"It's all downhill from here"

Things aren't looking too good for Apple Computer, the world's most profitable technology company.  On October 18th, Apple lost an appeal against Samsung over patents relating to the iPad (particularly, whether Samsung's Galaxy Tab infringed upon patents Apple holds for the iPad).  A UK judge ruled that Apple's lawsuit was unreasonable, and said that Apple would have to post an apology on their UK website for a minimum of six months.  Apple did post the apology as demanded, but did so in an obnoxious fashion (is anyone surprised?)

Now, the UK courts have said that what Apple did wasn't good enough.  Shortly their after, Apple was ordered to re-write the apology in a less condescending fashion.  They did this, but then went out of their way to hide the apology at the bottom of the website (cleverly employing re-sizing code so that, by default, it was always hidden).  Now, a UK judge has really gotten tired of Apple's nonsense, and has ordered Apple to pay a fine.  The judge described Apple's moves as "false and misleading" and ordered Apple to repay Samsung's legal costs.  Hopefully, this will be enough to get Apple to actually behave--although given it's August victory over Samsung in the United States, we can't be completely sure of this.

Beyond this British legal battle, there's still more trouble ahead.  Apple has agreed to pay a Swiss railway $21.05 million in compensation for stealing their clock design.  Apple stock is already down 22% from its peak this year after failing to meet investor forecasts.  High-up Apple figures have recently said that it's "all down hill from here" in terms of the company's performance.  There have been multiple changes in Apple's policy/direction lately, and not necessarily for the better.  With iOS 6, Apple dumped Google Maps for its own, inferior, product.  Even in face of consumer backlash, it still didn't back down--preferring to offer a worse experience over a competitor's products.  Furthermore, and perhaps more challenging in the long run, Apple's latest products have been severely disappointing in terms of improvements.  While the new iPhone 5 and iPad 4 are selling remarkably well, they're both very much quickly-released incremental upgrades over the previous versions.  This has not slowed down Apple, which still brands them as the best thing since sliced bread: "I don't think the level of invention has been matched by anything we've ever done", "This is the biggest thing to happen to iPhone since the iPhone."  Consumers realize that the new iPhones have little to offer, with the Samsung Galaxy SIII sales topping those of the iPhone 4S.

To me, this tastes like Justice.