Although Apple has never shown a real desire to play nicely with any of their competition they have a special place in their heart for companies that are successfully selling Android Products. Any phone maker that is doing well with Android is going to get a letter from Apple telling them to stop. They will also get the boilerplate “you are copying us” warning followed by a trip to the courthouse. In the case of Samsung Apple is especially worried as the South Korean giant is outselling Apple by almost 2-1 in Q3.
Apple claims this is all due to blatant and willful copying of Apple’s copied designs and software. They think that Samsung owes them some money. However, the patents that Apple is presenting are dubious at best. The sad fact that in a few cases the Judges are not technically competent enough to understand when a patent (design or otherwise) is obvious has benefited Apple, just as the fact that US District Judge Lucy Koh’s past relationship with Apple when she was at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. This Firm received equity in Apple for services during Apple’s 19080 IPO. They also continue to represent Apple from the information we have. However Judge Koh has not recused herself even with her past history with Apple through this law firm.
Getting back to Apple’s new defense; Apple wants $2.5 Billion from Samsung claiming over $2 Billion on their design patent alone. Yet in return they do not feel they have to pay anything to use Samsung’s Patents on 3G. Apple claims that because Samsung is asking for 2.4% of the whole phone cost they are way out of line. Apple further claims that this is because it is more than they pay to other companies for their patents. Now, while the 3G patent is licensed under FRAND Samsung is not required to match other companies’ prices. FRAND merely means; Fair Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory. If Samsung can prove that the 2.4% request is what they ask from everyone then that would negate Apple’s claim. Another factor against Apple is the fact that they have refused to pay anything and never came back with a counter offer. It was not until they brought in their damages claims that the even mentioned what they think they should pay $0.50 per unit. For a $200 phone that is .25%. It is 5% of the cost of the 3G radio, which is what Apple thinks it should have to pay for.
The stakes are high for Apple and they HAVE to find a way to slow down Samsung especially with the iPhone 5 coming. This is a phone that is now going to be following the same companies that Apple accuses of copying. From the information we have seen the new iPhone will look a lot like the Galaxy SIII and Nexus but with less rounded sides. If Apple cannot wrap things up and get a favorable ruling soon it could actually hurt them in these cases (as it would show that Apple is borrowing from other manufacturers and not the other way around).
Next up we have two stories that are in the same ballpark. One is about a Windows based worm that managed to find its way into the App store and the other is about another bit of malware for OSX. The iTunes worm is probably the most interesting though as it raises some interesting questions. Apple claims that their walled garden approach is for security and their marketing department and fans like to point at Google and say they are not secure at all. Well now we have found that Apple is not so good about picking up malware either. The worm, CoiDung-A, was uploaded with the App; Instaquotes-Quotes Cards For Instagram on July 19th and stayed there until discovered by a user on the 24th. The user attempted to download the app, but their security app (unusual for Apple users) warned him that the app contained a virus. He forwarded this to Apple and the App was removed on 25th. The developer has apologized for this and said they would fix the issue and reupload the app.
Interestingly enough the price of the App dropped from $0.99 to free over the weekend which could have allowed more users to download the app. Apple has not released information on how many people downloaded the App, which is normal for them. Right now the leading theory is that the Malware existed on the developer’s system and got complied by accident. The actual malware was useless unless someone downloaded the app and then extracted and ran the worm on their Windows PC (the worm would have no effect on an OSX based system). We have another theory though; we doubt that they computer in use by the developer was infected by malware, but perhaps this was either a test or a warning. It does one very interesting thing; it shows that Apple might not scan uploaded Apps for malware. They might have other processes for approving an app, but a simple malware scan does not appear to be one of them. We have said this before; as tablets and smartphones increase in use more companies will have their own “App” stores. Because of this and the false sense of confidence that users have in all of them they will be the new vector for attack. We have already seen this with in-app purchases, malware in the Google Play Store and now in the iTunes App Store.
The last big of Apple news is about a new Trojan that has been identified for OSX. Although it is not clear what, if any effect the bug has it does highlight the fact that no OS is secure or invulnerable to malware. The new Trojan affects OSX 10.6 and 10.7 and can install itself without any user interaction and does not need root access to operate. Of course, as with Windows based malware, if the user is running with Root (administrator) level permissions the malware is much more damaging. Currently new bug named Crisis is being difficult for security outfits that are trying to reverse engineer it. This is a normal process in finding methods to counter malware, which is why the malicious coders work hard to prevent the deconstruction of their payloads. Once installed Crisis will attempt to contact a server on the internet every five minutes looking for guidance.
Although there have not been that many reports of malware for OSX they are and will continue to be more common as malicious coders turn their attention to not only Macs, but also to the iPhone and iPads. So far Apple has still been enjoying their protection they had as a minor player in the market, but this will not last forever and we fully expect to hear of many more of these in the near future.
Discuss this in our Forum
