 337th place in Fortune's 2008 Global 500 rankings, and the number one position in 2008's most-admired list.

Original here

Apple left out of Fortune's 'Best Employers' list

Apple has again failed to make a list of the best American companies to work for, according to Fortune. In its 2009 compilation, the top company is named as brokerage firm Edward Jones, which has managed to avoid any ties to the credit crisis and during 2008 hired 698 new financial advisors in the first 10 months. In the upcoming year, the firm is said to be building a headquarters expansion for 500 more people.

Jones displaces Apple ally Google, which had remained in the top position for two consecutive years. The company now resides in fourth place, as a result of slowed hiring, and fewer perks such as annual ski trips. Photoshop and InDesign maker Adobe has meanwhile jumped from 40th to 11th place, with commendations for its "humane treatment" of 600 workers moved out of the company. Another large gain is ascribed to Microsoft, which has risen from 86th place to 38. The company is said to keep "morale budgets" for fun excursions, though the appeal of the company may be dubious following 5,000 job cuts.

Apple has not held a position in the top 100 employers list since 2006, despite having reached 337th place in Fortune's 2008 Global 500 rankings, and the number one position in 2008's most-admired list.

Original here

Alocola: Mobile Orchard’s Safari Helper: Makes Websites “Location Aware”

by Dan Grigsby

Alocola works with Safari. With Alocola, web developers need not create their own iPhone apps. Users simply browse in Safari the way they normally would; when a site asks for location information Alocola pops up, asks permission to give the location to the site, returns to Safari and passes the location along as part of the URL.

Motivation and Approach

It’s always bugged me that location services aren’t available in Safari.

Applications like Phone Gap deal with this limitation by wrapping websites inside a custom browser that includes location (and other) services. A PhoneGap application is installed like any other standard application. It’s a good solution for developers whose goal is to build an installable application, but not for websites that want to easily and simply add location to their sites.

Instead of wrapping an application in its own browser, Alocola works alongside Safari. Once the Alocola app is installed, it works with any site. The sites needn’t create or ask their users to install any other software. There are no platform, language, framework or other tech-choice limitations.

How It Works/Upcoming Articles

I’ll be writing a pair of follow-up tutorials demonstrating how Alocola works. For now, here’s a quick synopsis:

Alocola registers a protocol handler with the iPhone. Whenever the iPhone encounters a URL beginning with alocola:// it passes the URL to Alocola for processing.

Website authors either ask users to click on alocola:// links or redirect them to alocola:// URLs. These URLs cause Alocola to be launched. Alocola will then gather the location information and then send the user back to a URL inside the originating site. The return-trip URL is embedded/included in the alocola:// URL.

Using Alocola With A Website

The Alocola website has an easy-to-follow Web Developer Guide that demonstrates how to use Alocola with a website. The site also features a tool for easy creation of alocola:// URLs.

Limitations

Because Alocola has to be opened every time a site asks for its users’ locations, Alocola is best for sites that need an occasional location coordinate, but not for those that generate breadcrumbs or tracks. For example, a site that tracks deliveries could have the couriers check in when they make a delivery, but monitoring them en-route wouldn’t be practical.

Also, a roundtrip from Safari to Alocola and back to Safari results in two open browsers windows, one for the page that launched Alocola, and a second for the page that Alocola returned the user to. I’d hoped to avoid this by including HTTP POST data when launching the return URL, giving the appearance of starting and returning to the same URL. Unfortunately, you can’t include POST data. A future version will have an optional workaround where Alocola issue an HTTP POST itself and then return the user to the same apparent URL they started from. This will introduce some complexity, including more integration work for the website.

Open Source

Alocolola’s source is available under GPL2.

Original here