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IPhone caused "crisis of design" at Samsung

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Re: IPhone caused "crisis of design" at Samsung

#81

Post by rwmj »

programminggeek wrote: post #68
pkulak wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this was an argument for damages every car company would spend all its time litigating. What exactly is the difference between a Corolla and a Fusion? Why does every car have about the same shape? Is it because anything other than that isn't aerodynamic and will destroy highway mileage, or is everyone infringing on IP?

Well one difference is that patents only have a lifespan of what 20 years or so? Most of the basic tech in a car that was patented in the 1900's is free to be used and improved upon. Is new stuff patented and licensed? Yes, absolutely it is. Notice how Toyota partnered with Tesla motors to build an EV SUV? Or what about how Ford licensed Toyota's hybrid technology back in 2004? Patents and licensing. Given that the a…

Or they understand the value of using patents and licensing to block out new competitors to the car industry.

By "value" I mean the value to the shareholders of the established large companies, not value in the sense of capitalism creating value.

Re: IPhone caused "crisis of design" at Samsung

#82

Post by guelo »

programminggeek wrote: post #68
pkulak wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this was an argument for damages every car company would spend all its time litigating. What exactly is the difference between a Corolla and a Fusion? Why does every car have about the same shape? Is it because anything other than that isn't aerodynamic and will destroy highway mileage, or is everyone infringing on IP?

Well one difference is that patents only have a lifespan of what 20 years or so? Most of the basic tech in a car that was patented in the 1900's is free to be used and improved upon. Is new stuff patented and licensed? Yes, absolutely it is. Notice how Toyota partnered with Tesla motors to build an EV SUV? Or what about how Ford licensed Toyota's hybrid technology back in 2004? Patents and licensing. Given that the a…

Apple also sued HTC and Motorola. They are attacking every successful Android manufacturer. It has nothing to do with what Samsung did specifically. Apple first decided to sue Samsung and then the lawyers came up with the arguments.

Re: IPhone caused "crisis of design" at Samsung

#83

Post by guelo »

programminggeek wrote: post #39

So, a friend of mine years ago after the iPhone came out purchased a Samsung pre-Android "smartphone". He bought it because it "looked like an iPhone" and did smartphone things like the internet and mp3's (sort of). He quickly realized that it was NOT an iPhone or even a very smart smartphone. Since you don't always get to use the phones in stores, you don't always know what you're buying. If it "looks like an iPhone…

This comment is irrelevant. Apple is suing over Samsung's newer devices not some old pre-android phone. If they had a problem with that older phone they could have sued over that one.

Re: IPhone caused "crisis of design" at Samsung

#84

Post by ajross »

cube13 wrote: post #57
ajross wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, of course they were. Everyone was. The iPhone was a groundbreaking, hugely disruptive device. And everyone else's products sucked in comparison. And Samsung knew it, and wanted to know why. This very much seems like a misdirected argument, at least from the ethical perspective. The question isn't whether or not Samsung was trying to emulate the elements that made the iPhone a success, the question is to whether…

> The question isn't whether or not Samsung was trying to emulate the elements that made the iPhone a success, the question is to whether it should be allowed or not. A world where that kind of "copying" is disallowed isn't one I want to live in. But that's not what this case is about. Apple is claiming that Samsung copied their product's aesthetics to mislead consumers. That's why Apple is suing Samsung. And truthfu…

I understand what their claim is. My point was that it's entirely unrelated to the evidence in question. Unless you think the bezel and curves and color choices constitute the reason (!) for Apple's success with the original iPhone.

And to be clear: I'm fine with the idea that you can get a design patent on very narrow grounds to protect branding aspects that trademarks don't. Make Samsung change their plastic then. Don't use that as a springboard to argue they should be sued out of the market. That's just evil.

Re: IPhone caused "crisis of design" at Samsung

#86

Post by jpxxx »

huggyface wrote: post #30
metatronscube wrote: post #2

The simple fact is that before the iphone, many 'smart' phones were complicated horrible devices (badly designed from a hardware point of view) with very poor UI/UX. Then after the iphone they were all like the iphone in some way or another. If you ask any non-technical person out there they will say the same. The iphone set the benchmark. So I can understand why apple feels like folk are just ripping them off at tim…

Before Android, the iPhone was a horribly complicated device with broken, almost useless notifications, no cloud functionality, and a need to tether off of a master PC to do anything of consequence (updates, initial setup, etc). Every device learns from every other. I used Android above but of course it learned from WebOS among others. Further this notion that the iPhone spurred on a lot of changes that were already…

Horribly complicated? Oh, I'll bite.

All hardware discussions aside (and you do make some good points), the central advance of the iPhone was in the design of the software.

Everything is an app. Everything. The alarm clock is not a special case, Wifi is not a special case, e-mail is not a special case. All functionality has a 'home'. All functionality is 'owned' somewhere. All settings are handled in one location.

There are no scrollbars. No menus. No modes. No windowing. No pointer. No double-tap. The only fixed interface is Volume Up, Volume Down, Home, and Lock. Everything else is mutable, task-specific, and optimized for the space available.

This is the supernova idea that changed more than just the smartphone industry. Vast chunks of complexity and spaghetti UI were drained out of the smartphone experience. Everything else shitty about iOS 1 including the hacky update system and the crappy popups was cleaned up and refined in time, none representing a failing of the product's core design.

So in no way, shape, or form could the iPhone be described as 'horribly complicated'. Literally no access to the filesystem, no ability to add or remove software, no classical ports, no expandability, no alternate firmwares or carrier modifications, simple setup of "cloud" services, effortless PC sync... it was a masterwork of simplicity for the great bulk of users.

Re: IPhone caused "crisis of design" at Samsung

#87

Post by cube13 »

ajross wrote: post #84
cube13 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The question isn't whether or not Samsung was trying to emulate the elements that made the iPhone a success, the question is to whether it should be allowed or not. A world where that kind of "copying" is disallowed isn't one I want to live in. But that's not what this case is about. Apple is claiming that Samsung copied their product's aesthetics to mislead consumers. That's why Apple is suing Samsung. And truthfu…

I understand what their claim is. My point was that it's entirely unrelated to the evidence in question. Unless you think the bezel and curves and color choices constitute the reason (!) for Apple's success with the original iPhone. And to be clear: I'm fine with the idea that you can get a design patent on very narrow grounds to protect branding aspects that trademarks don't. Make Samsung change their plastic then.…

>That's just evil.

No, that's protecting the patent.

Re: IPhone caused "crisis of design" at Samsung

#88

Post by gavinlynch »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #77
gavinlynch wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The iPad and iPhone are not, in any significant way, unique. They are more marginal variations on existing technology and design than not." There are interesting points you make about IP law, but you lost me in the above sentence which is just plain wrong. Perhaps you forget what the pre-iPhone cellphone market was like.

Do people these days not even remember PDAs or is this willful blindness? Apple has some claim to being early on the scene wiith hanheld computers but not with the iPhone.

Sure, but that's not what this legal case is about nor is it the point I was arguing.

Re: IPhone caused "crisis of design" at Samsung

#89

Post by taligent »

guelo wrote: post #82
programminggeek wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well one difference is that patents only have a lifespan of what 20 years or so? Most of the basic tech in a car that was patented in the 1900's is free to be used and improved upon. Is new stuff patented and licensed? Yes, absolutely it is. Notice how Toyota partnered with Tesla motors to build an EV SUV? Or what about how Ford licensed Toyota's hybrid technology back in 2004? Patents and licensing. Given that the a…

Apple also sued HTC and Motorola. They are attacking every successful Android manufacturer. It has nothing to do with what Samsung did specifically. Apple first decided to sue Samsung and then the lawyers came up with the arguments.

That is complete nonsense.

Steve Jobs warned Samsung about not infringing on many of the key patents e.g. rubber banding effect and even offered to license it. Samsung refused. Hence the subsequent lawsuits.

Re: IPhone caused "crisis of design" at Samsung

#90

Post by steele »

evilduck wrote: post #72
programminggeek wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep! That's the one.

Yeah, my father-in-law who was a die hard Sprint customer had it. It was definitely being pushed hard as Sprint's iPhone equivalent, even if Samsung wasn't marketing it directly as such. Before that, Sprint was laughably selling the HTC Touch with WinMo6.5 and some crappy skin as their iPhone equivalent. Maybe it's just hindsight bias, but as I recall, hardware manufacturers didn't seem to do nearly as much direct br…

Speaking of hindsight bias, IMHO,the HTC Touch & WinMo 5/6.5 made for a better "smartphone" than its contemporary iPhone. Despite it's attempt at touch/tap (had a stylus), it was pretty fantastic. WinMo had applications, easy syncing, file system access, an active developer/hacker community, Exchange support, etc. The exchange support alone made it far more valuable to me than the iPhone. Where it lacked was polish of its multimedia features the market expects today as well as a modern-ish browser. Tethering one on of those things w/ the EV-DO rev A network was a pretty great tinkerers capability -- well over a year before iPhone had 3G. FWIW, the Touch was a well-executed device and the xda community took the Vogue pretty far.
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