Steve Jobs Think Different
“I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40bn in the bank, to right this wrong,” Jobs told Isaacson. “I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”
And so battle lines were drawn, the infantry lined up and the cavalry charged. In the end the 9 person jury ruled in Apple won the big battle with Samsung over the ‘copying’ of Apple’s design to be used on Samsungs products. Samsung lost and lost big!
In the court case of Apple v Samsung, Samsung will now have to pay Apple $1bn in damages and the deceased genius Steve Jobs can rest easy knowing that he has bragging rights on a design that is the iPhone and his battle with his ultimate enemy Google’s Android will get new energy.
Why this is important is that as technologies merge so will design and design is a funny thing. How can you get away from a smart phone that is a slim rectangle box with curved edges? Clearly designers of phones across the world will have to find away and find away quickly.
As I have said before, if Steve Jobs was a poker player he would be a classic solid tight agressive player as he picks his targets and drills them till he wins. It is amazing that his lawyers have managed to pull of the patent and antitrust judgement of the century. Where does this go now will be interesting to see, especially if Samsung appeals.