Htc

Apple vs. HTC: It's the comma, stupid

By Rene Ritchie, Monday, Nov 7, 2011 a 6:17 pm

Apple is once again taking exception to the counter-charges HTC is filing in their ongoing legal dispute.

Apple denies that its correct name is Apple, Inc. The correct name of Respondent is Apple Inc.

Things are either getting snarkily passive-aggressive, or passive-aggressively snarky:

Source: FOSS Patents

iPhone holds highest retention rate over competing smartphone makers

By Andrew Wray, Thursday, Sep 22, 2011 a 5:48 pm

A new UBS survey suggests Apple currently holds the top spot in smartphone retention rates by a long shot, holding a strong 89% rating over the nearest hardware competitor HTC at just 39%. Apple also had no trouble beating out the Android platform in general, although being a platform gave Google an added "stickiness" of around 60% retention among consumers.

Acting president of HTC America claims the iPhone is no longer cool

By chrissyboy6969, Tuesday, Sep 13, 2011 a 5:53 am

100

Martin Fichter, the acting president of HTC America has been talking at the Mobile Future Forward conference in Seattle. He claims that college kids no longer find the iPhone to be cool. The information that he shares is not exactly based on hard facts; he talked with a few of the kids on his daughter’s floor and came to this rather strange conclusion!

Google sells patents to HTC, HTC uses them to sue Apple

By Rene Ritchie, Wednesday, Sep 7, 2011 a 11:06 pm

According to Bloomberg, Google -- who previously never missed an occasion to whine about patents and patent litigation -- seems to have been quietly buying patents of its very own from Palm, Motorola, and Openwave Systems, then sold them to HTC so HTC to use them to sue Apple. Pretty slick.

Does HTC violate Apple patents because Android founder Andy Rubin was inspired by them when he worked at Apple?

By Rene Ritchie, Friday, Sep 2, 2011 a 10:34 pm

Long title, longer legal filing, but the gist is Apple seems to be claiming Android founder Andy Rubin was working for Apple and reporting to the man who filed for a patent on Apple's behalf that Apple is now suing HTC for violating in their Android phones. Even longer:

HTC ramps up the patent suits against Apple

By Rene Ritchie, Tuesday, Aug 16, 2011 a 12:41 pm

Apple sued HTC, HTC counter-sued Apple, and now HTC has sued Apple, again over 3 additional patents in both Mac, and iPhone/iPad platforms. While HTC currently pays Microsoft a reported

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Delaware seeks to halt Apple's importation and sale of infringing products in the United States. It also seeks compensatory damages, triple damages for willful infringement and other remedies.

HTC suit heats up again, Apple replaces lead patent attorney, Samsung tries to replace the rest

By Rene Ritchie, Tuesday, Jul 12, 2011 a 9:02 am

There have been a few interesting developments lately in Apple's ongoing patent disputes with HTC and Samsung, and a switch up inside their own legal team. First, Reuters reports that Richard "Chip" Lutton Junior, the man who was responsible for managing Apple's patent portfolio, is no longer with the company. Now, BJ Watrous, former deputy council for HP, is lists himself as the new guardian of iPhone, iPad, and Mac IP.

Apple will soon have enough cash to buy almost all their competitors

By Rene Ritchie, Friday, Jun 17, 2011 a 6:13 pm

When Apple next announces their financial results, they should have close to $70 billion in the bank, which according to Asymco will be enough to buy all their manufacturing competitors with the exception of Samsung. That includes HTC, Nokia, RIM, LG, Motorola, and Sony Ericsson. (Google and Microsoft aren't manufacturers, they're platform vendors.)

How Apple moved the conversation from iPhone 4 death-touch to industry-wide death-grip

By Rene Ritchie, Monday, Jul 19, 2010 a 11:26 am

One of the greatest tricks Apple pulled off at the iPhone 4 press conference was changing the dialog from death-touch -- a single point of antenna trouble on iPhone 4 -- to death-grip -- a device-wide point of antenna trouble faced by the entire industry.

Apple for their part did cop to making iPhone 4's point of attenuation very external and incredibly visible. Steve Jobs called it "x-marks the spot", but then Apple very quickly moved on from this death-touch to a wider death-grip and demonstrated it on handsets from RIM's BlackBerry to HTC's Droid to Samsung's Windows Mobile.

I initially thought this was a mistake on Apple's part -- that they were spending too much time deflecting onto the competition. Turns out I underestimated Apple, but not as badly as the competition. What Apple very neatly managed to do there was conflate their own widely reported iPhone 4 death-touch into the very real but widely under-reported death-grip phenomena that does indeed affect the entire industry.

What's more, by those very competitors responding that the death-grip either didn't affect their devices, was minimal at best, or wouldn't affect future devices, they cinched it for Apple. They became part of the problem. Why?

HTC responds to Apple over antennagate

By Rene Ritchie, Monday, Jul 19, 2010 a 8:25 am

HTC's Eric Lin has responded in statistical fashion to Apple's iPhone 4 press conference where Steve Jobs showed off a Droid Eris losing singnal when death-gripped:

"Approximately .016% of customers [have complained]. We have had very few complaints about signal or antenna problems on the Eris".

Which could also just mean there hasn't been the attention or scrutiny placed on signal strength attenuation in the past, and again it will be open season now with any number of YouTube videos popping up showing everything from the HTC Droid Eris to HTC Droid Incredible to HTC Nexus One succumbing to the death-grip, just like Apple demonstrated.

However, HTC does have the forethought to warn customers not to touch the spot over their antenna (see image, top).

[Pocket-Lint via Android Central, Daring Fireball, Engadget]