Sometimes when you win, you really lose, as Apple may have discovered in a German court this week. Other times, you really wish that whole email thing wasn’t so permanent, as it appears Apple and a gang of other tech giants are going to discover in what may be an incredibly expensive class-action lawsuit.
It’s another tough week for Cupertino in the courtroom. Cue the dun-dun and lets review those gavel bangs.
FOSS Patents reports that an appeals court in Germany has upheld a preliminary injunction against the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, which was originally granted to Apple last fall. In additional, the court found that the Galaxy Tab 8.9 also falls under the injunction.
The original ruling, ordered last August and upheld in September, was based on a violation of one of Apple’s Community designs — a European version of a design patent. Samsung appealed to the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court, and while that court did uphold the injunction, they did so based on a violation of German unfair competition law, not a design violation.
Sorry about that “unfair” thing… we’ll work on that as we keep selling these.
The distinction is somewhat of a win for Samsung; although the injunction continues to block the sale of the Galaxy 10.1 and 8.9 in Germany, Apple really needed the injunction to be upheld based on design, so that Cupertino could attempt to replicate the decision globally. According to Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents, the “German unfair competition law is pretty unique,” and won’t help Apple in courtrooms in any other country.
So, even though Samsung technically lost the appeal, it succeeded in defeating Apple’s design right, denying Cupertino significant leverage other lawsuits still pending around the world.
That potential class-action lawsuit we covered last week; the one where all the high tech workers in Silicon Valley accused Apple and a number of other tech companies of conspiring to fix their wages and prevent them from changing jobs? You know, the one with all the nasty sounding emails form C-level employees at those companies describing back-room deals with each to control employees? That one is going to trial.
U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh ruled a few days ago that the companies listed in the complaint — including Apple, Google, Adobe, Intel, Pixar, and Lucasfilm — must face a private class-action lawsuit claiming the violated antitrust laws. Koh’s ruling requires the companies to produce documents detailing the agreements, and allow lawyers for the plaintiffs to take depositions.
This could work out really, really well for us.
According to Bloomberg, Koh did not have a problem with the companies potentially making individual agreements with each other, but was concerned with “how it ties together” into a possible conspiracy between all of the companies. The case, which could produce damages that total hundreds of millions of dollars, is filed as In Re High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation, 11-2509, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Jose).
Adrian writes the weekly Law & Apple column for MacLife.com. Follow him on Twitter, subscribe to him on Facebook.
Professional video editors who have been patiently waiting for substantial improvements to Final Cut Pro X had that patience rewarded on Tuesday, with a point update that brings back features such as multicam and broadcast monitoring. But that isn’t all of the news, as a third-party developer releases a pair of tools for allowing FCPX to play nice with its legacy version as well. There’s even more on deck for this fine Tuesday, January 31, 2012 as well…
With the release this morning of Final Cut Pro X 10.0.3, Apple has finally lived up to the promises it made seven months ago after its controversial introduction to the Mac App Store. But one thing still lacking is the ability to import projects from the legacy Final Cut Pro 7, which Apple has left to third party developers. Thankfully, that wait is now over, as Assisted Editing is now offering 7toX for Final Cut Pro, a .99 Mac App Store purchase that allows metadata from a Final Cut Pro 7 project to be imported to Final Cut Pro X using XML, with full support for most every feature you can imagine. Better yet, the same developer is now selling the .99 Xto7 for Final Cut Pro, which does the same thing in reverse: It translates XML exported from Final Cut Pro X and allows it to be imported into Final Cut Pro 7. Coupled with the pro features offered by today’s update of the host software, it will be interesting to see what the critics will be left to complain about now.
This morning’s Final Cut Pro X 10.0.3 update may have grabbed all the headlines, but Apple didn’t stop there, pushing out minor updates to Motion 5 and Compressor 4 as well. Motion 5.0.2 now features improved speed and responsiveness for text editing, the ability to automatically add animation keyframes when recording is disabled, a keyboard shortcut for repositioning animation curves or paths, the ability to adjust the pan and scale of an image in a drop zone and an enhanced look for the Keyframe editor. Compressor 4.0.2 finally allows markers to be set as chapter markers by default, adding Uncompressed 8-bit and 10-bit 4:2:2 to the export settings list along with improved transcoding speed from Uncompressed 10-bit 4:2:2 to ProRes. Both updates are free in the Mac App Store for existing users.
With its former senior vice president of retail now working his mojo at JCPenney (and God help them, they need it!), Apple today announced that John Browett will step into those very large shoes, where he’ll report directly to CEO Tim Cook. Browett’s last gig was with Dixons Retail, billed as “a European technology retailer,” where the new veep has been CEO since 2007. Browett won’t report to work until April, where he’ll oversee “Apple’s retail strategy and the continued expansion of Apple retail stores around the world.”
Valve Software released Steam as a mobile app for iOS and Android devices last week, but it was unfortunately a closed beta. Thankfully, that barrier has now been shattered and today the company announced the app was open to everyone, allowing gamers to chat with Steam friends, browse community groups and user profiles, view screenshots and user-generated content for their favorite games, read the latest gaming news and stay up to date on unbeatable Steam sales — so, basically everything except actually play the games. But hey, what do you want for free, folks?
Firefox 9, your number is up! Mozilla today pushed out Firefox 10 to its release channel for both desktop and mobile. So what’s new? On the desktop, the forward button is now hidden until you navigate back and most add-ons are now compatible with new versions of the browser by default. WebGL now gains anti-aliasing and CSS3 3D-Transforms are now supported, along with a new HTML5 tag for <bdi> as well as full-screen APIs. Last but not least, Mac OS X users get a bug fix which caused Firefox to crash when closing a tab with a Java applet installed. Sure, nothing earth-shattering, but look at the bright side: At the pace they’re going, Firefox 11 (which is already in beta) will be here before you know it, right around the time that new browser smells starts to wear off of Firefox 10.
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What a week! Apple is swimming in more cash than they know what to do with, the Macworld/iWorld show is winding down in San Francisco and the EFF is working overtime to keep jailbreaking legal. What’s that? You didn’t hear about that? Why, you’ve come to the right place, then… step right up and have a heaping handful of the best and brightest news for this Friday, January 27, 2012.
The strange, twisted saga of webOS took another interesting turn today with the announcement that former Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein (pictured above) has officially left the building at HP. According to The Verge, an HP spokesperson confirmed the departure with a simple “Jon has fulfilled his commitment and we wish him well,” apparently in reference to a commitment he was tied to when HP purchased Palm in 2010. Of course, it doesn’t help that the baby he has been nurturing since its introduction in 2008 — that being webOS and its associated Pre, Pixi and TouchPad hardware — has been put out to pasture by HP, with webOS kicked downstairs as a curious open source project whose future is still uncertain. Rubinstein granted Verge boss Joshua Topolsky an exclusive exit interview which is worth a read for any Palm fans still lurking about.
We can’t say we’re too shocked after seeing Cupertino’s record financial results earlier this week, but research firm Strategy Analytics today confirmed that Apple has narrowly passed Samsung as the world’s largest smartphone vendor for the last three months of 2011, with 37 million sold compared to Sammy’s 36.5 million. It’s a bit of a hollow victory, since Samsung still takes home the gold ribbon for the entire year, with 97.4 million smartphones versus Apple’s 93 million, but the better news for the industry is that global shipments are up 54 percent and a record 155 million smartphones were sold in the fourth quarter. Samsung’s market share for the year is 19.9 percent compared to Apple’s 19 percent, with Nokia in third place with 15.8 percent, having shipped 77.3 million devices during 2011.
Many of us take jailbreaking our iOS devices quite seriously, but did you know that an exception to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that made the practice legal is about to run out? According to AppleInsider, the exception granted by the DMCA in 2010 will lapse this year, and could potentially make it a crime for users to jailbreak and unlock their devices. Crazy, right? Thankfully, The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) wants to come to the rescue and is lobbying for users to speak out and make their voices heard by the DMCA with a new “Jailbreaking Is Not A Crime” website. “The DMCA is supposed to block copyright infringement, but it’s been misused to threaten tinkerers and users who just want to make their devices more secure and more functional,” explains EFF Senior Staff Attorney Marcia Hofmann. “The U.S. Copyright Office should hear from concerned Americans who want to run software of their choice on the gadgets of their choice.” The EFF also seeks to expand the current exception to “specifically cover tablets and videogame systems,” so hit the website and throw your hat into the ring while you still can.
Yesterday, The New York Times published an exposé on factory conditions where Apple’s manufacturing is done in China — and to say it didn’t paint a pretty picture is an understatement. Today, Apple CEO Tim Cook is firing back, with an email sent to Apple employees to set the record straight. According to 9to5Mac, who managed to get their hands on a copy of the email, Cook went on the offensive: “For the many hundreds of you who are based at our suppliers’ manufacturing sites around the world, or spend long stretches working there away from your families, I know you are as outraged by this as I am. For the people who aren’t as close to the supply chain, you have a right to know the facts.” Cook has good reason to be defensive about the accusations, since his former role as COO made him directly responsible for the manufacturing of Apple’s products for quite some time prior to being enlisted as Steve Jobs’ heir to the CEO throne last year.
It’s no secret that there are around a million iPhone users who have chosen to unlock their handsets and hang their shingle at fourth-place carrier T-Mobile, despite the fact that their device is incapable of using the company’s 3G and faux 4G radio bands. T-Mo has quietly supported such customers, but according to TmoNews, that support will be coming out of the closet this weekend. On January 30, T-Mobile “will begin offering additional support to customers using an Apple iPhone on our network.” Such support will include “common procedures, information about feature and specifications and other basic device questions.” T-Mobile has frequently been a safe haven for customers who prefer buying an unlocked device and paying month-to-month or even prepaid, and the carrier seems quite happy to embrace those lost souls into their own bosom.
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(Image courtesy of The Verge)
