The HTC One features new technology but unoriginal ideas.

Let's get one thing straight first; the new HTC One sounds like an awesome phone. Its got a 4.7 inch 1080p display, a high quality sleek design and is one of the first smartphones to include the quad-core Snapdragon 600 processor, which clocks in at 1.7 GHz. In non-tech-speak, the One is top of the line.

But what's drawing the most attention from today's announcement is the phone’s camera, which includes HTC’s newly created UltraPixel technology, and Zoe, a photo and video social media tool that sounds a lot like Vine.

Whenever you hear about the newest iPhone or Android, one of the big marketing points is always the number of megapixels, which is a basic number used to determine the resolution and clarity of a photo. HTC is arguing that megapixels aren't the only thing that counts. While the One carries a 4 megapixel camera (half the megapixels that the iPhone packs), the phone does come equipped with the above-mentioned UltraPixels, which absorb 300 percent more light than a megapixel, meaning that the One is the clear favorite in low light environments.

As HTC CEO Peter Chou argues though, difference in megapixels is not the defining mark of a camera.

"The megapixel myth is the wrong way to go, so what really matters is to give you much better image quality with great innovative, exciting experience. So that's where we're focusing on," Mr. Chou said to Engadget.

The other camera highlight at the HTC One’s reveal was Zoe, a photo creation and sharing app which lets users create photos using three-second videos. Sound familiar? The similarities to already released apps Vine and Echograph are just another sign that the GIF-video market is already mainstream.

What did we learn from today's news? That at this point, smartphone cameras have progressed to the point that rebranding efforts often do more good than the actual technology. So forgive us for thinking that Zoe sounds like a wannabe Siri, and UltraPixels just sounds made up. HTC, you may want to get some new PR guys, cause these aren't really working.

Basically, yes.

Apple is protective over their patents. You could imagine why. You could also imagine that, given the opportunity to accuse one of their largest competitors of infringing upon their patents, that they would seize upon it. That happened, and of course, they did. And today, they won, and HTC's patent-violating phones will be banned from being imported starting on April 19, 2012.

Not that HTC cares that much.

Or that it matters.

The patent Apple argued HTC as violating was 647, which is over hyperlinks to phone numbers that dial out when clicked on in emails, websites, and other documents. Per Reuters, the ban doesn't really matter. For one thing, HTC can jack up the number of imports before April if they want. For another, HTC doesn't care, and said so themselves. It should probably be noted that Apple originally filed for ten patent violations, dropped four, and only won the one that really relates to this specific technology.

It should also be noted that this is essentially a legalspeak version of razzing the winners:

"We are very pleased with the determination and we respect it. However, the '647 patent is a small UI experience and HTC will completely remove it from all of our phones soon."

And then, there's this:

A company official told Reuters that HTC will launch new phones to bypass the infringed patent very soon and it sees limited impact to the company.

So even if HTC totally stole Apple's idea—which is totally an obvious and logical progression of the hyperlink Apple maybe shouldn't have an extensive patent on regardless—they get away with it. Welcome to patent law!

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

One piece currently gaining a lot of attention was Steve Jobs' attention to the competition. For example, take HTC's Android phone, which Jobs wanted to declare "thermonuclear war" on. Via GigaOm, emphasis ours:

Isaacson wrote that Jobs was livid in January 2010 when HTC introduced an Android phone that boasted many of the popular features of the iPhone. Apple sued, and Jobs told Isaacson in an expletive-laced rant that Google’s actions amounted to “grand theft.” “I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong,” Jobs said. “I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”

He used to host lovely dinner guests:

Mr. Jobs sometimes entertained business guests at his home. Rupert Murdoch, the conservative head of News Corporation, came twice for dinner. Mr. Jobs joked to Mr. Isaacson that he had to hide the kitchen knives from his wife, Laurene Powell, because of her liberal views.

He wasn't big on unions:

Jobs also criticized America's education system, saying it was "crippled by union work rules," noted Isaacson. "Until the teachers' unions were broken, there was almost no hope for education reform." Jobs proposed allowing principals to hire and fire teachers based on merit, that schools stay open until 6 p.m. and that they be open 11 months a year.

He was gossipy about his competition:

Jobs once declared about [Bill] Gates, "He'd be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger."

With any other executive, these revelations wouldn't make much of a difference, but Apple's well-established as the personal computing choice of generally left-leaning, "creative thinking" people. As it turns out, their technology's maker was only about as fundamentally liberal as Apple's commercials could convince you. Jobs is looking more and more like a Reason reader these days, but surely, the whole biography will have so much more in store for a world curious about the man recently mourned as a technological revolutionary. It comes out on Monday.

[Related: ‘Steve Jobs Sold Out,’ Says Performer Behind Powerful Drama of Apple’s History]

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek