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Talkcast tonight: Legal eagles coming home to roost
Tonight on the Talkcast, we'll recap and review the surprisingly rapid -- and, for Apple, refreshingly positive -- verdict in the US patent infringement trial. Samsung's pocketbook may end up lighter, but there are months of appeals and aftermath ahead. Our special guest Jeff Gamet of The Mac Observer will chime in with his observations. We'll also be looking ahead to the back-to-school season and the eagerly anticipated (but as yet unconfirmed) September product introductions. Got a favorite next-gen iPhone rumored feature? Whisper it in our ear. To participate in the call, you can use the browser-only Talkshoe client, the embedded Facebook app, or download the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client; however, for +5 Interactivity, you should call in. For the web UI, just click the Talkshoe Web button on our profile page at 4 HI/7 PDT/10 pm EDT Sunday. To call in on regular phone or VoIP lines (Viva free weekend minutes!): dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 -- during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *8. If you've got a headset or microphone handy on your Mac, you can connect via the free X-Lite or other SIP clients -- basic instructions are here. Skype users with dial-out credit can call in via the service, or use those free iPhone minutes. Talk to you tonight! Listen to the show using the widget below.
ATD: Samsung could have licensed Apple patents in 2010
Sitting through a patent trial day after day is a tough assignment for AllThingsD's Ina Fried, as today's technical testimony led the judge to inquire of the jury if anyone needed caffeine. But the flip side of the eyelid-drooping legal process is the occasional scoop. Tonight ATD reports that Samsung had an opportunity to license Apple patents at a per-device fee way back in 2010. Apple executives had told Samsung brass that the Korean company's phones and tablets were infringing Apple IP in the summer of 2010. Keeping in mind that Samsung was (and remains) a key Apple parts supplier, the US company apparently swallowed hard and made an offer to cross-license relevant patents in October 2010. "Samsung chose to embrace and imitate Apple's iPhone archetype," reads Apple's presentation to Samsung. "Apple would have preferred that Samsung request a license to do this in advance. Because Samsung is a strategic supplier to Apple, we are prepared to offer a royalty-bearing license for this category of device" (emphasis Apple's). Samsung would have owed royalties of $30 on each affected phone and $40 per tablet (dipping to $30 per over 2 years), with some steep discount options. Samsung's entire line of touchscreen phones would have come under the proposed agreement, including Symbian and Bada phones in addition to Android-based units. Apple estimated the total 2010 license payments at US$250 million, noting that "[these] figures pale in comparison to Apple-Samsung's balance-of-trade." You can read the whole deck here, and it's fascinating. Given the high costs of litigation, expert witnesses and adverse publicity from the ongoing dispute -- balanced out with the advantage of being free and clear, worldwide, from injunctions and patent challenges from Apple -- it all makes one believe that maybe Samsung should have thought longer and harder about taking the deal. (For a giggle, check out slide 17 -- as Mark Gurman points out, Apple's "iPhone 4" looks a lot like it's showing the screen of an original iPhone instead...) Photo by kasia | flickr cc
Court lifts the curtain on iPhone, iPad US sales numbers
In the deluge of documents, inside baseball and offbeat revelations emerging from Judge Lucy Koh's courtroom as the Apple/Samsung trial proceeds, there are some genuine gems. AllThingsD's Ina Fried points out a pair of disclosures that reveal, in finer detail than either company would like, the extent of Samsung and Apple's phone and tablet sales in the USA. The numbers aren't entirely (forgive me) apples to Apples, since Samsung's phone lines are broken out by device in granular fashion and the company's sales numbers only go back to 2010 in this disclosure; Apple counts "iPhone" as one product regardless of model, and the counts go all the way to 2007. These numbers also only account for the US, so Samsung and Apple's international sales don't enter into the equation. Nevertheless, comparing Samsung's domestic phone revenue to Apple's from June 2010 to June 2012, Fried comes up with US$7.5B in revenue for Samsung, and my math shows a total of about $36B for Apple -- nearly five times as much. The higher average selling price of the iPhone contributes heavily to this disparity, as the iPhone only outsold Samsung's overall units by ~60 million to 21.25m in the same period. On the tablet side, the entire Galaxy Tab line generated $644M in domestic revenue since its introduction in late 2010. Nothing to sneeze at, certainly, but the iPad's US sales since 2010? $19 billion -- 29 times higher than Samsung's tablet number. In fact, the entire multiyear sales arc of the Galaxy Tab is eclipsed by the iPod touch, the underappreciated little sibling of the iOS product line... in the first six months of 2012 alone. ($765 million in iPod touch US sales for Q1 + Q2 2012.) Another intriguing point on the iPhone sales curve in the States is that in its best quarter to date (Q4 2011, immediately following the introduction of the iPhone 4S) Apple sold 15 million iPhones accounting for revenue of about $9.4 billion. That one quarter alone surpassed the totals for the entire 2010 calendar year (14M units, $8B revenue). Meanwhile, 2012 is still tracking ahead of 2011, and September 12 is getting closer and closer. Photo by kasia | flickr cc #next_pages_container { width: 5px; hight: 5px; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px; z-index: 2147483647 !important; }
Switched On: The 2011 Switchies
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. It's that special time of year between the post-holiday sales and the pre-CES hype that presents an opportunity to consider some of the most innovative devices of the year. Switched On is proud to present the Saluting Wares Improving Technology's Contribution to Humanity awards, also known as The Switchies. This year marks the sixth annual Switchies, which are decided based on a rigorous examination of the opinion of me, and do not reflect the opinion of Engadget or its editors. For that latter honor, nominees will need to win an Engadget Award. Let's roll out the red carpet then.
