The Samsung Galaxy S III: The First Smartphone Designed Entirely By Lawyers
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Re: The Samsung Galaxy S III: The First Smartphone Designed Entirely By Lawyers
#2The community design is an "and", not an "or". The Galaxy Tab model which had issues with this in Germany, if you look at it, has all, not just one, of those characteristics. The "Apple thinks it owns the rectangle" meme is nice, but untrue.
Nilay Patel, in the Verge article linked by Android Community:
Now, some of these are a little ridiculous when taken individually — is Apple going to sue every digital photo frame maker that puts equal size black borders around the screen as well? — but in the end, the main question for the court will be whether or not Samsung has used all of these elements in a way that's likely to confuse consumers about what they're buying.
(Edit: is this wrong? If not, why downvote?)
Re: The Samsung Galaxy S III: The First Smartphone Designed Entirely By Lawyers
#3I'd have to disagree about it being an ugly design. What was ugly was the hack of putting squares around every icon, when those icons were designed to live on their own, not in a square. That's what was ugly. I'm happy to see the squares gone and the design conform to the standard Android design guidelines. The dock of icons going away is also good. If I'm looking in the applications list it's because I'm looking for something that wasn't on the home screens, so why show me part of the home screen? Makes no sense.
I'm neutral on the lack of four-way symmetry and I'd have to agree that the avoidance of black is sad, though light-colored phones look great too (as Apple itself shows).
Re: The Samsung Galaxy S III: The First Smartphone Designed Entirely By Lawyers
#4I'd have to disagree about it being an ugly design. What was ugly was the hack of putting squares around every icon, when those icons were designed to live on their own, not in a square. That's what was ugly. I'm happy to see the squares gone and the design conform to the standard Android design guidelines. The dock of icons going away is also good. If I'm looking in the applications list it's because I'm looking for…
Insisting on four way symmetry is like insisting the status bar and a tab bar are the same height.
Re: The Samsung Galaxy S III: The First Smartphone Designed Entirely By Lawyers
#5Maybe it was designed by lawyers, but looking at the pictures, I actually like the shape and general look of the hardware. The software doesn't look as nice, especially the app menu with garish blue background, but the beauty of Android is that I can make it look however I like.
So it may have been designed by lawyers, but it isn't the worse off for it.
Re: The Samsung Galaxy S III: The First Smartphone Designed Entirely By Lawyers
#6Why is it even possible to patent design which gives zero functionality in the first place...
Re: The Samsung Galaxy S III: The First Smartphone Designed Entirely By Lawyers
#7I'd have to disagree about it being an ugly design. What was ugly was the hack of putting squares around every icon, when those icons were designed to live on their own, not in a square. That's what was ugly. I'm happy to see the squares gone and the design conform to the standard Android design guidelines. The dock of icons going away is also good. If I'm looking in the applications list it's because I'm looking for…
Agreed. Heck a lot of the design decisions are just regular Android (no square outline, dock disappears when drawer opens, etc)
Re: The Samsung Galaxy S III: The First Smartphone Designed Entirely By Lawyers
#8When I started reading the article, I was expecting to scroll down and see photos of some kind of rhombus-shaped, barbed, Frankenstein monstrosity. I was sorely disappointed. It seems like the author is defining non-ugliness as "looks like an iPhone." There's nothing so offensive about this phone's appearance that deserves the animosity expressed in the article.
Re: The Samsung Galaxy S III: The First Smartphone Designed Entirely By Lawyers
#9Honestly. The hardware is fine. The problem with android is still the software and only the software.
I'll take my handset in pink polka dots if it can finally scroll smoothly everywhere and not constantly annoy me with bugs in almost every single basic feature.
Instead they keep on shoving out bigger screens, faster CPU's every year - and the only UX issue ever being addressed is the camera finally snapping pics in reasonable time.
Re: The Samsung Galaxy S III: The First Smartphone Designed Entirely By Lawyers
#10Why is it even possible to patent design which gives zero functionality in the first place...
It's more of a trademark, isn't it? Like how you wouldn't want your company's logo plastered over a competitor's product, you don't want your competitor to copy its design and sell it right beside yours. It's a lesser evil, but by how much? It feels like they're just trying to confuse consumers.
I think the Apple vs Samsung case is silly (Both companies are releasing high quality products, it's not like the consumer is buying a junk knockoff) but there's validity in trademarking design.