Apple To Make Billions On Google's Android
forbes.com
forbes.com
1. I'm pretty sure Google already makes money for Android, through advertising and such.
2. If the Motorola acquisition goes through, Apple may not be able to extract much in terms of royalties, given that it almost certainly infringes on some of those patents (unknowingly, of course).
3. Microsoft extracts money from Android, right now, but it has a huge number of patents.
4. Listing a dozen patents is somewhat irrelevant when we're talking about these companies acquiring huge patent portfolios.
Also, abolish patents.
The play with Android is not unlike Chrome: they're making $0 directly from Chrome, but having Chrome has pushed their interests in the browser space in a way that has helped their bottom line. (faster javascript processing leading to more use/more ads within their core products).
Without Android, mobile was hurtling toward a paid-app space with not a lot of arbitrary web usage and thus not a lot of ads, and of those ads that remained, the phone makers and/or networks could force terms or lock Google out on a whim.
In short, Google as an advertiser has no choice but to spend big to ensure that not only does Apple not win, but that the architecture of authoritative apps does not win.
(In Android's lackluster paid-app market I see the same self-sabotage-in-deference-to-the-cash-cow that we see in Microsoft projects that threaten Office/Windows.)
Of course, this article ignores exactly how Android violates these patents. And that Google and its partners aren't exactly entering the ring without any patents themselves. And more importantly, the fact that Apple seems very uninterested in making billions off Android. If they did, they would be acting like Microsoft. Not to mention the Jobs decree was to spend all of Apple's money destroying Android, not padding its coffers. There is a fairly large disconnect here.
This feels like an article written by a hyperactive high-schooler with a fast-approaching deadline for his independent writing assignment. He first forms some vague but polarizing argument by stringing together a few loaded sentences to compensate for lack of real research and insight. Then it basically proceeds to just list the patents Apple will (or already has) used to litigate Android OEMs...
The details of the patent mention a predetermined gesture.
Moving from left to right is a predetermined gesture.
Is moving a ring from one area of the screen to another a predetermined gesture? If the final location of the ring is not consistent, could it be called a gesture? Is pushing a button a gesture?
It's things like that that make patents so questionable.