Well, you chose to avoid good product because of the stupid ideology. Why stupid? Because you can easily find a reason to hate Google the same or even more (the whole FRAND thing e.g.).
OTOH, people are not rational, nothing new here so this love/hate boils down to subjective preferences rationalized a lot.
I like Apple because they make damn good products. Damn good products make them damn good money.
Google makes money from ads. I hate ads. But strangely enough I feel neutral about Google.
As for the patents and this case: it was said more than once there—hate the game, not the player.
Sure, the MBA is a good product. But most of its competitors are also good products: there's not clearly a best one, at least for my needs. Indeed, I've been wavering back and forth for over a month over what I should choose: each has its own set of pros and cons. These recent events have emphasized one of Apple's cons and pushed me to other choices.
I won't lose any sleep over the switch: I don't feel that I'm missing out on some life changing experience just for the sake of ideology. Now I'll likely end up with an ultrabook with a better screen but inferior battery life and build quality. A definite trade-off, but the amount it will affect my day to day life probably isn't significant.
> it was said more than once there—hate the game, not the player.
No. This line of argument is so dumb it makes my head hurt. The "players" choose to participate in the "game". Apple could have quite easily decided not to pursue injunctions against Samsung, but they did.
I can quite easily hate "the player" for choosing to play such an idiotic and stupid "game".
I don't think it's in any way unreasonable or stupid for people to avoid products of a certain company based on disagreement with that company's business policy, no matter the quality of those products.
I can't come up with something catchier than hate the game, not the player, but I think the game is always going to stay shitty if people support players who show no interest in changing the game.
I am not saying it is unreasonable, just that it is not rational. The whole disagreement thing is just what wee chose to pay attention to and what to ignore. You can take any tech company and paint it however you want just by cherry-picking.
I agree, actually: most tech companies have some blood on their hands (though I genuinely think it's fair to say Apple has had a particularly bad track record compared to its competitors, at least on offensive patent litigation).
That's why I'm constantly looking for new non-evil options, and my next phone is going to be B2G, if at all possible. Guess I won't be putting it on a Galaxy Nexus, though =)
Why would I hate Google for that? Motorola was cooperative and competitive with partners and despite all of their innovation they ended up -- like most of their traditional smartphone partners -- with most of their creations ending up in standards. Getting attacked by Apple and Microsoft they try to force a settlement with what they have. there is nothing in that that makes me dislike Motorola cum Google.
it was said more than once there—hate the game, not the player.
The xbox may be blocked because of critical, foundational patents, but I'm supposed to feel bad about the parties because they tried to be cooperative about them. The Galaxy Nexus is blocked because of laughable patents.
There is no question who the worse party is in this, and it's only a matter of time before something sticks and the iPhone/iPad is blocked from importation. We'll see how people like the game then.
Why would I hate Google for that? Motorola was cooperative and competitive with partners and despite all of their innovation they ended up -- like most of their traditional smartphone partners -- with most of their creations ending up in standards. Getting attacked by Apple and Microsoft they try to force a settlement with what they have. there is nothing in that that makes me dislike Motorola cum Google.
Actually, what really did Motorola in was years of getting ripped-off both in design and carrier sales wins by Samsung. Have a good look at the product line that Motorola sold from about 2000-2005. Then look at what Samsung was selling during the same period.
This is just what Samsung does. Good engineering, and let someone else do the design.
The xbox may be blocked because of critical, foundational patents, but I'm supposed to feel bad about the parties because they tried to be cooperative about them. The Galaxy Nexus is blocked because of laughable patents.
Apple's patents are "laughable" and Motorola's are "critical" and "foundational" because you're a software person, not a hardware person. You'll find that a lot of hardware patents, including Motorola's, suffer from the same obviousness when evaluated by EE's that Apple's do when evaluated by SE's.
This is laughable wrong. Motorola has never been cooperative with Microsoft. They are the ones being the aggressor and have used FRAND patents to do so. They've been nothing but underhanded at every opportunity.
And if Google/Motorola are so cooperative then why are the FTC/EU investigating them for anti-competitive behaviour ?
Microsoft sued Motorola after they couldn't extort them into making uncompetitive Windows Mobile devices. Motorola responded with standards-based patents and non-standards based patents, with the clear intention of trying to get a stalemate settlement. The "cooperative" part was that Motorola has thousands if not tens of thousands of patents that play a part in standards because they are a part of the whole moving things forward.
And if Google/Motorola are so cooperative then why are the FTC/EU investigating them for anti-competitive behaviour ?
Derpedeederp derp. The government investigates almost everything that any large multinational does. There are active investigations of Microsoft, Apple, Google, Oracle....if it's a big company there's probably an investigation of it. Secondly that EXACTLY goes to my original point -- Motorola made the "mistake" of daring to be a good innovation citizen before some upstarts came along and started extorting and patent trolling for every hilariously trivial patent.
1. Motorola is obligated to not use standards based patents against implementers of the standard. Under ANY circumstance. It undermines the entire foundation of the industry and without standards we all lose.
2. No government is investigating Microsoft or Apple for patent abuse. And it is ridiculous to assume that the government just investigates any multinational company.
You talked about:
"And if Google/Motorola are so cooperative then why are the FTC/EU investigating them for anti-competitive behaviour ?"
But now the goal post moved to patent abuse investigations, keep in mind that monopoly investigations and patent law can be engaged by diff state institutions, depending on the most effective engagement method, so you may have patent law dispute in the courts in any country and monopoly investigations conducted by an European entity. So while at any given moment, not having one corporation under investigation or defendent status does not push the innocent/guilty pendulum anywhere when acessing any given case. Or is it an indication of antagonistical reversable jurisprudence. The case at hand comes to mind.
Also, any multinational company is under the scrutiny of any government or substitutive supra governamental entity with attributed powers to do so and that is the way it will stay. There is nothing ridiculous about it. It is a needed lawful check for international law and the required balance for the implementation and usage of the Uniform Commercial Code.
If we're going to talk about obligations... I seem to recall that Microsoft and Apple had made some promises with respect to the Nortel patents they bought (triggered by a DoJ investigation).
