Apple seems to have resorted to technological tricks to obscure its court-ordered apology to Samsung after losing the latest round of the ongoing patent battle.
Regardless of how tall the browser window is or how dense the screen resolution, visitors to Apple's UK Web site must scroll all the way down the page if they want to view the "apology" to Samsung. Apparently, Apple has implemented a new JavaScript code that pushes the mea culpa out of sight, out of mind.
As first noted by users on popular site Reddit, within the past few weeks Apple has installed new JavaScript code that dynamically resizes the central image on the Web site so it takes up the maximum amount of space possible. As a result, users cannot see the clarification unless they scroll all the way down.
The resize code does not seem to affect the U.S. version of Apple's Web site and only appears on the UK one, which has led users to believe it is a trick to hide the apology. The central image, currently an iPad Mini, takes up just enough space to obscure the clarification.
As a "backup," one Reddit user also uploaded the JavaScript resize code found on Apple's UK Web site to code-sharing site Pastebin. An independent software developer speaking to CNET has verified the resize code and found that it forces the central image image to take up the proportion of the page. The code ensures that regardless of how large the browser size is vertically, only the central image advertisement and subsequent four boxes are visible without scrolling down to the bottom of the page.
Using a service called the Wayback Machine, which lets users view historical versions of Web sites, to see the latest cached version of Apple's UK Web site, CNET discovered that the resize code seems to have been added during the past four months.
UK High Court Judge Colin Birss ordered Apple on Oct. 18 to post a statement in its UK Web site for one month. The acknowledgement that Samsung's tablets did not infringe on its patents was intended to be a factual statement. Apple was also ordered to take out ads with the same statements in newspapers and magazines such as the Financial Times, The Guardian, Daily Mail, T3 magazine and Mobile magazine. Nobody seems to have seen such ads.
Apple eventually posted the ordered statement, but with embellishments aiming to turn the situation in its favor. Samsung complained to a UK Court of Appeal that the statement was inaccurate and the court agreed, ordering Apple on Thursday, Nov. 1, to remove it and post an amended version.
Apple's UK Web site now acknowledges that its previous statement was not compliant with the court's instructions. It's just that visitors to the site are not immediately aware of the new and amended clarification.
Many Web sites use similar code to adjust for many screen resolutions so they can provide users with the best experience. If Apple's use of the resize code was in fact a legitimate marketing technique to display graphics on various devices at the best possible quality, this technique was definitely ill-timed.
Moreover, the fact that it affects only its UK Web site adds more substance to speculation that the resize code is actually a deliberate attempt to skirt the court's ruling.
