@RTWright, sharing your same 70's-80's background, I find your statements quite rough. @zepfhyr anticipated my same remarks, but I beg your pardon if I can't see no real foundation throughout your observations - particularly for the legal ones. As proved, Samsung denied fair Apple offers for their patents, while secretly copying, copying and copying them at the same time. Whatever one may speculate about the Patent Office, fact is that Apple always paid for such stuff, since Jobs visiting the Palo Alto labs in 1979. There are very good reasons to patent something, and one of those relates with the ethics of work, which to me it's a matter of values, really. When you pay for patents or licenses, you respect the work of people spending all of their knowledge and time to do new, great things. There are requirements to patent. And what is called patent infringement in the US, it was called "similarity" in Samsungland (South Korea). "Problem you have is that all of you see and think Apple created all of this and they didn't." ...Really? Then who made the computer personal: IBM, Xerox, or Apple? 🙂 Do you remember the work from the so-called Lisa group that Gates later ripped for himself? Or do you remember the Newton, RTWright? It seems not. And if one used your same logics, should say that you build systems whose components are made by others and that you don't make nothing good, right? You also talk about "exaggerated costs", but at Apple graphics designers do (great) graphics designing - and not part-time jobs while assembling coffee machines. There is research, development, manufacturing, and a lots of other factors involved, included marketing, in a Apple price. But a very high final customer satisfaction. Can you tell about these reasons? Because denying all of these things, shows ignorance. And also a lack of basics that a true professional could not afford. Before Apple, Samsung copied RIM, copied Palm, and aware of copying the iPhone, they started copying the Apple Store; now even the OS X Dock, too. But despite of all, Samsung is showing the same old approach of Microsoft, who really thought that it was Apple to copy from them 😀 To put it differently, please tell me if your work is copyrighted or not. And why. Then please tell me why you build computers. And why. Apple or not, you sounded like a graphics designer and photographer which rigs up computers. And if you pass me the joke, that's not really a proper benchmark 😉 If there was no Apple, and the hard work of many, many talented guys, you'd probably not build any system for any customers: not even speculating around.