Just to be clear, there has been no "result" of any kind. Nothing has been won or lost by anyone. This is a front page story about an anonymous request that an Apple patent be reexamined. The summary clearly states that the USPTO won't even make a decision regarding whether to reexamine until next year. This is the definition if a non-story.

OK, seems to be some misinformation going around.

Syncing one account to multiple devices belonging to family members is almost certainly not Copyright Infringement. While I haven't read the Google Play TOS, I assume that it and iTunes are actually pretty similar with Apple likely being only slightly more restrictive if at all. You can authorize up to 5 different computers (or separate user accounts on a single computer) with an iTunes Store Account and any of these computers/separate user accounts will be able to play DRMed content (Books, Movies, TV Shows, etc.) purchased with the associated iTunes Store Account and sync that content to an unlimited (I think, definitely a bunch) number of iDevices for playback. This does not apply to music anymore though because it doesn't have DRM and so can, theoretically, be given to as many family members, or even complete strangers if you enjoy the pirating of music (which would be Copyright Infringement), as you'd like and no copy of iTunes nor any iDevice will have anything to say about it.

You can have up to 10 iDevices authorized for a single iTunes Store Account, and all of these devices will be able to download all of the same stuff (i.e., using "iTunes in the Cloud") for no additional cost. So, buy once and you're good.

Also, there's two ways to manually manage music. There's actual manual management where you drag and drop each item of media that gets added to the iDevice, and there's manual management of syncing which allows you to choose what will be automatically synced in a more flexible manner. So, you can have it sync only specific genres, artists, albums, or specific songs, as well as only unwatched movies or TV shows, or only the x newest episodes of a show. It's really pretty flexible and customizable, especially considering it comes from Apple. While you're right that the default is "Sync Everything," doing so is by no means the only option.

That wouldn't do what you claim it does. The reasons are a bit convoluted, but basically, there are two ways to manage an iDevice through iTunes: 1) Automatic Syncing and 2) Manually Managing it.

If you have it set to auto-sync, then it ties your device to a specific computer, and if you plug it into any other computer, a warning will pop up in iTunes that says, "Hey, this iDevice belongs to another computer, if you sync it here you lose everything and start over," and gives you options to cancel, sync & erase, or transfer over purchased songs that the computer is authorized to play (e.g., iTunes has the iTunes Store Account info for already) but that aren't already actually present on the computer. None of these would lead to duplicate tracks on your computer. Do nothing and the phone will charge while the dialog is up. Hit cancel and the phone will charge without syncing. It's simply not possible for the type of syncing you describe to happen in the "helpful" manner you describe. Also, in this scenario you can't transfer a single song to the user's iDevice since all syncing is automatic.

Then there's manual management. Here, it never syncs unless you tell it to. In this case, simply plugging in the device would not cause a sync operation at all. You could (on all devices except iPhones and Shuffles), copy over a single track from your library to there iDevice in this scenario, but it wouldn't copy anything to your computer without you manually dragging it from the iDevice to your Library in iTunes.

So basically, nothing you said makes much sense. Active intervention from the user is required to make their iDevice do anything at all with a copy of iTunes that is not their own, period. That's not to say that you didn't at some point run into a bug that led to multiple copies of tracks, but it's not happening the way you claim. iTunes just doesn't work that way.

I'm not sure where these numbers are coming from in general. Apple doesn't breakdown sales by device type, but did announce over 26 million iPhone sales in their fiscal Q3 2012 which ended in July, and 26.9 million in their fiscal Q4 2012 which ended a few weeks ago. Either way, the iPhone 4S number is pure analyst speculation since that data is not available.

You're describing pull to refresh, not rubber banding. It's a different, but I would agree somewhat related, idea than the rubber band effect, and Twitter actually owns the pull to refresh patent, not Apple.

Rubber banding is when you get to the end of a scroll view, the view continues to scroll a bit past where it's supposed to while showing a generic background (it's now the grey linen on iOS, can't remember what it used to be), then bounces back to the top of the screen. This provides a visual indicator that you've reached the end of the scrollable area.

I won't argue that this should be a patentable idea, but if it were only "eye candy" and not functional in some way every other smart phone maker wouldn't be trying to/have already implemented (and removed for fear of litigation in the case of Android) it.

Doesn't the fact that the content doesn't scroll at all (i.e., that there is no rubber banding effect) provide the exact same information? You'd still have to make an "impotent attempt to scroll" to see the rubber band effect so it really doesn't save any steps, and iOS is generally responsive enough that if it doesn't scroll when you try you know that that's on purpose and not the OS lagging behind input.

People keep saying this in reference to the current Maps brouhaha, but it completely ignores the facts that a) Maps have been included in iOS for a really long time and b) there are already many, many other mapping apps available on the App Store despite this fact.

That being said I can't tell if these commenters are just ignorant or actively spreading FUD.

No, you don't. If you take a minute to RTFA you'll see this:

They chose to use NFC for the novelty effect. This could just as easily have been done via a malicious website.

Yes both vulnerabilities suck, but they are not equal. For instance, the iOS attack allowed the stealing of contacts, pictures, video, and browsing history. Things that are supposed to be protected in iOS, but in this case weren't sufficiently so. The Android attack allowed the execution of arbitrary code. These two things are not the same, though both definitely need to be fixed ASAP. And to be fair, JB may have already patched the holes in Android, provided people can actually get it on their phones this is a really good thing.

So what you're actually saying is that Motorola sued Apple first, which is indeed what actually happened, but that this is somehow OK because Motorola knew that Apple would sue them? So firing the first volley is fine in their case, but had Apple done it, as is constantly falsely asserted here and elsewhere, then it would have been a horrible offensive move and representative of just how evil and greedy they are. Do you even understand how incredibly illogical and biased of a stance that is?

The reality is, for anyone who actually cares (which appears to be very few anymore), that Nokia started all of this by suing Apple. Apple then sued HTC who turned around almost immediately and signed a licensing agreement with Microsoft to avoid a lawsuit there before countersuing Apple. Then Motorola sued Apple. That's the sequence of events. Motorola invited themselves to the dance, they weren't dragged in kicking and screaming.

Android started out as a Blackberry Clone. Eric Schmidt was on the Apple board. Android ended up (upon consumer release) as an iOS clone. (And yes I realize it wasn't yet called iOS). Arguments against this show at least as much bias as I'm sure people will claim that I'm showing, and I'd argue more. Apple was, I personally think, understandably unhappy about this fact. Android gained a foothold because it blatantly copied paradigms popularized by iOS. (Don't link to the LG Prada, I've seen it. We all know it existed. Nobody cared about it and Android most definitely wasn't aiming to be the next LG Prada. Saying the LG Prada was comparable to the first iPhone is ridiculous, and anybody who takes a minute to think about it realizes this to be true.)

Steve Jobs especially seemed to feel that Eric Schmidt abused his location on the Apple board to steal ideas from Apple. I'm wont to agree, but I realize that just saying that probably makes me a "fanboi" in the eyes of many, so I'm sure I'm wasting my breath.

Jobs is pissed. Again, this is understandable from my point of view. Jobs doesn't like being stolen from sothermonuclear it is.

Time passes, Android begins to largely look and function very differently from iOS, unless you're Samsung, in which case that whole "looking different" thing is really, really new. But current Android is not the point. How Android became a force in the world of smartphone OSes is.

So, the newly created (i.e., in the last year or two) differences do not excuse the fact that Android built its popularity and based its technology on the iPhone and iOS. It's important to remember that when the iPhone was released multitudes of people, especially here on /., were chiming in claiming that it was a worthless toy. "No hardware keyboard? What a joke!" was a popular refrain. Funny how you don't hear that any more.

The entire smartphone landscape today is a result of the work that Apple did to popularize (note: not invent) this modality. For some reason there's this belief that Apple deserves no credit for this, that good ideas should be free for all. I'd be pissed too if people claimed that what I did was "common sense" once it became popular after spending so much time shitting on the work that I'd done.

Should Apple be suing? Well, looking at the landscape today they probably shouldn't. But looking at the landscape when most of these lawsuits were filed? Hell yes they should. You can't compare ICS or Jellybean to the state of Android when Apple filed suit. Google's done a ton of work to differentiate in that time, and this work is almost certainly a result of the fact that they knew they'd copied iOS.

So, Apple feels cheated. They feel like they put a lot of time and effort into developing both an idea and a platform that they should have had, at the very least, a year or two to monopolize. No one else should have even had a clue what was being cooked up inside Apple's labs. But there was Eric Schmidt, coming along to spoil their party. Who else was able to respond to the iPhone so quickly? Why do you think that is? Were RIM and Microsoft caught with their pants down because they don't employ intelligent people? Or because they didn't have an inside man? I'd argue the latter.

So now they're suing. They're saying, "Hey, wait a minute. All of this popularity that Android is experiencing has nothing to do with hard work. It has to do with the fact that they copied our ideas and were able to GIVE THEM AWAY because, in reality, smartphone OSes do not contribute to Google's bottom line, search does. So they screwed us. Eric Schmidt screwed us, and that's not the way the world's supposed to work. He stole our stuff so that he could give it away for search revenue. Google didn't do any R&D on Android's touch screen interface. They stole ours. We're going to destroy these guys! Android doesn't deserve to exist."

This is an eminently reasonable position, and I support Apple's fighting for their ideals. Do I like the way that they're doing it? No, I don't, but what choice do they have? These are the tools our legal systems have provided them. If they're going to protect the work they did, it has to be with ridiculous patents. Besides, when they point out how blatantly Samsung in particular copied their aesthetic it gets reduced to "a rectangle with rounded corners" by the idiots who don't take time to think about what's actually happening.

So now Apple's in a position to be fighting against an Android that is largely different from iOS, but probably wouldn't exist at all in any popular form if its original incarnations had not so closely mirrored the iOS experience. It's quite a shitty position to be in if you think about it.

I almost hate myself for responding to this, but

I'm not defending iAds, I'm saying that the commenter I responded to was wrong. Those are different things.

Also, Android (read the other major player in smartphone OSes and therefore the most reasonable thing to be comparing iOS to) didn't support alphanumeric passwords until version 2.2 in, wait for it, 2010.

I think I am looking at it objectively.

What in the world are you even talking about? They didn't log "GPS Coordinates" and the logs that people did get all upset about that contained information about cell tower locations were stored on you phone and in the backups on your computer. That's not exactly "publicly accessible."

And you're confused about the ad thing. You can turn off location (GPS) based ads right on the device. Just to to Settings --> Location Services --> System Services and toggle "Location-Based iAds" to Off. You DO have to go to a website to opt out of interest-based ads from iAd, but this is no different than any other ad company.

And you are aware that iOS has supported complex passwords (i.e., any combination of letters, numbers, and special characters that you'd like) since iOS 4.0 which came out in June of 2010, right?

So basically not a single thing that you said is true.

Not sure why you think this. If you have access to an iPhone backup (encrypted or not) you almost certainly have access to the UDID already since backups are store (on OS X) in ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/[iPhone UDID]/[Actual Data]

(It's similar on Windows in that it also includes the UDID in the folder name, but I don't know the full path off the top of my head.)

Anyone getting to the actual data would be able to see the UDID in the folder name that contains the data.

Also, let's not forget that before iOS 5 developers were able to use UDIDs as identifiers when apps were downloaded. So lots and lots of developers have this same information on lots and lots of users in databases of their own. In my mind, it seems pretty ridiculous to think that Apple would have given developers carte blanche to collect information that is an integral part of the phone's encryption protocol.

That's not to say this isn't a privacy problem, but I don't think it could affect the strength of the encryption on or off the phone in any ways, shape, or form.

It's simply not true that Launchpad gets "added back." I removed it in Lion and it's never returned. I also remove it for others all the time (by simply dragging it out of the Dock) and have never had anyone tell me it got automatically added back. Perhaps this has something to do with the set up at your work automatically putting it back (is it a managed environment?) but this is not a feature of the OS by any means. You remove something from the Dock and it stays gone.

That being said, I don't know why people make Launchpad such a big issue. Launchpad is an application. Nothing more. Just don't use it. It's not difficult. Launching apps in the traditional manner still works just fine. I do it every day. Nothing was "decided from on high" or forced upon you. I thought more options were a plus with the Slashdot crowd, anyway. Isn't Apple constantly being shit on for not providing users with options? Apparently when they do provide options that's a problem too.

I'm not in a position to comment on HiDPI other than to say that it hasn't been implemented by everyone yet. I plan to read the Mozilla bug, and so will leave it at that. That being said, Apple at least seems to be the closest to having a HiDPI solution for the desktop when compared to its competitors. I'll prepare myself to eat crow on this one though once I've read all of the facts.

Also, I agree fully that menu bar support on multiple monitors is pretty broken. I'll also point out that 99% of computer (not just Mac) users don't have multiple monitors. (Yes, I pulled that number out of nowhere, but I feel like it's within 5% of the truth.) Therefore it's obviously not a priority for Apple. Should they fix it? Of course. Will they? It's not super likely. This is a legitimate reason not to use OS X. If it's a deal breaker for you then you should definitely move to something else. I think Apple would agree.

(I know I'm rude in this post, but this stuff just gets incredibly frustrating and ridiculous.)

Alright, another uninformed user (note that I'm being nice and assuming that you're not a troll.)

Most important point first, then I'll deal with the rest of your (apparently) uninformed complaints. You can "by default" download and run any apps you want provided that they are "signed" apps. You can have qualms with this fact all you want, but this is not the same as saying you can only run apps from the Mac App Store. Not even almost. Basically every Mac developer has, at this point, begun singing their apps using the Apple Developer Program. Install any and all of these apps that you'd like and "by default" you will have no problems. (To clarify, the preference for this gives 3 options: Allow applications downloaded from: a) Mac App Store, b) Mac App Store and identified developers, and c) Anywhere. "b" is the default. It's a single toggle to change it to "c".) Complain about the reality of "b" if you disagree with it, don't spread FUD.

Notifications are completely configurable. Go to System Preferences-->Notifications (Oh, I see, they hid it?). Turn on/off whatever you want. Too difficult? Want it all turned off without going to System Preferences? Open the notification center, scroll UP and toggle "Show banners and alerts" to Off. Not exactly a difficult procedure. I actually find Notifications to be incredibly useful, and I think many agree. (And it's not like they don't exist on Windows. Ever gotten an email in Outlook? That box that pops up is a notification.)

Natural scrolling is definitely different, but by no means inherently worse. Just because it's not what you're used to doesn't make it bad. Give it a try for a week and if you still hate it you can, well, turn it off. No harm, no foul.

And you're angry about the "one menu bar for all apps" after installing Mountain Lion? This is a fundamental part of OS X. In fact, it's been a fundamental part of Mac OS since forever ago. How did this just begin to annoy you? Oh, right. It didn't. You either don't use Macs or didn't "just install Mountain Lion," because Lion, Snow Leopard, Leopard, Tiger, etc. all had the exact same behavior with regards to menu bars. You're being ridiculous.

The Spaces (i.e., switching workspaces) animations are, indeed, useless for power users. I'd argue that the animation is helpful for novices/non-power users, but this is a legitimate complaint (albeit seemingly your only one.) Almost any other animation in OS X Mountain Lion either can be turned off, or doesn't actually slow things down (that is, you can perform actions during the animation and the OS will capture and apply them when the animation is done.) And I know you aren't the one that said this, but in Mountain Lion the rearranging of Spaces by most recently used is a simple checkbox. Turn it on or off as you'd like. Again, no harm, no foul.

Launchpad is indeed useless. Drag it out of the Dock and don't use the keyboard/mouse shortcuts for it. It's by no means being forced upon you. Calm yourself down. And Mission Control is probably one of the most useful features ever introduced. Microsoft (who you're obviously partial to) tried to ape Expose (the predecessor to Mission Control) starting with Vista, so they obviously felt it had some use. Mission Control is infinitely better than Expose was (and Expose was always better then the funky 3D window scrolling version Microsoft implemented.) What is it exactly about having a keyboard/mouse shortcut that gives you a graphical overview of every window you have open organized by application that angers you so? I'm truly confused by this. Also, again, the OS is completely usable without this feature. It's not forced upon you.

I also don't like saving things to iCloud. This is easy to avoid for power users. For novices, it's likely a feature.

I've spent way too much time responding to this ridiculousness, but, again, am incredibly frustrated by the number of people who make unfounded comments against Apple. It makes it really difficult to have an honest conversation about the pros and cons of various approaches, which is, really, what we should be striving to do.