As for tablets, Apple identified a similar list of alternative designs available to Samsung:
Overall shape that isn't rectangular, or doesn't have rounded corners.
Thick frames rather than a thin rim around the front surface.
Front surface that isn't entirely flat.
Profiles that aren't thin.
Cluttered appearance.
If Apple were a car maker, they would be "suggesting" that their competitors should design cars with non-circular wheels, thick body metal and a non-aerodynamic appearance.
I understand that people on Hacker News detest courtroom bickering and would rather talk about innovation, including design innovation; I think I fall under the same category, however:
a. Samsung's designs are really similar to Apple's designs. Yes, all cars have to have round wheels, but as Nokia has shown (N9?), it is absolutely possible to design a phone with the same level (or more) minimalism without copying the design DNA.
b. Look at an HTC phone. There's no way one can mistakenly think that it's an iPhone. Same with tablets; a Xoom (esp. Xoom2), an Iconia, or a Touchpad will never be confused with an iPad.
In fact, this STEALING (couldn't mince words here) goes much deeper. This was on the internets a few days back: http://www.reddit.com/tb/kr14a
>Look at an HTC phone. There's no way one can mistakenly think that it's an iPhone.
True. If you mistook my G2 for an iPhone I'd say you need needed your eyes checked. Nevertheless, looking at the list from The Verge, I think there's an argument that it violates all but one of them:
- Rectangular with rounded corners (check)
- Centered screen with lateral borders (check)
- Horizontal speaker slot (check)
- Front surface with limited adornment. Well, beyond the elements an iPhone has (speaker slot and trackpad/home button) it has a T-Mobile logo and the 4 lite-up capacative Android buttons. IIRC, this is just like a US Galaxy S2 (the international version, which my wife has, drops the search button). Without the example of the SGS2, I'd say HTC was in the clear here, but...
The only "suggestion" HTC has clearly followed with the G2 is that between the metal bezel and the gray bumper below it, the front surface isn't entirely black.
In other words, the design rights Apple is asserting are astonishingly broad.
devil's advocate: if design has practical merits beyond branding then why shouldn't everyone copy verbatim the design elements of successful products? this can still be iteratively innovative.
Certain protections of design/research aid the consumer/society.
If all hard work is copied with no limitation, then this severely limits the amount of money you can spend on r&d to remain profitable.
Take medication for example, the r&d lead time is many years long and a huge culmination of factors, but duplicating a known-formula can be trivial.
How this applies to business: as society relies on competing bodies to spur innovation, there is a direct consequence if we remove the ability to compete:
If unfettered duplication of a product is legal, and this duplication can occur in a shorter timeline than the time required to acquire profit from the product(i.e when taking away the costs of development) then there is no business reason to ever develop the product to begin with.
Your use of a car analogy here couldn't be any better placed. The reason why Germany has such strict laws pertaining to copyright, patents and design is due to the flamboyant duplication of their own motoring industry.
It seems your analogy however is far off, this would be more like copying a vehicle verbatim, but changing the colour and hood ornament.
It was unsurprising that Germany (and various other courts outside of the USA + South Korea) have seen in Apple's favour, See: http://i.imgur.com/TmUj2.jpg (In fact it seems that the USA lawsuit is one of the lesser successful cases for Apple.)
So when you're copying even the docking mechanism, it's clear that intentions went from "flattery" to "duplicate", and perhaps even a little bit of "make it the same so we can cut into their sales", which is just a nice way of saying, "confuse dumb consumers into buying ours."
The foundation of most of these laws revolves around the idea of what an average consumer could reasonably be confused by or mislead to believe. So when not even Samsung's own legal team are able to make a absolute distinction between the two devices you can bet that consumers will be having a similar difficulty. See: http://blog.gsmarena.com/judge-asks-samsung-lawyers-to-tell-...
Also, a casual review of past samsung products also reveal that their design ethos has never approached this look and feel, while the iPad fits along the lines of many of their previous products, both in form but also material choices.
Design variations are possible. Apple changed their design when they went from the iPad 1 to the iPad 2 (http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/02/ipad-2-vs-original-ipad-w...) - The design is different enough for anyone to immediately tell whether the tablet is the iPad 1 or the iPad 2. I'm sure Apple will redesign this in the future and it will be immediately obvious that it's not the iPad 2.
Just as it's possible to tell the difference between a BMW and a Toyota Corolla, it is possible to make the design different enough while working within the constraints of a tablet (flat screen, bezel etc)
There are many ways Samsung could make the galaxy tablet more differentiated from the ipad, but it's far easier to tell the samsung apart from either of the ipads than they from each other. The ipad2 is definitely more refined than the original, but clearly a redesign of that magnitude would not be anywhere close enough to satisfy Apple.
If Apple were a car maker, they'd be suggesting that it'd be nice if other auto manufacturers didn't exactly mimic their body styles.
There's a difference between overall form factor and the actual design of a product. If Kia started selling a car whose profile was nearly indistinguishable from an Infiniti G37, Nissan would have a legitimate beef. Just as Apple does here, and just as they did when people started ripping off their iMac design, once upon a time:
There are innumerable ways to design anything. Just because Apple is willing to spend the money to figure out the best ones for their brand doesn't mean everyone else gets to lift the design whole.
A tablet is, by definition, a minimalistic device. Concepts like "rounded borders" have been used for quite a bit longer than tablets, and applying a basic design principal should hardly be considered infringing.
No one is going to buy a Samsung device because they think it's an iPad- or even that it looks like an iPad. The difference between the two devises is really about the internals and, much more importantly, the operating system. I've got a ton of Apple devices that I really love, including an iPad, but I really don't see this as anything other than Apple trying to shut competitors out of the market.
> A tablet is, by definition, a minimalistic device.
Yeah. Today. But, once upon a time, a tablet was, by definition, a hobbled laptop with a touch screen. Sometimes with elaborate rotating screen or stowable keyboard, almost always with a stylus. I know – I used them for years.
And then, like fucking magic or something, all the other tablets started looking... like an iPad. Even the stylus disappeared.
It's really, really, weird how minimalism and tablets became so suddenly conjoined when a company with a reputation for a minimalist design aesthetic sold a shitload of units.
Of course you won't see devices like the Crunchpad[1] or the Touchbook[2] on those kinds of lists. Just like how other devices similar to later Apple products, like the Sony Vaio X505[3], Neonode N1[4] or Palm Tx[5], seems to become convienently forgotten in similar lists. But when they are actually remembered someone will come along and redefine the argument in Apples favor anyway, so what does it matter really...
It's because the advent of cheap capacitive touch screens made stylus free operation possible. Before that resistive screens were what we had to work with.
great, apple deserves much credit for proving this minimalistic approach.
but it doesn't deserve a monopoly of any duration on minimalism.
if design has merit beyond branding, then it should be valid for anyone to choose a proven design. it won't necessarily be innovative, but that's besides the point.
Because those suggestions amount exactly to that, right?
Go forbid Samsung actually tried "a not entirely flat front surface" for their tablets, right? You know, like the ones used in most of the phones they make. Or that they made it non rectangular. Or added a couple of buttons to the front face, like the Kindle had. Because, Samsung totally values "thin" and "non cluttered appearance" otherwise, right? Because that's how the company rolled pre-iPad.
Or is it because no one can produce anything other than the current iPad/iPhone form viably? So, when Apple redesigns the iPhone/iPad in a couple of years, it would be like they discovered non-circular wheels, right?
* Tablets are rectangular because LCDs are rectangular.
* Tablets have rounded corners and bezels because it's difficult to manufacture the unit if the screen extends right to the edges.
* Samsung has been touting "slimness" and "world's thinnest" on their phones for almost a decade.
* Samsung has also been doing "non-cluttered" for a long time, e.g. they partnered with Porsche Design back in 2002 for some designs.
* A black front panel and steel rim was common on phones before Apple entered the business. An example from 2006: [1]
The obsession with button counts is sort of understandable, because Apple did pioneer the single-button phone (and they did an amazing job with it).
But they're not going to stick with that same design forever. If Apple moves to a buttonless design as has been rumored, should Nokia sue them because the N9 got there first [2]? Of course not.
I have to agree with this point. Apple's patent policy seems to be to throw patents against the wall and hope something sticks. At the end of the day, there are a limited number of ways to design a device efficiently, so of course Samsung will take obvious steps like making a rectangular, flat phone. There are also certain types of aesthetics which will be more appealing to customers. Why should Apple hold a monopoly on intelligent design? Did they invent the concept of slimness or simplicity?
> * Tablets have rounded corners and bezels because it's difficult to manufacture the unit if the screen extends right to the edges.
Also, my guess is that sharp corners may cause injuries and poke holes in things when they fell / someone hits oneself with it. Another reason for there being no real obvious alternative.
Slightly unrelated, but I think Nokia N9 is a perfect example of a phone design that doesn't have a flat front surface. The screen part is slightly thicker than the rest.
That's the screen part. Tables are not all screen. They have the surrounding area (bezels), buttons etc.
"""* Tablets are rectangular because LCDs are rectangular."""
That's the screen part. You can easily make a design with rounded corners to look say like (_) (add a top edge in there). You could also just make a square tablet (there were several phones with square displays, pre-iPhone at least).
"""* Tablets have rounded corners and bezels because it's difficult to manufacture the unit if the screen extends right to the edges."""
What does "difficult" mean? It is also more difficult to make a unibody aluminum computer that a plastic, segmented body one, but Apple also does that. It is also harder to produce a "retina" display, but again the iPhone has one. And it's not even a screen extending to the edges is unheard of: Apple does it for the iMac and some MBP's IIRC.
"""* Samsung has been touting "slimness" and "world's thinnest" on their phones for almost a decade."""
They seem to promote everything at once to catch every tiny niche of the market. For example, here are the models they currently sell in the US:
Yeah, the value slimness alright. They also value big screens, small screens, colors, blacks and white, thick bricks, you name it, they've got it.
"""* Samsung has also been doing "non-cluttered" for a long time, e.g. they partnered with Porsche Design back in 2002 for some designs."""
See above.
But really it's not any one of the design decisions taken separately that's the WTF. Sure, you can go and support each and everyone of them.
It's the total sum of them that's the WTF. All design decisions being similar is not a coincidence, it's a copycat design.
And no, NO bloody tablet/phone design is so "eternal" that no one can produce something different. Amazon does. Even Apple will do it in a year or so, and the Samsung will copy that too.
Overall shape that isn't rectangular, or doesn't have rounded corners. Thick frames rather than a thin rim around the front surface. Front surface that isn't entirely flat. Profiles that aren't thin. Cluttered appearance.
If Apple were a car maker, they would be "suggesting" that their competitors should design cars with non-circular wheels, thick body metal and a non-aerodynamic appearance.