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Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

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Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#361

Post by Teever »

leonroy wrote: post #338
nullcipher wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if he actually said that but isn't all innovation incremental? I understand he put his heart and soul into it, but there has been tons of people who have worked equally hard before him to get to where he got (Apple itself copied it's UI from Xerox). Apple has also blatantly copied and consumed many companies in the past. There is so much code copied around these days. This is all just the way it is and h…

> I don't know if he actually said that but isn't all innovation incremental? He said exactly that: http://www.vanityfair.com/news/tech/2014/10/jony-ive-lessons... And yes innovation is incremental but this is Xiaomi not simply borrowing design cues but literally cloning a design. See for yourself - here's their take on Japanese company Balmuda's air purifier: https://www.balmuda.com/jp/airengine/ Xiaomi's version: h…

How many different designs can one really come up with for a space efficient air purifier anyways?

Imagine if someone complained because a tire manufacturer came out with a gasp round wheel.

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#362

Post by [deleted] »

WayneBro wrote: post #360
leonroy wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know if he actually said that but isn't all innovation incremental? He said exactly that: http://www.vanityfair.com/news/tech/2014/10/jony-ive-lessons... And yes innovation is incremental but this is Xiaomi not simply borrowing design cues but literally cloning a design. See for yourself - here's their take on Japanese company Balmuda's air purifier: https://www.balmuda.com/jp/airengine/ Xiaomi's version: h…

We're talking about the Jony Ive who designs rectangles? Meh. Him and Apple have stolen plenty! Isn't Steve Jobs famously quoted as saying "great artists steal"? Anyway, what's the fucking difference if you steal a few pieces here and there or the whole thing? Nothing. (EDIT: A piece of something is still a whole piece that you've stolen. And Apple has also stolen entire apps, like Konfabulator. They get no sympathy…

[deleted]

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#363

Post by ptx »

> boy does it look familiar to products belonging to a company that begins with the letter ‘A’

Hm? "Sony" doesn't begin with "A".

The colors, the squarish shape and the keyboard (Sony used that style before Apple) look much more like a Sony Vaio than any Apple laptop.

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#364

Post by astrodust »

WayneBro wrote: post #360
leonroy wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know if he actually said that but isn't all innovation incremental? He said exactly that: http://www.vanityfair.com/news/tech/2014/10/jony-ive-lessons... And yes innovation is incremental but this is Xiaomi not simply borrowing design cues but literally cloning a design. See for yourself - here's their take on Japanese company Balmuda's air purifier: https://www.balmuda.com/jp/airengine/ Xiaomi's version: h…

We're talking about the Jony Ive who designs rectangles? Meh. Him and Apple have stolen plenty! Isn't Steve Jobs famously quoted as saying "great artists steal"? Anyway, what's the fucking difference if you steal a few pieces here and there or the whole thing? Nothing. (EDIT: A piece of something is still a whole piece that you've stolen. And Apple has also stolen entire apps, like Konfabulator. They get no sympathy…

Apple literally redefined what a smart phone is. While he borrowed design cues from history, Braun in particular, applying that to the phone space and coming up with a design language that had durability was a big breakthrough.

Remember in 2006 Nokia, Motorola, RIM and others made literally everything but rectangular phones. They were covered in buttons and other crap.

Ive's vision of a virtually button free phone was strikingly different at the time, a device even simpler than the Star Trek communicator pad.

>Anyway, what's the fucking difference if you steal a few pieces here and there or the whole thing? Nothing.

It's very hard to strip something down to the essential components and integrate those into a package that becomes obvious in retrospect. The steering wheel in a car, the magnetic seal on a refrigerator door, these are all obvious now but at the time were huge breakthroughs.

If you can't see the difference between copying and working to reduce something down to the fundamentals you're obviously unaware of how one is lazy and the other is crazy hard.

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#365

Post by astrodust »

anthony_barker wrote: post #317
leonroy wrote: post #286

This quote from Jony Ive really made me feel for the guy: “When you’re doing something for the first time, you don’t know it’s going to work. You spend seven or eight years working on something, and then it’s copied. I have to be honest, the first thing I can think, all those weekends that I could have at home with my family but didn’t. I think it’s theft, and it’s lazy.” Xiaomi have done this to others. Their new ai…

Apple should tell that quote to Xerox for the Xerox Park rip off.. http://web.stanford.edu/dept/SUL/sites/mac/parc.html

This is nowhere like a Mac other than in the fact that it's a computer with a screen, keyboard and mouse: http://www.righto.com/2016/06/y-combinators-xerox-alto-resto...

Read history, then comment, okay?

The PARC machine barely scratched the surface of what could be done, and it was far from being packaged in a way that could be marketed to consumers. It was inspiration, and any engineer knows that's a long, long way from a working product.

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#366

Post by [deleted] »

merpnderp wrote: post #331
paganel wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's got the same functionality and the same design as the Japanese product but only "sells at a fraction of the price" compared to the original product then they must be doing something better than the Japanese. It's either lower wages, better productivity or both, either way, it's better for us, consumers, which now have additional money to spend on other products and services which further enrich our lives (whe…

Or not having to pay all the R&D costs for the original development.

[deleted]

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#367

Post by valarauca1 »

ctvo wrote: post #355
Touche wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the difference between developers and designers. And why so few designers participate in open-source. I'll never understand designers. I don't mean that as a criticism, I literally don't understand the mindset. This is my problem for not understanding.

You don't get that something proprietary was stolen and the creators are upset? From a software perspective you can't imagine how you'd feel if a critical piece of your business software was reversed engineered and copied by a competitor? An example might be finance and low latency trading. Or an ML / AI breakthrough. Or anything on the fringe still providing a competitive advantage and not a solved problem on Github…

Maybe I'm a bit too much of a STEM-headed engineer but I think you are making a false comparison.

UX is fleeting. Even the best UX will grow stale over time as styles change, and it's style propagates (as it will if it is truly revolutionary) it will become mundane.

Technology breakthroughs are hacks in the laws of physics. Humanity hasn't fundamentally redesigned the Steam Engine since James Watt. It just can't become more efficient. Nobody cares steam is mundane, or well understood. We still use it in nearly ever power plant.

So no I don't stand why people feel the need to own something as fleeting as a singular moment in the pseudo-cultural-artistic space Product/UX design fits in knowing that it'll pass and forever be looked on as an out of style relic of a by-gone age. To do so honestly and earnestly makes you sound like a diva.

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#368

Post by kentosi »

nullcipher wrote: post #353
Touche wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the difference between developers and designers. And why so few designers participate in open-source. I'll never understand designers. I don't mean that as a criticism, I literally don't understand the mindset. This is my problem for not understanding.

Totally agree. I don't get this either. If someone copies my software work, I don't go around calling them lazy. Even I spent all my weekends on this lovely piece of code, only for someone else to "steal" it.

What if that said someone copies your work you spent all your weekends working on and starts making a lot of money on it?

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#370

Post by leojg »

kentosi wrote: post #368
nullcipher wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree. I don't get this either. If someone copies my software work, I don't go around calling them lazy. Even I spent all my weekends on this lovely piece of code, only for someone else to "steal" it.

What if that said someone copies your work you spent all your weekends working on and starts making a lot of money on it?

Then he/she clearly did something better than you. Had the insight that you lack.
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