Short Circuit: Apple and Samsung’s Love/Hate Relationship Affects Australian Tablet Customers: From Suicidal Employee to Paranoid Android? Electronics News

Apple and Samsung are rapidly becoming the “big two” of smartphones and tablets. A report on Electronics News’ website this week notes that analyst IDC has Apple first in the smartphone sales league with Samsung second. Nokia, RIM and HTC round out the top five.Notably, Samsung posted the largest year-over-year growth of any of this group.In tablet sales, analyst IDC has Samsung in second place in Q1 2011 with its Galaxy Tab, albeit some distance behind Apple’s iPad 2. Notably, IDC says “Android media tablet shipments are likely to triple this year with iOS [Apple] devices maintaining a leadership position in the market”.Samsung, like other manufacturers vying for market share in the tablet computer market, bases its offering on the Android operating system.The smartphone and tablet war is hotting up then, and Apple, not used to having its consumer electronics hegemony challenged, is not resting on its laurels. The result is a fight back that includes every trick in the corporate book, including potentially endless litigation.The latest twist in the saga directly affects the choice of tablet that Australian consumers can purchase. Apple has won an agreement from Samsung that the South Korean company won’t sell the newest version of its tablet computer here until a patent lawsuit is resolved.Apple says the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 infringes ten Apple patents, including the “look and feel”, and touchscreen technology of the iPad, states a report on Bloomsberg Businessweek.The patent litigation must be particularly galling for Samsung executives considering the company has played a significant part in Apple’s success by manufacturing chips for it, including the iPad-, iPhone 4- and iPod touch-powering A4 chip, and the A5 used in the latest iPad 2.Even that relationship is souring with Apple looking at a new supplier for previously Samsung-sourced chips according to a Reuters report. The report notes that swapping one supplier for another won’t be easy though as Samsung holds some key patents on the technology used to manufacture the chips it makes for Apple.Your correspondent is a fan of Apple’s products – the Saint’s household is full of the company’s computers and iPods – but he’s not a fan of the way it goes about its business. There is something faintly sinister about Apple’s obsession with secrecy and tight control of its technology. Latterly, your correspondent has questioned whether the company’s ubiquity may lead to its eventual downfall as consumers tire of Apple’s closed community.As Electronics News reader ‘Nishant’ puts it on a comment against the original news item: “Apple’s mobile products [are closed] platforms. This is where Apple is making the same mistake again something that it did with the initial MacOS [computer operating systems] - tightly coupling hardware and software and not allowing interoperability.“My take is that Apple will lose this battle, and this may be the point of inflection in Apple's fortunes,” adds Nishant.And now that Apple has turned to litigation that directly affects Australian consumer choice, your correspondent wonders whether things haven’t gone just a little too far. It’s entirely possible that – even if Samsung wins the lawsuit - the Galaxy Tab 10.1 will never see the light of an Australian day.It’s not for the Saint to comment on whether Apple has a case. Certainly, if Samsung has infringed Apple patents then it shouldn’t be allowed to gain commercial advantage. But it does seem more than a coincidence that the accusations have started flying at the time that the South Korean company has made significant inroads into Apple’s market share. (Recently, Google has even questioned whether Apple is using patents in a ‘dirty tricks’ campaign against Android.)And it’s definitely not right that Australians can’t buy what could turn out to be a perfectly legitimate product.

From Suicidal Employee to Paranoid Android?

Elsewhere this week, Electronics News reports that giant contract manufacturer Foxconn is taking a radical approach to its widely-reported problems with employee suicides.The Chinese company – famous for assembling Apple’s iPhones and other consumer electronics products – is recruiting an army of robots to take over the menial assembly tasks previously performed by migrant workers from the country’s rural areas.Upwards of one million automatons will be in place by 2015, says the report.A mischievous thought crossed the Saint’s mind on reading this news item: what if one million robots gathered together was a sufficient critical mass for them to become self-aware? From that point to realising that the work there were performing was utter drudgery would be but a small step.Foxconn’s problem could change from one of human misery to unhappiness of the android kind.The Saint is reminded of Marvin, a “paranoid android” from the late Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Marvin’s intellect was so vast that no task – no matter how complicated – was enough to exercise more that a tiny fraction of his mind. Consequently, Marvin spent most of his time, if not exactly paranoid, then at least manically depressed.Assembling iPads will probably not overly tax the intelligence of Foxconn’s robots either. But at least the company should avoid the sight of legions of mechanical men leaping from the factory roof by expediently bolting them to the floor before turning on the power. 
Short Circuit: Apple and Samsung's Love/Hate Relationship Affects Australian Tablet Customers: From Suicidal Employee to Paranoid Android? Electronics News