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Samsung internal document evaluating the iPhone (translated)

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Re: Samsung internal document evaluating the iPhone (translated)

#21

Post by bobsy »

I don't think there is anything wrong with this documentation. I am sure Samsung has hundreds of other documents for other devices.

A good company looks at the competition and takes apart what they are doing right and wrong. Its what the company I work for does. We own a copy every competitors software. When a new version comes out we look at each change to see if there is anything we can learn and if we need to react to it. I am sure competitors do similar things with our products.

Its how you react to this study which defines you I guess. We don't just clone features. If we need to react to a feature we will probably put in something similar but it will be our take on it so it fits with our design and UI principles.

Contrast this to Samsung. This document does look like a lot like. "On the right is what we have now. On the left is how it should work." This is probably why they are being sued.

Re: Samsung internal document evaluating the iPhone (translated)

#22

Post by micheljansen »

I was kind of hoping that this document would also address some weaknesses in iOS an propose solutions for Samsung to innovate ahead of Apple, but if they had such an analysis, it's not in this document.

Still, this really is a goldmine of stuff. I particularly like the bits about the keyboard, which Samsung clearly styled to be nearly visually identical to the iPhone's keyboard, yet misses so many subtleties.

Also, from slide 105 (p110): The iPhone's camera (3G?) actually takes 3 times as long to start as the camera on the S1, but Apple makes it feel faster by showing a shutter animation. Perceived speed is so important and Apple is a master of illusions.

Re: Samsung internal document evaluating the iPhone (translated)

#23

Post by Tloewald »

stinos wrote: post #19
yogrish wrote: post #18

IMO, Samsung has come a long way in smartphone market just because it copied or got inspired from one and only Apple. Few years back it was one among Nokia,RIM,HTC. Now, it has transformed/evolved itself Technologically and Aesthetically (see the power and design of S3)by looking at apple (i would say getting indirectly groomed by apple) and now as analyst Neil Shah puts it "Volumes have polarized around only these t…

yup, and basically Apple just did Copy/Paste/Polish from others, who in turn did Copy/Paste/Polish from others. And so on, and so on, back to the inventor of the portable phone. Now let's all pay him back.

It's one thing to look at what's come before and synthesize and improve on it. This OS "creativity". The idea that all everyone does is copy and paste is ridiculous and disingenuous.

Re: Samsung internal document evaluating the iPhone (translated)

#25

Post by jkn »

cremnob wrote: post #12
jkn wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Samsung engineer I would think "they want us to stop making crap and learn from the iPhone". These are all cases where the iPhone basically does it the Right Way. For every issue they explain why the iPhone does it well and the S1 not. To me it doesn't read like they want to copy the iPhone, but rather like they want to make it right (by copying the iPhone). Important distinction. This is consistent with their l…

The intuitiveness is why Apple makes great products. That takes time and money to do right. Everything looks obvious and simple in hindsight. This really makes me question my stance on software patents.

Thanks to the iPhone, Apple has become the largest publicly traded company in the world and stashed 100 billion dollars in the bank.

They did this without winning a big trial against Samsung, HTC or Google. I don't think Apple needs to win this or another patent trial to have the incentives to build top quality products. On the contrary, letting them secure a monopoly on all these good ideas might diminish the incentive for innovation. They already have ridiculous profit margins[1], which if anything indicates a lack of competition.

[1] over 50% gross margins: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/26/us-apple-margins-i...

Re: Samsung internal document evaluating the iPhone (translated)

#26

Post by dchest »

"We study every car in order to discover if it has features that might be developed and adapted. If any one has anything better than we have we want to know it, and for that reason we buy one of every new car that comes out. Usually the car is used for a while, put through a road test, taken apart, and studied as to how and of what everything is made. Scattered about Dearborn there is probably one of nearly every make of car on earth. Every little while when we buy a new car it gets into the newspapers and somebody remarks that Ford doesn't use the Ford. Last year we ordered a big Lanchester--which is supposed to be the best car in England. It lay in our Long Island factory for several months and then I decided to drive it to Detroit. There were several of us and we had a little caravan--the Lanchester, a Packard, and a Ford or two. I happened to be riding in the Lanchester passing through a New York town and when the reporters came up they wanted to know right away why I was not riding in a Ford.

"Well, you see, it is this way," I answered. "I am on a vacation now; I am in no hurry, we do not care much when we get home. That is the reason I am not in the Ford."

You know, we also have a line of "Ford stories"!"

-- Henry Ford, My Life and Work (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7213)

Re: Samsung internal document evaluating the iPhone (translated)

#27

Post by Jelte12345 »

stevenwei wrote: post #17
jhuckestein wrote: post #2

Wow. This document illustrates exactly why design and attention to detail matters. In absolutely every comparison the iPhone just makes sense and works and the S1 has some kind of clumsiness. Very impressive, Apple.

Some of the examples are so poorly executed (on Samsung's side) that I can't think of any possible explanation for them beyond pure laziness. For example: 1. Landscape mode is only supported in Memo and Calculator when rotating left, not when rotating right. 6. The buttons are cut off when the keyboard is visible. 11. Pressing NEXT changes the font to lowercase. Huh? 27. Long telephone numbers get cut off (instead of…

The first one was just not implemented in Android at that point, it didn't work for any app. The second and last are also part of how Android works (/worked, not sure if it has been changed), because it's supposed to work on different screen sizes.

Of course it would have been possible for Samsung to implement those in Android, but I'm just pointing out it would be more work than just changing some values in the app. At the time of the S1 Android just hadn't matured yet.

Re: Samsung internal document evaluating the iPhone (translated)

#29

Post by kokey »

dchest wrote: post #26

"We study every car in order to discover if it has features that might be developed and adapted. If any one has anything better than we have we want to know it, and for that reason we buy one of every new car that comes out. Usually the car is used for a while, put through a road test, taken apart, and studied as to how and of what everything is made. Scattered about Dearborn there is probably one of nearly every mak…

Reminds me when I was at a car factory that manufactured Ford, Mazda and Mitsubishi cars for Africa. They had a model of a car from a different manufacturer at their office. I won't forget the sight of all the doors and hood being open while a number of people were inspecting the inside and outside of the car.

Re: Samsung internal document evaluating the iPhone (translated)

#30

Post by hazov »

cremnob wrote: post #12
jkn wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Samsung engineer I would think "they want us to stop making crap and learn from the iPhone". These are all cases where the iPhone basically does it the Right Way. For every issue they explain why the iPhone does it well and the S1 not. To me it doesn't read like they want to copy the iPhone, but rather like they want to make it right (by copying the iPhone). Important distinction. This is consistent with their l…

The intuitiveness is why Apple makes great products. That takes time and money to do right. Everything looks obvious and simple in hindsight. This really makes me question my stance on software patents.

After all it would be so nice if Microsoft patented kernel low level algorithms and we would not be able to run these cheap Linux servers in the US.

Or if IBM patented them first in which case MS and Apple would not even exists, long live software patents.

Sorry for the sarcasm.

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