Apple sour over ownership dispute

Man, is the fur flying.

Apple announced it's going to sue cell phone manufacturer HTC for infringing on twenty patents that are "related to the iPhone's user interface and underlying architecture and hardware."

Some of the other patents include an "object-oriented multitasking system", an "extensible, replaceable network component system" and a "method and apparatus for distributing events in an operating system".

Well, doesn't that last patent sound like… um… what's the word… A COMPUTER?!

Another one of the patents is "unlocking a locked touchscreen". Yes, unlocking a locked touchscreen. How does one patent that?

How about I patent the movement of moving my hand when I open a door? Now you have to pay me to enter your home. Game's over, losers! I have all the money! Muhahahaha!

So what does Steve Jobs think about all of this?

"We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We've decided to do something about it," said Steve Jobs. "We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours."

Wait, doesn't that sound familiar? Well it should, because Nokia is being accused of the same thing and Apple also called out Palm as well, though it hasn't led to a lawsuit... yet.

Most of the phones that would be filed under these patent infringements are running the Google OS called Android. Now there is a lot of history between Android and Apple.

First of all, Apple asked Google not to include multitouch in their newest phone: the Nexus One. Google complied.

When Apple took a jab at the Nexus One claiming that it wasn't as good as the iPhone, Google pushed out an update for the Android OS that enabled multitouch on the Nexus One.

Granted, Apple has a patent on multitouch capabilities but it isn't a strong patent and can be worked around; thus the ability for Google to release out such an update without fear of repercussions.

Now currently, the Nexus One is only available on T-Moble, but it is going to be released on the Verizon network later this month.

These two are the best smartphones on the market.

100 percent hands down.

From a statistic point of view, the Nexus One is a more powerful phone. And the Verizon network, from a statistic point of view, has more coverage and better customer support than AT&T.

Everyone has horror stories from Verizon or AT&T so that isn't the fairest of reasons why the Nexus One is better than the iPhone, or vice versa.

From a pure data standpoint, the Nexus One has a leg up on the iPhone.

So, jumping back on topic, why is Apple waiting till now to jump after HTC?

Well the Nexus One is only available on the T-Mobile platform as stated above.

Three days prior to all of this, Verizon confirmed that the Nexus One will hit their network on March 23, which means this superior smartphone is about to hit a much larger and better network this month.

Is Steve Jobs starting to sweat a little bit?

Possibly.

Or is it going back to the fact that Apple and Google have a history; a history that includes such stupid stunts as any app that mentions the Android market in its descriptor, to be declined on the iTunes app store.

And, get ready for this, a new phone from Motorola, the Backflip, was released to the media for a demo and early review.

What reviewers didn't expect to find was that AT&T (AKA Apple's network) has had the Google search widget removed and replaced with a Yahoo search.

It is impossible to use Google on this new Android phone on the AT&T network.

So here we have Android, Google's open source OS, and AT&T is just slapping them in the face.

They are taking advantage of a FREE operating system which Google opened up to the world, and then removed their search functionality from it.

That takes a lot of guts.

Currently Gmail, Google Maps and all other Google services are intact, but rumors are spreading that they may go as well.

I have a feeling that this feud isn't over.

There will be many more columns about this to come.