Samsung v. Apple

[jjallenupthehill]

Originally Posted by kennyc

That design should not be patentable.

What?!

Why is design less worthy of protection than anything else? It's protection of someone's work and ideas, exactly the same as any other field.

That betrays a total ignorance of the visual world and of the notion of any value of design. The patent laws cover things like widescreen TVs because of obviousness.

The term 'design' covers both function and appearance. These can be viewed together and separately. In the case of Apple vs Samsung, it's both. The physical design was copied, and the interface appearance and function. I'm going to use the dots to indicate which screen is current as an example.

Are you really sure you want a world where one company can spend a fortune making something beautiful or functional, and then a competitor who isn't prepared to invest that money comes along and steals all that work?

You would end up with a situation where everything was mediocre because no-one designed anything, because it made no money because it had no value.

[jjallenupthehill]

Originally Posted by pl001

You pick and choose things here and there and then claim that's proof of copying. The size, shape, and arrangement of icons is simply logical with a capacitive touch device that size. I had an iPhone theme on my Palm for awhile, in my opinion the diffferences are not as great as you claim, and certainly those icons are not the great invention you imply them to be.

No it's not. Why that size icon, why that spacing? Why the dock? Why the rounded corners? Why the tile format? While the screen dots? Why the faux iTunes icon? I also had Palm devices (and Handspring and Clie) and virtually all of the icon themes were pictures not tiles.
The point is that there are so many copied items, that it goes beyond mere influence. Just look at the evidence there with the charger, icons, interface, external design. How coincidental that there is simply a case of 'influence' there? I go back to the point I made earlier. The Samsung Galaxy model has so much more in common with the iPhone than it did with its original F700! If it started from the same place with the same design and developed it in isolation, the issue would never have arisen. We might, just might have had a design that was superior to the iPhone.

Originally Posted by pl001

I am not going to sit here and claim that Samsung never copies anything. However I will stand by my statement that Apple has been just as bad if not worse throughout much of their history. Take a look at their notification bar for example. Look at the pending lawsuits agains them for technology infringement.

I would argue that's a different issue. That's endemic across the whole technology industry. It seems that almost everyone is suing everyone for technology infringements of one kind or another. There has never been as large a case of blatant copying.

Originally Posted by pl001

I feel I am being perfectly rational as I will not deny Samsung used Apple for inspiration on many design aspects. However there is a difference between inspiration and design infringement. Where I feel you are not being rational is that you refuse to admit it goes both ways.

No, if you re-read what I wrote, I have accepted that Apple took inspiration from other products. That is natural and acceptable. But when you have 2 products where the similarities are so much more evident than the differences, and across every aspect of the product, that goes beyond 'inspiration'.

I know how inspiration works, but you never, ever take something and copy it so that it looks almost exactly the same. If I did that with a building, I would be sued - no question.

[forsooth]

Originally Posted by jjallenupthehill

No it's not. Why that size icon, why that spacing? Why the dock? Why the rounded corners? Why the tile format? While the screen dots? Why the faux iTunes icon? I also had Palm devices (and Handspring and Clie) and virtually all of the icon themes were pictures not tiles.
The point is that there are so many copied items, that it goes beyond mere influence. Just look at the evidence there with the charger, icons, interface, external design. How coincidental that there is simply a case of 'influence' there? I go back to the point I made earlier. The Samsung Galaxy model has so much more in common with the iPhone than it did with its original F700! If it started from the same place with the same design and developed it in isolation, the issue would never have arisen. We might, just might have had a design that was superior to the iPhone.

I would argue that's a different issue. That's endemic across the whole technology industry. It seems that almost everyone is suing everyone for technology infringements of one kind or another. There has never been as large a case of blatant copying.

No, if you re-read what I wrote, I have accepted that Apple took inspiration from other products. That is natural and acceptable. But when you have 2 products where the similarities are so much more evident than the differences, and across every aspect of the product, that goes beyond 'inspiration'.

I know how inspiration works, but you never, ever take something and copy it so that it looks almost exactly the same. If I did that with a building, I would be sued - no question.

A company is suing to get Apple to remove all apps that have the word "memory" in their title. It holds same trademark for this word in many countries though not US. (It is for a board game.)

Usually common things like geometric shapes, plants, animals, colors, words, can't be patented or copyrighted or trademarked unless there is some unique characteristic. ie a 3 eyed bowlegged green cow for example.

Using pictures for words or meanings goes back to cave writing, to languages all over history.

The laws need to be changed or the people making the decisions on these things need to be corrected. Common sense needs to be applied.

[jjallenupthehill]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

Are you saying that Apple redesigned the rounded corners in a way most people wouldn't notice the difference?

I'm struggling to work out whether you are having a bit of fun trolling, or whether you have actually thought about some of the things you have written...

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

The same can said about the iPhone and the Galaxy. They don't have exactly the same corner radius, they don't have exactly the same size for the device, they don't have exactly the same size for the speaker.

They are so similar that they look virtually identical. If we think about the speaker, we are so used to seeing other companies use the same design solution as Apple, many people forget that other companies seem to be able to do this differently and successfully. Like this and this and this and this and this. Even Samsung have been able to design speakers that don't look the same as Apple, so why put one on the model that is almost identical to it in every other way?

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

By this logic Samsung didn't rip-off Apple because they have other models.

Are you just trying to beat someone's record for numbers of posts by writing the first thing that pops into your head?

Look at the broad range of Android phones out there. There aren't many that look like iPhone rip-offs. The one that looks exactly like one ended up in court, and rightly so.

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

Some people consider the extra buttons on the bottom and the bigger screen an improvement (Galaxy vs iPhone).

That kind of illustrates my point. It's the only thing that really distinguishes the Galaxy from the iPhone, and it's potentially better. Imagine what they could have improved if they had tried not to copy

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

And why would they introduce different colors? Most consumers use covers anyway, so what could possibly be the reason to market different colors, other that enforcing the idea that Apple should have a monopoly on black and white devices?

Because they would differentiate an otherwise identical phone, have a unique selling point, and make the phone more attractive to a younger market. It would also mean that people don't need covers. And based on my experience, most people don't use them. Apple never had anything like a monopoly on black and white. The LG Chocolate had white models.

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

My point was that you were lying when you said that there are no details on the phone. Also in terms of design, placing the logo pushes the speaker at a higher position on the phone, adding to the differences between the models.

You clearly don't understand what 'lying' means.
As I have said before, you can't slap a logo on a design and claim it's a different design feature, that would be idiotic. I'll spell out the point in case you misunderstand it. The point regarding a different logo has to be disregarded because it's obvious, particularly considering that it's pretty much the only place on the front of the device that the logo can be placed. The fact that the speaker has had to be relocated to accommodate the logo position means that the fact that the location isn't exactly the same is irrelevant. They could have done this, but chose not to.

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

I didn't say that the galaxy design existed in that form before the iphone design existed. My argument was that you can't complain about Samsung's use of rounded corners after the iphone went on the market when they were making phones with rounded corners before, just like you can't complain that placing the speaker at the top is a way of ripping-off Apple's design.

No - you're missing the point. Samsung had the F700 with rounded corners. It existed before the iPhone. Having seen the iPhone, they then ignored their initial design with the same features, and copied the iPhone's version of it instead of developing it themselves and taking the design evolution in a different direction.

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

The conclusion is that you simply refuse to use the same arguments for both Apple and Samsung. As a designer, are you telling me that you didn't notice the differences between the two chargers?

I'm not a designer, so I'm sure that I can't spot as many as you can, but from what I can see: 1. only the samsung has a logo, 2. they have a different color scheme, 3. they have a slightly different overall size, 4. they have a different radius for the corners, 5. they have a different shape at the USB end, 6. the USB side is made from different materials that make the samsung charger have a shinier surface than the apple charger, 7. the USB slot is bigger in the Samsung, 8. the slightly different shape would make the samsung charger easier to grip to unplug, making the difference an improvement, 9. the slightly bigger USB slot with rounded edges would make the USB cable easier to insert, making the difference an improvement.

This is getting tedious. Look at every other mobile phone charger. Look at the Apple device. Look at the charger that just happens to come with the phone that just happens to look exactly like the iPhone. The point about the charger is that there is no other prior art that looks like this other than the iPhone charger. It's in effect unique. Samsung can't point to one of their older similar models and claim it's an evolution. They can't point to any other charger for anything else as 'inspiration' in this case. The fact that there are several minor detail differences do not in any respect invalidate the fact that that the basic design is completely ripped off. When you take all these issues into account, someone would have to be visually impaired, deluded or just very stupid to conclude that Samsung didn't blatantly copy Apple. Even the packaging is virtually the same.

Apple don't have a monopoly on great design. Samsung design some cool stuff and at an affordable price. Some of their TVs look awesome. I cannot believe that their design guys couldn't look at the iPhone charger and say, "Wow, that's cool, I didn't think of the charger being part of the overall design. I can design something a bit better than that."

It would seem to me that the mandate was to copy the iPhone, but try to make minor changes to differentiate it. They didn't try very hard to do this.

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

According to your previous comments, if the situation were reversed, you would be arguing that this would be a case of using the other charger's design as inspiration, and not to directly rip-off.

There is a view held by many people, that nowadays, with our modern over-simplified and truncated communication media, that attention spans of many people are too short to adequately deal with more complex arguments or extended passages of text. You're not doing a lot to dispel this...

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by jjallenupthehill

There is no difference in ripping off someone's design or ripping off someone's functionality.

It may take one person ten minutes to lay out an icon matrix on a screen, and 100s of thousands of man hours to design the functionality of a cell phone radio and baseband, for example. Even if the icon matrix took longer than a few minutes, there is no indication that more than a few minutes is required, or that extensive education is required. There certainly is no chance at all of throwing together a smartphone radio and baseband in a few minutes, and the education in multiple disciplines of the people involved is very extensive. Even the work involved in ripping off significant functionality is far greater than the work involved on the design elements in question.

Originally Posted by jjallenupthehill

Both activities require a lot of time and effort. One is no less valuable than the other.

The time and effort required are not even within several orders of magnitude of each other, so there is certainly a huge difference in value. I think part of the whole point of this Samsung vs. Apple thing is that the design elements in question are so trivial that it is withing the realm of possibility that something that appears to be a copy is just purely accidental. Others have already pointed out that close examination reveals differences in design elements that were allegedly copied.

[Graham]

I'm a staunch defender of Android, but I'll go along with jjallenupthehill that the packaging of the Galaxy S takes its cues rather too closely from the iPhone 3G, particularly with the charger and the redesign of icons in Touchwiz.

However, the full versions of texts which were redacted for the jury (see Groklaw) do show that the Samsung designers were urged to find ways to differentiate their product, with the larger screen being a key aspect.

I agree that Samsung should be penalised for the fact that the original Galaxy S ended up rather too close to the iPhone 3G, but I would hope that jjallenupthehill would agree that beyond that Apple's litigation has gone too far, and that later Samsung products in the Galaxy range have carved our their own identities.

Graham

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by jjallenupthehill

What?!

Why is design less worthy of protection than anything else? ..

You miss the point. I didn't say anything about protection in general. The Patent System was put in place for a specific purpose and it's not protecting design or software.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by jjallenupthehill

...
This is getting tedious. ......

Yes, yes it is. And you're only 10 posts in. Wait til you've been through this a gazillion times.

[MovieBird]

Originally Posted by jjallenupthehill

What?!

Why is design less worthy of protection than anything else? It's protection of someone's work and ideas, exactly the same as any other field.

That betrays a total ignorance of the visual world and of the notion of any value of design. The patent laws cover things like widescreen TVs because of obviousness.

The term 'design' covers both function and appearance. These can be viewed together and separately. In the case of Apple vs Samsung, it's both. The physical design was copied, and the interface appearance and function. I'm going to use the dots to indicate which screen is current as an example.

I'm all for protection of design traits that fulfill specific structural (or other) needs in a unique way. For instance, the aerodynamic design of a prius grill. Of course, Formula 1 cars have been using all of those aerodynamic elements since inception, and most of this stuff comes from the airplane companies anyways. Maybe a better example would be the strut design for a booster rocket

Spoiler:

However, design which is solely for the point of being pretty, like Apple's, is not worthy of protection in my world view. Patents are (say it with me):

Originally Posted by Article One, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

Pretty is not useful (unless you're a young female). Let them be satisfied with trademarks.

[holymadness]

Originally Posted by pl001

You are responding to me but you are taking bits and pieces from several people as if we are one.

Here's the bottom line. It is my opinion that the main reason Apple has non-removable storage is greed. I base that on the large overall profit margins on their hardware, which far exceed any other mobile device manufacturer. I stated early on that I don't feel it is the only reason. And I and others also stated we don't support Google doing it either. Yet you chose to act as if that was never said. Why?

If you don't agree with my opinion, that's fine. It is after all an opinion and by no means an indisputable fact. So long as you read all of what I actually wrote instead of forcing pieces into the anti-Apple stereotype you like to argue about while ignoring the pieces that don't.

I am responding to multiple bits and pieces because you addressed a reply I made to someone else, while referencing the arguments that person made. You're not being stereotyped, it's just the flow of conversation.

As I said earlier, 'greed' is not a very useful term for advancing our understanding of the economics of smartphones. It is a pejorative. 'Apple is greedy' is simply shorthand for 'Apple is bad.' People may tut tut at Google charging the same amount for upgraded storage, but they don't say things like 'Google is greedy.' They say, and I paraphrase, "oh, well, Google is offering the Nexus for so little money that they're justified in charging $100 for expanded storage" (c.f. Dave and Pat in this thread). So there is no rule or reason being applied, there is just brand loyalty and clannishness. Again, I am not confusing their positions with your own. I am simply pointing out the overall tendency in this forum to abuse words like "greed" and "price gouging."

Back to your point about greed. First, it is a psychological term to describe people. Using it to describe a company is anthropomorphic and as such, tells us little that is useful or specific. A public company's purpose is to maximize shareholder value. Some make money selling at low cost (Walmart, Amazon), some do it by selling lesser volumes at higher cost (Apple, BMW). If both make money, which is the greediest business strategy? Is it greedier to target the high end of the market or to undercut one's competitors? It is greedier to sell devices that are subsidized by embedded advertising or is it greedier to derive 100% of your profits from your customers? You can't answer those sorts of questions by just saying "it's greedy."

Second, when people talk about greed, they always refer to the difference between the selling price and the cost of the components, e.g. $7 of storage for $100. This comes down to a question of value. Where is value? Does it reside inside the components? Is $7 distributed somewhere in the circuits and microchips? No, value is a negotiation between suppliers and distributors, inventors and manufacturers, customers and companies. Once you understand that value is not inherent in material objects, that it is a free-floating variable that depends on the perceived benefit someone derives from something measured according to what they're willing to give up to have it, then you can start having a serious conversation about pricing. People (again, not you) who say things like "An iPhone only costs $188 to build, therefore it's a rip-off" are either not sophisticated enough to grasp this concept or are trolling.

Apple's storage upgrade prices are definitely part of a business strategy to maximize profits. We are in agreement there. Beyond that, there are many more contributing factors. Apple, despite its growing mainstream success, is a luxury brand, or at least one that targets the high end of the market. As such, its pricing is a way of communicating the cachet of the brand. Joel Spolsky wrote a great essay about pricing which explains this rather well:

The only reason we assumed that the demand curve is downward sloping is that we assumed things like "if Freddy is willing to buy a pair of sneakers for $130, he is certainly willing to buy those same sneakers for $20." Right? Ha! Not if Freddy is an American teenager! American teenagers would not be caught dead in $20 sneakers. It's, like, um, the death penalty? if you are wearing sneakers? that only cost $20 a pair? in school?

I'm not joking around here: prices send signals. Movies in my town cost, I think, $11. Criminy. There used to be a movie theatre that had movies for $3. Did anyone go there? I DON'T THINK SO.It's obviously just a dumping ground for lousy movies. Somebody is now at the bottom of the East River with $20.00 cement sneakers because they dared to tell the consumer which movies the industry thought were lousy.

You see, people tend to believe that you get what you pay for. The last time I needed a lot of hard drive space I invested in some nice cheap hard drives allegedly designed by Mr. Porsche himself that went for about $1 a gigabyte. Within six months all four had failed. Last week I replaced them with Seagate Cheetah SCSI hard drives that cost about $4 a gigabyte because I've been running those since I started Fog Creek four years ago without a glitch. Chalk it up to "you get what you pay for."

There are just too many examples where you actually do get what you pay for, and the uninformed consumer is generally going to infer that the more expensive product is better. Buying a coffee maker? Want a really good coffee maker? You have two choices. Find the right issue of Consumer Reports in the library, or go to Williams-Sonoma and get the most expensive coffee maker they have there.

When you're setting a price, you're sending a signal. If your competitor's software ranges in price from about $100 to about $500, and you decide, heck, my product is about in the middle of the road, so I'll sell it for $300, well, what message do you think you're sending to your customers? You're telling them that you think your software is "eh." I have a better idea: charge $1350. Now your customers will think, "oh, man, that stuff has to be the cat's whiskers since they're charging mad coin for it!"

Moreover, in Apple's mind, the value of storage is related to the overall value of an iOS device. A 32GB SD card plugged into a turd sandwich isn't very interesting. But a 32GB upgrade to your iPhone storage means twice as many apps from the word's largest App Store, twice as much music and as many movies/TV shows from iTunes, the world's largest music store, twice as many photos with the best mobile camera, and so forth. In their minds (or at least their sales pitch), they're not selling dumb space, they're selling an improved user experience. You cannot reduce the product to merely the sum of its components.

A disclaimer: I am not trying to defend Apple's pricing, merely explain it. I find their upgrades very expensive for the benefits they offer and almost only ever buy the base models of their products, which I consider offer the best value. But to explain Apple's pricing as greed is uninteresting, and to describe those who find their products represent a good value as sheeple is ignorant.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by holymadness

First, the iPhone 5 uses a nano-SIM, which is 3 times smaller than a regular SIM card and is certainly not at all the same size as a Micro-SD card. Volumetrically, it's half as large.

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know if they are also using nano-SIM in Europe? I know that they have different versions if the phone because Europe uses a different standard for the 4G network, and I am curious to know if the differences between the markets extend to the SIM card as well.

Originally Posted by jjallenupthehill

The point regarding a different logo has to be disregarded because it's obvious, particularly considering that it's pretty much the only place on the front of the device that the logo can be placed.

So you don't consider the location of the speaker to be obvious, but you don't consider the location of the logo to be obvious. And why does it have to be on the front of the device?

Originally Posted by Graham

I'm a staunch defender of Android, but I'll go along with jjallenupthehill that the packaging of the Galaxy S takes its cues rather too closely from the iPhone 3G, particularly with the charger and the redesign of icons in Touchwiz.

Ah, if only the woman that got conned would have cared about the packaging.

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know if they are also using nano-SIM in Europe? I know that they have different versions if the phone because Europe uses a different standard for the 4G network, and I am curious to know if the differences between the markets extend to the SIM card as well.

Actually, I think that it is just the radio frequencies that are different. 4G is Long Term Evolution (LTE) most everywhere. I think that T-Mobile in the USA calls HSDPA+ to be 4G, but that terminology is debatable. From what I have seen the iPhone 5 here also uses the nano SIM. Of course, if you have a SIM cutter tool every SIM can be a nano SIM.

[holymadness]

Originally Posted by PatNY

Why the need to personally insult forum members you disagree with? Your inability to stick to the issues and tendency to throw around personal insults show a thin skin and defensiveness that undermines the points you're trying to make.

I seem to have some difficulty understanding a subtlety of the mobileread forum code of conduct. It seems it's frowned upon to say "X is an idiot for believing Y" but perfectly acceptable to say "People who believe Y are idiots," even if those people happen to be posting in that same thread. Why this should be is unclear, but it would be nice if those who did it didn't feign shock and outrage when the level of discourse, which they began by trampling into the mud, isn't civil enough.

I have been discouraged from using the dreaded T-word when describing people in these threads, so let me just say that you and many of the people who share your opinions tend to post provocative messages with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument. You call Apple users brainwashed sheep, you spend all your time in Apple threads dumping on their products and the people who buy them, you spam mocking videos and pictures and high-five each other over your little jokes. Every second post is a "LOL yeah!" or "So true!" In other words, you seek it out, then complain about it. Forgive me for rolling my eyes.

Size, yes. But I don't know that the shape of a device would have to change much by adding a card slot (so long as it was included at the inception of the design). Nor do I see how a card slot would significantly impact battery life and heat dispersion. And there would be no need to introduce a file system. It's easy to restrict card content to media which would have virtually zero impact on the GUI.

What is there to say else but that you are wrong?

Size and shape go hand in hand, so if you admit one you necessarily admit the other. As things stand in the iPhone, there is simply no room to add a SD card reader. If you were to add one into the current form factor, you would have to remove other elements or crowd the interior. It is one or the other and both entail sacrifices.

Please don't feign naīveté about the complexity external storage would add to iOS. Currently, iOS users never need to worry about managing their media. To add external storage would require making choices about where to store one's music and one's apps, what would happen if the card was swapped out, where files go if one drive becomes full and the other has space on it. These are not world-ending changes, but they are contrary to Apple's approach to iOS.

Perhaps the bias against Apple is so strong because they've earned it. Their anti-competitive litigious behavior is regarded as excessive and I'm not aware of any of Apple's competitors being nearly as aggressive -- or frivolous -- in the courts.

It is pretty funny to see someone choose, of all the companies in the world to hate, Apple. Instead of say, Monsanto, Bank of America, or BP. Well, nevermind. To each his own, though your priorities say a lot about you.

In any case, Apple is no more litigous than any other tech company. They just receive more press for it. You'll have to find a better reason than that.

And finally, bias is bias. It's not clear why we should take anything you say seriously when you admit you can't be objective.

The lower base price of their comparable products greatly mitigates the lack of an SD card or the huge jump in prices one pays to get extra built-in storage.

Heh, amusing.

Can you point to a few instances in this thread or any other thread on the first page of the News forum where someone predicted the demise of Apple for any of the reasons you cite? Where the person clearly was not joking around or being hyperbolic?

While many of us are very critical of Apple's practices, I can't remember seeing serious predictions of the company's demise.

Shrug, I'm not going to go through 30 pages to satisfy your pendantry for block quotes. It has been said and often over the last few weeks that I've posted regularly here. Do a search.

[holymadness]

Originally Posted by MovieBird

Pretty is not useful (unless you're a young female). Let them be satisfied with trademarks.

Yes, let's add sexism to the argument.

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by holymadness

Size and shape go hand in hand, so if you admit one you necessarily admit the other. As things stand in the iPhone, there is simply no room to add a SD card reader. If you were to add one into the current form factor, you would have to remove other elements or crowd the interior. It is one or the other and both entail sacrifices.

Please don't feign naīveté about the complexity external storage would add to iOS. Currently, iOS users never need to worry about managing their media. To add external storage would require making choices about where to store one's music and one's apps, what would happen if the card was swapped out, where files go if one drive becomes full and the other has space on it. These are not world-ending changes, but they are contrary to Apple's approach to iOS.

It is pretty funny to see someone choose, of all the companies in the world to hate, Apple. Instead of say, Monsanto, Bank of America, or BP. Well, nevermind. To each his own, though your priorities say a lot about you.

There are other methods. The card doesn't have to be one the logic board itself. As long as there is room for contacts. Plus the same excuse doesn't apply for iPad, which has way more room.

And why couldn't something be done ala the fusion drive? That's Apple's new drive made by combining a traditional hard drive and a SSD. Frequently used stuff gets stored on the NAND, less often used stuff gets stored on the platters. For iOS, have frequently used stuff on internal NAND, and use the SD for long term storage.

And no reason those other companies can't be hated. Fanboyish hate doesn't preclude hatred of companies outside of the sphere of the fanboy's interest.