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A device with a touchscreen and few buttons was obvious

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Re: A device with a touchscreen and few buttons was obvious

#231

Post by catch23 »

lawdawg wrote: post #101
shasta wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But surely Apple deserves to be compensated for all the development work they did. Who's going to develop the next iPhone caliber innovation if the only reward they'll receive is to become the wealthiest company in history? Oh wait...

and people act like all Samsung did was copy. You realize they wouldn't be the most successful Android OEM if they didn't do their own innovation as well. And no, people aren't rushing out the buy Samsung phones because they look like iPhones (I mean they don't even have an Apple on the back, should be pretty obvious to anyone that it isn't an iPhone), they are buying them because they are cheaper and can do 90% of w…

Hm, I wouldn't be so sure... most "normal" people out there who don't read HN every day can't really tell the difference between an ipad and a galaxy tablet. My mom, for example, refers to both tablets as an ipad. She uses an ipad to read her news sites but when she tried to use my galaxy tab, she was confused there was no browser on there. I've experienced a similar thing on the train as well, people would point at my 10.1 tab and ask if that's the new ipad... tech people can sniff out brands from a mile away. You may laugh, but it's a different world out there. Back when I owned a motorola razr, I had people ask me if my phone was a new nokia model... nokia didn't even make anything remotely similar to the razr. These people have no concept of product names, they refer to tablets as ipads and phones as nokia.

Re: A device with a touchscreen and few buttons was obvious

#232

Post by wklauss »

w1ntermute wrote: post #16

This entire trial was a farce. The jury foreman admitted that they "skipped" prior art because "It was bogging us down."[0] > "Once you determine that Samsung violated the patents," Ilagan said, "it's easy to just go down those different [Samsung] products because it was all the same. Like the trade dress, once you determine Samsung violated the trade dress, the flatscreen with the Bezel...then you go down the produc…

That is why companies are allowed to appeal the veredict (and presumably will do so), but the whole "jury trials are unfair" thing is not new and definitely affects all kind of cases, not just technology companies, and I don't think we will get a insightful answer on this subject on this forums (experts in law have been debating this issue for years).

As of now, this is the veredict, but its not game over for Samsung. If they think they have a case and they've been wronged, they should appeal and use this quotes as proof of wrongdoing by the jury. Let the judges decide on it, that's what they are for.

Re: A device with a touchscreen and few buttons was obvious

#233

Post by antidoh »

nivla wrote: post #163
nirvana wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of those have a touch based UI. Touch means finger touches. Very different from a stylus which is only touching one or two pixels at a time. This is very easy to sense because the stylus pushes two layers together physically and effectively is closing swithces. A touch is much difeferent, a finger is an amorphous blob over many pixels of a varying shape, and Apple had to figure out how to resolve that into a sin…

>What's next? The Mac stole from windows? Actually Mac did borrow a few usability from Windows too. 1. Finder Sidebar: Windows Navigation pane 2. The Mac Path bar: Windows Address bar 3. Back and Forward navigation buttons in folder windows 4. Minimizing to document windows into app icon 5. Screen Sharing: Remote Desktop Connection 6. Time Machine: Backup and Restore 7. System Preferences: Control Panel 8. ActiveSync…

They also took the multi-button mouse and made it (arguably) better.

Re: A device with a touchscreen and few buttons was obvious

#234

Post by tjoff »

gnaffle wrote: post #227
tjoff wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the market was just waiting for capacitive touchscreens to become available, why did it take all the others years to come up with anything competitive after the iPhone launched? Because apple was the only one that hadn't invested in anything else. Simple as that.

My point exactly. :)

Your point seem to imply that innovation was required, mine that it was trivial.

Re: A device with a touchscreen and few buttons was obvious

#235

Post by electromagnetic »

pippy wrote: post #214

Samsung ripped off Apples design, there's no excusing this: http://i.imgur.com/qN6n9.jpg http://i.imgur.com/FJkZE.png They're clearly in the wrong here. It's not about the fundamental form factor of the devices, it's about blatant plagiarism. Apple's designs are aren't perfect, and instead of perfecting or improving the devices (which would be better for consumers), they simply didn't think about it. Shame on you Sam…

I don't think you have any understanding on the meaning of patent infringement, or unethical behaviour because you're misunderstanding the former for the latter.

Resemblance is not illegal as long as it is not used to mislead someone into buying the product. No one is going to be misled into buying a Samsung instead of an iPhone, by the charger/headphones or even the phone itself. So resemblance is meaningless in this case.

The rounded corners complaint is so ludicrous it baffles cognitive function. Early blackberries and other full-keyboard phones resembled the same form factor as current smart phones including the iPhone. Notably rectangular with rounded edges.

The large screen with minimal buttons was so evident it was going to happen that it was in star trek decades before the normal person realized it would even be possible. Yet, I used an LCD graphics tablet as a touch screen tablet years before the iPhone or iPod touch were released. Funnily enough that graphic tab had a large screen and one button on the front.

Claim infringement and samsungs wrong doing all you want, but the precursors to the iPhone were laying around everywhere. Apple was just the first to put them together.

Apple has faired far better than most other technology companies introducing new devices by having a loyal user base of early adopters and advocates. I don't know a single apple fanboy who doesn't want to be first to get a brand new product, and want to talk my ear off about it.

Being biggest does not make you the first to design something, nor does it make you right.

I don't even know what my iPhone looks like because it's been in an otterbox since I got it due to my working outside. Given the iPhones ridiculous sales figures for cases and the purposeful design of the phones to support snap-on cases, the design is a completely moot point. Over half of people I see with an iPhone have a case on it, in fact probably more than half.

Re: A device with a touchscreen and few buttons was obvious

#236

Post by catch23 »

pserwylo wrote: post #230
vvhn wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I personally have always thought the iPhone was Apple taking the openmoko idea and running with it. From the linked article, " Cheap, hackable Linux smartphone due soon By Linux Devices 2006-11-07 " Presumably that means this was 7th November 2006. So, in exactly 2 months ( on January 9th 2007) , Apple was able to design a prototype based on this concept, write all the software and demo it onstage ?

True, but at the very least, this shows that at the time the iPhone was released (or just before), many of the concepts were "obvious".

If they were so "obvious", why hadn't someone created something similar to iPhone's interface? I owned the Nokia 770 -- a great internet tablet for it's time. I even hack soldered a wifi extension dongle to it so I could get better signal, but the browser on that thing was just horrible.

What other obvious ideas are out there right now that some company will make billions off of? There's a few right under your nose that you'll probably say is "obvious" 10 years from now. I guess that's why they say hindsight is 20/20.

Re: A device with a touchscreen and few buttons was obvious

#237

Post by mbreese »

KirinDave wrote: post #211
flatline3 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be because they're selectively quoted, out of context, by a biased party.

Groklaw has been a pretty reliable source for years now. Its disappointing that them presenting an opinion means they are labeled as "biased."

Groklaw has been a very reliable source for information, but to call them unbiased is naive. Groklaw has always taken an editorial viewpoint. SCO vs IBM? Oracle vs Google? Apple vs Samsung? They always have their favorites, so their analysis tends to skew that way. They don't try to hide it, and their reputation is top notch, but don't claim they aren't biased.

Normally, their viewpoint is right in line with most of the tech world. It just so happens that this time around, the tech camp is pretty well split on who the good guy was in this case.

Re: A device with a touchscreen and few buttons was obvious

#238

Post by nitrogen »

taligent wrote: post #196
georgemcbay wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft developed the "old" Surface (now called PixelSense) at the same time Apple was working on the iPhone. Both were released in very early 2007 after years of R&D work. Both had multitouch UIs of the type you seem to think are so innovative. Both arrived at these solutions at the same time because the wide availability of capacitive touchscreens (which neither MS nor Apple invented, mind you -- capacitive and m…

Well this comment is ridiculous. If timing and marketing is all that matters for market success then Apple should NOT have been successful with iPod or iPad since they weren't the first MP3 player or tablet. And they definitely didn't have the experience of companies like Sony when it comes to marketing. You criticize others about grasp on real history when you seem so quick to ignore it yourself.

The question isn't whether Apple was and is successful. The question is whether they deserve a ~two-decade monopoly on concepts that were incremental improvements on ideas developed by others. The parent comment in particular is meant to address a previous comment by nirvana that claimed "touch-oriented UI" was invented by Apple.

Re: A device with a touchscreen and few buttons was obvious

#239

Post by mbreese »

esolyt wrote: post #220
flatline3 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be because they're selectively quoted, out of context, by a biased party.

Well, you can read the same quote from CNET if Groklaw is the issue. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57500358-37/exclusive-appl... I hope you don't consider CNET biased. If anything, they are usually criticized for being Apple-biased.

The cnet article was the original source for the Groklaw quote. The juror in the quote didn't mention anything about possibly going back to the issue. We don't know if cnet didn't run that part of the quote (why would they, they get more clicks with more controversy), or if the juror just didn't mention it. We do know that he isn't quoted as saying, "oh yeah, we never got back around to it".

And since they explicitly had to make the choice on the instructions (Y/N) on infringement, the safer assumption is that they did get back to it.

Re: A device with a touchscreen and few buttons was obvious

#240

Post by veemjeem »

hammersend wrote: post #145
pinaceae wrote: post #136

Ever notice how Jony Ive looks nothing like a Googler? This whole trainwreck of a discussion is fed IMHO by the big rift between common, male IT-oriented folks and the rest of the population around visuals, aestethics and yes, concepts like fashion. Sit in the cantina of any company and you can tell who is development/IT. Neckbeards? Socks in sandals? Leather cowboy hats? Attachments on their belts? Unshapely bodies?…

"Ever notice how Jony Ive looks nothing like a Googler?" What the f is this shit? This guy: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-UxbxdEwXL7Y/AAAAAAAAAAI/A... is the counterpart to Jony Ive. And that goes for the rest of your head-in-your-ass bigotry.

Hey, be civil -- no name calling if you disagree.

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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