Would Steve Jobs have been this snotty?

I was just reading about how a UK court ordered retraction on Apple’s homepage pissed him off, and is ordering Apple to do it again. This time like you mean it.

I find this mildly hilarious.

So anyway, would this be Jobs’ style?

Jobs rarely made missteps that backfired like this. He probably would have intuited or learned somehow that the British court would react as it did and found some other, better way to get the same message across. Like for example in an email to Apple’s employees which somehow managed to leak out and go viral. :wink:

But yeah, I definitely think that Jobs would have bristled at being forced to post such a notice on his company’s website, and that he’d have wanted everyone to know that the British court’s ruling is so far a minority one. Plus he’d very much want people to know that the British court thought Apple’s product design was “cooler” than Samsung’s. Making cool products was always important to Steve.

I like the judge’s snark. He gave Apple 48 hours to post a new statement, Apple asks for 14 days, and the judge says:

I don’t get it. Maybe I could get it back in the '80s and '90s, when Apple was falling way behind, and its fans/users were advocating them because they wanted to see Apple stick around. But it’s 2012. Apple makes more money in one minute than (probably) most of us make in a year.

They don’t need your help. I don’t care that your favorite multi-billion-dollar corporation can beat up my favorite multi-billion-dollar corporation. Honestly, you all sound and act like a 12-year-old douchebag who takes pride in wearing a particular brand of clothes.

WTF are you talking about? Who all sounds like a 12y.o. douchebag? I don’t see any fans/users here advocating or helping them, and nobody is crowing about how Apple is “beating up” other competing companies. If anything, it’s more the opposite.

I’m about as anti-Apple as you can get, but I think you’re tilting at windmills, here.

So they printed the statement that the judge wanted, then printed several other statements of fact- quotes from the British ruling, and descriptions of other countries rulings - and the judge is pissed about that? Does he think he’s Apple’s Dad or something? Fuck that judge. British courts are nuts if they actually force companies to make statements like this.

I’m no big fan of Apple either, but I hope they keep sticking it to that judge. Put up his required statement on the homepage, but with a link to all the other rulings. Unless he’s going to actually put up some kind of gag order that Apple may have NO information anywhere on their website about any other ruling, or the entire text of his own ruling, he can’t do anything about that.

Um, the “apology” is the biggest load of disingenuous shit that I’ve ever read and is clearly written to make it sound like the opposite of what they have been ordered to say. Nobody gives a fuck what courts in Germany or Japan have ruled. Apple are now just suing for the heck of it, in order to stop rival products from gaining market share. I’m glad the British courts are trying to stamp this out.

Sticking it to a High Court judge. What could possibly go wrong with this strategy?

Nope. When in Rome…

If Apple wish to trade in Britain then Apple must abide by British law. They don’t have to like it, they have rights of appeal, but they do have to respect the law. Being a mega company does not make them any better than the most humble citizen.

Plus Apple has been plain contemptuous in this case. Ask yourself how you’d view a British company treating a US court with disrespect? Or how you would expect any company to respond to a similar ruling in China - assuming they wanted to continue trading there?

I didn’t see from the linked article that it was only required to be listed on the UK apple website. There’s no notice I can find now on the UK or the US apple website, so I guess they’re in the 24-48 hour window. I thought they were being required to post it on all their websites - if it’s the UK website only, then I retract my statement - yes, when in Rome, and they should comply with the order.

I also believe they should post their original statement on all non-EU versions of their website (since it appears that the British ruling applies to the entire EU), since I’m guessing non-Brits just might care what a German or US court ruled.

How confusing. This isn’t an Apple vs. PC thing. If you wanted to frame it that way then it’s Apple vs. Samsung, which I’ve never heard of before. I didn’t bother using the name Samsung because it wasn’t what was funny.

Apple acting like a bit of a douchenozzle and getting their dick slapped by a high-ranking judge is funny! This story wrote itself.