Cult of Mac: “Patent troll Lodsys has been suing iOS indie developers for using Apple’s own in-app purchasing mechanism. Sleazily, the company has claimed that they had no choice but to go after the little guy because Apple refused to cough up an App-Store-wide patent license.”
Apple could step in here and be a real knight in shining armor. They could offer to pay villainous scum Lodsys out of their 30% take from In App Purchase.
We’ll see.
Engadget: “Though it’s very unlikely that Cupertino won’t offer assistance, devs will also be able to turn to EFF for advice, where they may even be paired with pro bono patent attorneys. Besides offering this bit of good news, Samuels was able to help us dig deeper into Lodsys, and the dirty business of patent suits.”
Well, there’s a bit of a silver lining, I think.
I’m sorry, I just had to post this. Wil is very well known in the Mac Development world, and a real stud coder. Anywho, he’s gone off on the knuckleheads at Lodsys. Via Twitter. Enjoy, I know I did.
Lodsys: “No, that’s not what’s happening. Apple is licensed for its nameplate products and services.”
The bottom line. If you’re an iOS developer using In App Purchase, or IAP, you should remove it immediately and remove any links that take users of your FREE version to the App Store, apparently a simple button is enough to get a letter.
SLIME BALLS.
The good new is Lawyers like this burn in hell, they really do. There’s a special placed reserved for them. They’ll get theirs.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. –
H. G. Bohn, 1855
Lodsys: “There are lots of bills in life that it would be preferable to not pay if one didn’t have to. Lodsys is just trying to get value for assets that it owns, just like each and every company selling products or services is, trying to do business and make a profit. Its odd that some of the companies that received notices had such a visceral reaction. Some of these companies have our favorite apps, for which we paid the asking price. We realize you have to get paid for your work and so do we.”
The Troll responds.
Their extortion fee is 0.575%.
What’s really bogus about this is they’re looking to shake out fees for “past usage.” Even if they could collect today it’s not very nice to turn someone upside down and shake them until coins fall from their pockets.
Our patent system1 is completely busted. Like in this case. There’s a guy sitting somewhere trying to collect fees for doing NOTHING. Oh, sure, the shell company bought a patent from someone else, but they didn’t actually do the inventing. He’s probably an ex divorce lawyer or used car salesman. I’m sure there are many fine folks in East Texas, but why would you want to share where you live with vermin like this?
1. Disclaimer: I’m actually a co-author on a patent. I also asked to be removed from other patents, after this one, because I believe they’re not used the way they were intended.
Rolling Stone: “They weren’t murderers or anything; they had merely stolen more money than most people can rationally conceive of, from their own customers, in a few blinks of an eye. But then they went one step further. They came to Washington, took an oath before Congress, and lied about it.”
Can someone please, please, explain to me why these thieves aren’t serving time? It’s time to pay the piper.
With all the hubbub surrounding the Terms of Service changes at TwitPic I thought I’d share how to configure Twitterrific to use a hot new photo sharing site, mlkshk.
Sorry, I don’t have an iPad, but they should be similar.
First off Twitterrific doesn’t have its configuration settings inside the application. You’ll need to tap the Home button and locate the Setting’s App Icon.
Step #1: Tap the Settings Icon.
Step #2: Scroll down until you find Twitterrific, then tap it. This will open the Twitterrific Settings.
Step #3: Scroll down to Advanced. Tap it.
Step #4: Scroll down to URL, tap the edit field, and type “https://mlkshk.com/upload” minus the quotes, you’re all done! Congratulations! When you add a photo to a tweet it will now show up in your mlkshk Shake.
Step #1: Start Twitterrific.
Step #2: Select Twitterrific > Preferences…
Step #3: In the “Custom Upload Service” edit field type “https://mlkshk.com/upload” minus the quotes, you’re all done!
The reason this works is both The Icon Factory and mlkshk saw fit to support the TwitPic upload API.
The Guardian: Florian Mueller, who closely watches developents in smartphones and patent claims, analysed the claims by H-W Technology and commented: “What’s really disconcerting about this lawsuit is that it’s the first such lawsuit to attack – besides operating system vendors and device makers, which are routinely sued by patent holders – a number of companies because of their smartphone apps. I’m really afraid we’re now going to see more patent lawsuits against application developers. Hopefully this won’t ever affect little guys who can’t afford to defend themselves, but if there’s a major company behind an app, or if an app is commercially very successful, it can happen and it has now apparently started to happen.”
This story contains details related to my earlier post. Darned patent trolls.
Good morning movie line fans! We had some guesses yesterday, but I think the contestants were thrown by the spider reference! It’s well known that Ron Weasley is scared to death of spiders. We find that out in Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets, but yesterday’s line was from one of the movies, and you know how movies are, they don’t stick to the book!
The correct answer was…
See you next Thursday.
It’s a beautiful day here in San Luis Obispo, the sun is out and there’s a cool breeze blowing, but there’s something bad afoot in the iOS Development world.
As of this writing two Indie iOS Developers, James Thomson and Patrick McCarron, have been hit with patent infringement papers. The really strange thing is they’re going after the developers, not Apple. In app purchase seems to be what triggered the threat.
From Twitter
Hopefully Apple will step in and help them out.