Well, while they might seem that way because they are a hardware company, they are incredibly aggressive in that arena. Take the bannings and attempted bannings of Motorola, HTC, and Samsung devices for example. They are definitely trying everything they can to prevent you from buying someone else's product.
Exactly. Apple as great as their products are, have started to resurrect the look/feel lawsuits of the 90s with their patents on trivial things such as how to unlock a phone, having a jump bar, etc.
Sure, but only because they apparently don't have enough non-bullshit, non-FRAND patents with which to play the "IP litigation counter-counter-...-counter strike" game. Apple sucks, but so does every other major player in the "mobile" industry. I could be wrong here, but no counterexamples come to mind.
Slide to unlock was not a common place feature before it came out on the iPhone despite the prevalence of touch screen devices. It is hard to argue against the fact that the implementation was indeed unique at the time.
No, they're trying to stop devices they see as copies from entering the market place. They have no way of stopping competing but different things from entering the market. MS did and used it.
