Briefly: Apple sues Creative; Jobs in Manhattan

[AppleInsider]

Apple files countersuit

Apple Computer appears to have responded to a lawsuit filed by Singapore-based Creative Technology with a suit of its own.

According to Bloomberg, on May 15th -- the same day Creative filed complaints about Apple -- the iPod maker filed a counter suit, accusing Creative of infringing on four iPod-related patents.

"Creative proactively held discussions with Apple in our efforts to explore amicable solutions," Phil O'Shaughnessy, a spokesman for Creative, said. "At no time during these discussions or at any other time did Apple mention to us the patents it raised in its lawsuit."

In a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission, Creative seeks an order to block imports of the iPod, most of which are made in China. The company also filed a lawsuit against Apple in District Court in San Francisco. The suit is likely to be put on hold while the trade complaint is heard.

Jobs makes New York appearance

True to expectations, Apple chief executive Steve Jobs made an appearance in Midtown Manhattan last Friday to usher in the company's latest flagship retail store in the underground concourse of the GM building at 767 Fifth Avenue.

In an on-site interview with CNBC, Jobs fielded questions about Apple's retail strategy, the Intel transition and an Apple iPhone.

He said the company's rapidly-expanding retail initiative is aimed at offering customers the highest levels of service. However, he said this doesn't mean that Apple plans to slow its Macintosh offerings through authorized resellers and big-box retailers like Circuit City and Best Buy.

Asked why Apple chose Intel to power its latest line of Macintosh computers over AMD Jobs said, "You know, AMD's got some interesting products at the very high-end of the server space, but the part of the market that we concentrate on the most is notebooks and consumer desktops, and for that Intel has the best chips."

Jobs added, "Right now Intel's roadmap looks strong for the kind of products that we build."

When asked when customers would be able to purchase an iPhone, Jobs said, "You know, we never talk about unannounced products, but if we ever do announce something like that I'd love to talk to you about it then."

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[Ireland]

iPhone

[Bergermeister]

No judge will allow the injuction... too much money (3rd party accessories) at stake; too many people would get hurt, not just Apple.

Why doesn't Apple just buy Creative?

Any idea which patents Apple accuses them of infringing?

[Vokbain]

Originally posted by Bergermeister
Why doesn't Apple just buy Creative?

Because that would be wasting a significant amount of money on a junk, washed up company.

[Archstudent]

so is jobs admitting that apple no longer focuses on their workstation class machines? I always said that it's the old mac-based professionals who have got it worst in the last few years with apple, who seem to be all about the consumer market these days.. A thought which does worry me.

[ecking]

Originally posted by Steve Jobs
You know, we never talk about unannounced products, but if we ever do announce something like that I'd love to talk to you about it then.

Oh Steve you tease.

[JeffDM]

Originally posted by Archstudent
so is jobs admitting that apple no longer focuses on their workstation class machines? I always said that it's the old mac-based professionals who have got it worst in the last few years with apple, who seem to be all about the consumer market these days.. A thought which does worry me.

I don't know if I would say that. The workstation offerings have improved recently (Nov 05) by offering more actual workstation features like ECC RAM compatibility and a Quadro card option.

The Woodcrest chip and its associated chipset is looking pretty interesting, it may very well meet or exceed parity with Opteron systems, but we probably won't know for sure until late summer.

[mark2005]

Originally posted by Archstudent
so is jobs admitting that apple no longer focuses on their workstation class machines? I always said that it's the old mac-based professionals who have got it worst in the last few years with apple, who seem to be all about the consumer market these days.. A thought which does worry me.

No, it's simply Jobs touting the products he has for sale and not saying much about the things that are not yet ready for sale, like Intel-based Mac Pro and servers.

I disagree that Apple hasn't tried to address the "old mac-based professionals". The move to G5 was precisely for that reason, even with the complications of liquid cooling. Not having faster G5s was not Apple's fault. And Apple has continued to update it's pro software.

And you could argue that many mac-based professionals were looking for portable solutions. So moving to Intel also addressed that as there was little likelihood of getting a G5 into a laptop.

[cactus]

he didnt even flinch at that iphone question. i was trying to look at his face to see if there was a hint of "woah, how did you hear about that" about him, but there was not. he is a very good interviewee.

[SpamSandwich]

If you want to see all the Steve sightings in NY, just go to YouTube.com and perform a search. At last count, there were about 4 or 5 vids.

[JeffDM]

Originally posted by mark2005
And you could argue that many mac-based professionals were looking for portable solutions. So moving to Intel also addressed that as there was little likelihood of getting a G5 into a laptop.

IBM did announce a low voltage G5 intended for mobile use at the same time they announced their dual core G5s. It would have worked, but it was too little, too late. They were something like 1.4 / 1.6GHz offerings, but at those low clocks are barely competitive with the fastest G4s except maybe for 64 bit code, and were only single core.

[Kolchak]

Re: Apple and AMD

I wouldn't be surprised if this was another "slight obfuscation" on Steve's part. How many years did they keep saying "OS X will never run on Intel" while secretly developing an Intel version alongside the PowerPC version? Maybe they're doing the same with AMD processors behind the scenes, on that off chance that AMD CPU performance should overtake Intel's. Maybe that's what the XServe replacements will use, since Opteron is considered clearly superior to its Intel competition in that arena. I can see Steve saying, "Oh, one more thing. Introducing OS X on OS X. Mac OS ten running on Apple's Opteron Server ten." I wonder if Apple's contract with Intel includes any exclusivity clause.

[ChevalierMalFet]

I'd be very surprised to hear Apple didn't enter into some sort of "Intel only for 18 months" or so deal. At the same time, Apple traditionally has liked to double up suppliers, to play one against the other, so I wouldn't be surprised if 2007 or 2008 saw an Intel/AMD product mix.

And regarding the iPhone, when I saw the interview webcast all I could do was grown at the level of ubiquity that nasty, persistent rumor has reached. Granted, at this point it seems pretty obvious it's something Apple is thinking about, but from a battery tech standpoint alone I don't think we're at a place where the iPhone is reasonable—I can't see using a phone I could potentially have to recharge more than once a day in normal use.

On the other hand cell phone UI is pretty much suck/blow for options, so another alternative would be welcome.

[JeffDM]

Originally posted by ChevalierMalFet
Granted, at this point it seems pretty obvious it's something Apple is thinking about, but from a battery tech standpoint alone I don't think we're at a place where the iPhone is reasonable�I can't see using a phone I could potentially have to recharge more than once a day in normal use.

I recharge my iPod once every several days to once a week. I recharge my phone about once a week. I really don't see the problem if I have to charge twice a week.

[ChevalierMalFet]

Originally posted by JeffDM
I recharge my iPod once every several days to once a week. I recharge my phone about once a week. I really don't see the problem if I have to charge twice a week.

I don't see myself as a seriously heavy iPod user and my mini gets charged once every day/two. My phone, once or twice a week but I rarely use the cell. In the periods where I've had heavy cell usage, I've had similar charge cycles to my iPod.

I figure Apple's got to hit about 20 hours of real useable battery life (with bluetooth on) for an iPod/cell hybrid to avoid reasonable grousing.