Apple just sued HTC for infringing on 20 patents “related to the iPhone’s user interface, underlying architecture and hardware.

via

They go on to describe the actual patents in question, including this nugget.

The ‘849 Patent, entitled “Unlocking A Device By Performing Gestures On An Unlock Image,” was duly and legally issued on February 2, 2010 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘849 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit C.

For those of you that might not know, one of my specialities is Point of Sale systems. Every system that I have ever used since ‘95 has had the ability to ‘unlock a device by performing gestures on an unlock image’, in this case in particular, rendered Windows bitmaps in the form of keypad that the user is required to touch to unlock the terminal.

(That’s me trying to be fancy by saying the login screen on most POS terminals do this, and have for many years).

Apple did not invent touch screen tech, they only brought it to the masses in a form factor that fits in your pocket. While I can appreciate the fact that they need to protect their intellectual property and technological advances, I think for this particular patent they are wrong.

There is also this one.

The ‘949 Patent, entitled “Touch Screen Device, Method, And Graphical User Interface For Determining Commands By Applying Heuristics,” was duly and legally issued on January 20, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘949 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit B.

I’m not sure, but I think the old HSI Profit Series system used to do this, and it was user programmable. Touch here, it does this unless you touch there, which causes a different action. Sure the heuristics weren’t applied automatically, but this is still pretty close.

Finally, for the record; Re: touchscreen technology.

Touchscreens emerged from academic and corporate research labs in the second half of the 1960s. One of the first places where they gained some visibility was in the terminal of a computer-assisted learning terminal that came out in 1972 as part of the PLATO project. They have subsequently become familiar in kiosk systems, such as in retail and tourist settings, on point of sale systems, on ATMs and on PDAs where a stylus is sometimes used to manipulate the GUI and to enter data. The popularity of smart phones, PDAs, portable game consoles and many types of information appliances is driving the demand for, and the acceptance of, touchscreens.

via Wikipedia.

Like I said before, Apple did not invent touch screen technology. It’s been around since almost forever. I wish them luck with HTC, but think they might have trouble with these 2 patents.

I’ve had the opportunity to play with the Droid over the Christmas Holiday. And I really like it. I like the UI, the way it feels, the way it works. All that said, I don’t like the keyboard, don’t want the keyboard and, at least on that phone, don’t need the keyboard. One of the reasons I’m watching CES coverage closely this year.

We know that I’ve been using the Blackberry for a bit more than a year. I like the Blackberry because it’s a great communication tool. It has great call quality and for email and messaging, most would agree, it can’t be beat. However, it doesn’t do web. Ok, that’s a lie because it does have a “browser”, but it isn’t any good. It’s slow, barely supports HTML4 and the screen is really too small to be useful.

The only problem I have with this batch of new phones is that I am stuck without the ability for a cheap upgrade until 2011 due to issues with Blackberry Storm. So I’m going to start setting cash aside so I can upgrade when the selection of Droid devices increases at my local VZW store.

Or, do I save that money for a few more months to possibly get an iPhone?. I still don’t see this as happening but really would like to be surprised, which I also don’t see happening. Can you imagine if Apple were to announce a VZW iPhone for the summer? Sales would stop at VZW while people waited. Pretty sure that isn’t going to happen.

So, I’m holding out until March. More as it becomes available.

There are times when I do things just to get to you guys, you know that right? The toot above is a great example of that.

I guess the new Facebook app for the ATP was released this week. All over my Facebook page was post after nerdgasm post proclaiming how awesome it was. Twitter too. It was everywhere. One of the posts said it had to be installed twice, so I thought I would pick on that and run with it.

Holy crap.

You ATP fanboys sure love your phone. More than a few of you got 17 different kinds of defensive about that particular toot. I found it comical to say the least. At least it provided my fingers something to make the sound about today.

First off, it’s an application. For a telephone. That serves no other purpose than to help you access the time-suck that is known at Facebook. I have no doubt it is the raddest thing ever, but when I have to read that it is the raddest thing ever 50 times over, I just can’t sit by and watch.

So, I posted the above tweet.

One thing I already don’t like about it. You remember when you got your ATP, right? Every email was stamped ’sent from my iphone’ until so many people called douche that you turned it off. Now the new FB app has that ‘feature’. Please let me be the first.

Douche! Turn it off please.

As always, thank you for your time.

Why I don’t have an iPhone

Regular readers of this particular blog should already be aware of the pain that was the Blackberry Storm. For me, it was a device that was nothing but trouble. It was slow, the screen wouldn’t completely redraw and it would become unresponsive at least once a day. As it was, I was doing a pseudo battery pull at 2:00am every night* as well as another full battery pull during the coarse of the day. Everyday. Most Blackberries require a battery pull on occassion, but not everyday.

After finally having enough of Storm 4 for the past two week, I finally decided to head into my local Verizon Wireless Store to find out what they could do for me. My plan was to ask them to not give me another Storm, but instead let me upgrade 3 months early to the device you see pictured above, the Blackberry Tour.

Phone in hand, I explain my problems to the CS rep at the counter and let her know I didn’t want another Storm, but wanted to purchase a Tour at the upgrade price. She checked my account on the computer and excused herself to talk to her manager.

Now would be a good time to let you know that I have been a VZW customer since about ‘02 and am what they call a VIP customer. That means I get upgrade discounts annually instead of every 2 years, plus a few other perks.

My girl comes back, says no problem for me to get the Tour and starts transferring my data from the Storm. I watch as she sets everything up, re-sends my service books and transfers my contacts to the Tour. Since it’s the same as the Storm connector-wise, no need for more accessories since I already had them. She hands me the box and the device and then says have a good day.

I ask if it’s going to show up on my bill or if I needed to sign anything. The answer to both questions was no because Verizon Wireless decided to give me a straight swap, no charge! After reviewing my account, seeing how much problem I had with the Storms (including calls to 611 which I would almost bet are logged on my account page), they knew I was done.

No questions asked. No fuss, no muss, no charge. And now I’m a proud owner of a proper Blackberry device, complete with keyboard. Full review to follow shortly.

The point here is that Verizon Wireless knows how to take care of it’s customers. Sure, there are some out there that would whole-heartedly disagree, but my experience with them has been nothing short of exemplary, every time, all time. It doesn’t matter if I go to a retail store or call 611, I always get great service.

That is why I won’t get an iPhone. Why trade the time and service I have with VZW for a great phone but lesser service (both phone and customer service from what I have heard and read)? Maybe one day VZW will get the iPhone, but until that happens, I’m good with the Blackberry.

*BB users, check out QuickPull lite in the BB App store.

The Sunday List Post, 2nd Edition

• My new favorite thing is Tweetie for Mac. Supports multiple twitter accounts, is sleek, lightweight and works very well.
• In case you missed it, windthefrog.net is back, pulling duty as a tumblr.
• I’m back on Vimeo. With Facebook support and about the best HD video experience, I had to. Might even go Pro fairly soon too.
• I wasn’t lying. The EeePC is for sale if anyone wants a deal. It’s a great machine, just not great for me. Too bad I realized it a week after I could return it. Contact me for more info.
• I have three Wordpress projects on the go right now. 2 are done, 1 is close. Don’t worry, you’ll be seeing them soon enough. One of them is a very nice blog theme that I’m going to make available for download.
• I almost have v2.5 of this sites theme ready to go. So far, it’s coming along nicely and I think you will really like it.
• The Blackberry is finally behaving and I can’t help getting excited about the possibility of an ATP on Verizon in the somewhat-near furture.
• I took the Canon down to the beach last week and got some pretty good footage. Plus I’ll be working on a new project for my Grandfather that is video related this coming week. Should be cool
.

That’s it really. At least that’s it for now. Follow along at Twitter or the Tumblr for stuff I’m finding interesting on a daily basis.

Playing with a few things, changing a few things, updating a few things.

A couple of new apps this week. The first I heard about on Mac Break Weekly called Shape Collage. You can read the write up at dbmini. I know I know, I don’t normally post software reviews there, but most of the readers carry camera and they still out-number you 2:1.

Second app I’m playing with is called DoubleTwist. It’s an app for getting media to your device of any shape (mp3 players, phones, game consoles) and for sharing with your friends. I don’t see a real need for this on the ATP, but if you have anything else that holds media, it might be worth checking out. Full write-up to follow after I play with it some more.

Oh yea, both of these run on Windows and Mac. So go nuts.

More playing with HD and I’m starting to get the hang of it, or at least I think I am. In case you missed it, you can see the latest on Vimeo and YouTube (be sure to click HD).

Why did I post to both? I wanted to see which is better. I still prefer Vimeo over YouTube since it has a nicer player, but YouTube allows a larger file size and I can upload more than 1 HD video a week (without paying). If I start to post a lot of stuff in HD, I might opt for the ‘Pro’ account at Vimeo. I also posted this video at Viddler and the results were very good.

That is the exact same file I put on Vimeo and YouTube. Not too shabby I think.

Finally, I started playing with the Tumblr again. I’ve changed it so that the only going there are photos from Flickr, links from Delicious and video from everywhere. That will change to be Viddler only I believe. Next up will be integrating that into db.com and then I will start using it for random videos and links and all that. Keep an eye out for that to happen soon.

And I have finally managed to get an interview at the end of next week. Details on my Facebook page. Good interview JuJu my way if you please (and can spare it).

I’m not a vindictive man. I believe in sweetness and light. But I would encourage anyone with a brain who travels, especially in these trying economic times, to buy an unlocked GSM phone and purchase pay as you go SIM cards or a MaxRoam SIM and a Rebel SIMCard for the iPhone 3G. I also encourage you to use Boingo for Wi-Fi roaming in airports and, increasingly, cities. Why? Because I just paid the equivalent to a flight to Paris and back just because I wanted to use Google Maps on the iPhone 3G to find my way around gay Paree.

Don’t let that happen to you if you travel outside the US.

Personally I can’t wait to find out how much Verizon Wireless will ream charge me for using a VZ sim outside the US. Scary stuff indeed.

Update If you go over to Maxroam.com and enter ‘donburnside’ in the discount code you will get 10% off!

I am done with the iPhone.

Did you see the period? Did you see the word done? This is to serve as your official notice that I will not listen to anything anyone says about the iPhone. I will no longer read posts that contain the word iPhone in them. I will no longer listen to podcasts that spend too much time on the iPhone. I’m going to stop following people on twitter that talk about the iPhone too much. After this post, I will no longer use the term iPhone on my blog or any site I work on unless I am paid to do so.

If all I had to listen to or read about was how awesome the phone is, then I probably wouldn’t be too upset. But that’s not all.

It’s the people that complain about it. That jailbreak it. That, for all intensive purposes, hate it. Yet they still carry the damned thing even though they get bad signal or have to jailbreak it to work the way they need it to, or have more problems than should be allowed by law. I don’t care.

I’m done. You can comment here about iPhones one last time. Go ahead, get it out of your system. After that, I’m done.

I’m probably going to switch back to Windows too, but that’s for another post.

Updates, Upgrades and Uniques

I’m starting to serious wonder about my resume writing skills. No kidding, I have sent over 40 copies out in the last 3 week without so much as a nibble. Working on a re-write this week, but if anyone has any tips or pointers, please feel free to leave a note below.

As soon as I hit Publish here, I’m going to the gym. This is worthy of posting since I haven’t been since the weekend before MTTS. I managed to catch something that week and was congested and 1/2 deaf (yes, again). It’s finally cleared up, so I’m going. 3 weeks is a long time, and it’s going to be tough getting back into it.

Secretly, I want an iPhone. Not so secretly I don’t want to be an AT&T customer.

I’m still upset about missing the New Media Expo. Cool stuff happened there from what I could tell from the tweets and video posts I saw. I’ll have to try again next year.

I am extremely pleased with the way the new sites have turned out. And the redo on WRR (if you haven’t noticed). Helps keep the self confidence up. All new sites should go live this week.

I have a feeling a new computer will be purchased in the next couple of weeks. It will be for either myself or my Grandfather. I hope it’s me. 15″ MBP or 20″ iMac would be keen. Not sure I want to edit video or help Grandpa relearn his computer with Vista. And, since I will be doing all of the editing…

I hate that Wordpress releases a dot update a month after a new version. I need to figure out how to script Transmit to handle that all at once. Also not happy that the photo feature of “Press This” still doesn’t work for me. Although, they said it’s fixed for IE7.

I have a baby shower and wedding happening in the same weekend. One Saturday, the other on Sunday. Oh, and they are 1,000 miles apart. Wedding wins if I can swing it, otherwise a trip to Vegas will be in order.

Which would be good, since I need to get to the resort for maintenance and checking of things. Big upgrade might be coming their way after the first of the year.

Church bus full of screaming kids just drove by. That was weird.

Just so you know, you can count yourself among the 1,500 or so w(t)f readers. Sure, not huge numbers, but I’m still fairly pleased. Thanks for stopping by. Don’t forget, you can subscribe to get the posts easier. Don’t worry, I’ll let you know if there is something worth click back about.

After I take the new sites live, I will be able to get started on The Hollywood Car Show site. Go ahead and click it if you want, should be a placeholder page there. I think by the end of the week it should be up and running.

Ok, that’s it. Time to start my day. Have a great Sunday everyone!

You see, just about everything I read anymore has the word iPhone in it. Post after post after post after mother f’ing post is about the iPhone. Testing a new app in the iPhone or just doing something that is tagged uploaded/posted/tested/lovingly created on my iPhone.

It’s annoying. I know y’all have a brand new shiny toy to play with, so I’ll try to be understanding. But honest to robot ninjas gang if it keeps up much longer it’s going to be a whole lot easier to go through my feeds every morning, and my iPod will be practically devoid of podcasts.

It’s a cool device to be sure. I’ll give you that. Just hurry up and get used to it already won’t you? I’m honestly tired of hearing about it.