Apple Licenses Swiss Railway Clock Design for iPad's iOS 6 Clock App

[Anuba]

Its just a basic clock? I dont get it.

It wasn't so basic and commonplace in 1944 when it was designed.
Reassuring to see people crap all over history like the Swiss Railway clock was designed two weeks ago.
I'm guessing you skeptics could watch Doug Engelbart's demonstration of this thing he invented in 1963 called a mouse and go "It's just a basic mouse? I don't get it."

 

[Four oF NINE]

But

I can see some similarities, but do the Swiss railway clocks reverse colors after 6 PM?

 

[Macboy Pro]

Samsung must be quite stupid then. Spot the difference in this image

Now that is funny. A super blurry image of two black objects that are not even discernible as phones.

 

[KnightWRX]

Myself and people I know do create our own pigments, materials and bindings. No I don't rely on any color theories, I rely on nature.

So you draw ? Paint ? Those things aren't novel or new to you. You rely on someone else's work. Those pigments ? Do you make them using recipes you've invented, with ingredients not known to anyone else ?

What about colors and nature ? Do you do realism ? surrealism ?

No. You depend on the work of those before you more than you realise.

 

[RVdave]

Myself and people I know do create our own pigments, materials and bindings. No I don't rely on any color theories, I rely on nature.

Get real! You were educated by your parents and teachers with the ideas and techniques learned and developed by others. In addition to painting you probably were taught how to ride a bike, and how to use a knife and fork by others, who built on what they learned from others. Artists also develop and build on the skills of their predecessors. To claim you've done it all by yourself is beyond stupid.

 

[Carouser]

you are full of BS and know nothing about the artists or the creative process.

i'm an artist, i would know.

The idea that artists develop their works in isolation and that genius is the product of a solitary mind, exempt from whatever constraints somehow prevent other artists from producing great works, is a rather extravagant claim. Your support of this claim? "You are full of BS, I'm an artist" (do you think nobody else here is?). Also, it's quite possible for any artist to say something stupid and incorrect about past artists. Art is only meaningful because of the context of a community of artists working with and against each other, it's not discrete flashes of insight which the artistically elect receive and transmute into Great Works.

And you are 'arguing' that Michelangelo, Rembrandt, van Gogh, Renoir, Picasso, Braque, Matisse, Rothko, and Pollock just up and made transformative work that was utterly independent of circumstance, influence, training, convention - and I'm full of BS. Thanks for the lols, let me know when your next showing is.

EDIT: I'm trying to picture how the-wanderer conceives of artistic genius, something which has zero connection to anything preceding or contemporary. Can't use a square canvas, nor a round one, nor any canvas perhaps, nothing textured, nothing superflat, no action painting, realism is out, so is abstract expressionism, not sure what direction is left here, but maybe an artist can fill me in.

EDIT 2: Holy loly, Rothko? His wikipedia page is nothing but a list of his influences, inspiration, and colleagues - this isn't some deep secret about art, it's the most basic thing.

 

[Oracle1729]

And would you consider Warhol an artist and/or a genius? After all, with things like the Brillo boxes, his only contribution was to dream up the idea of oversized Brillo boxes. The original box was designed by a guy named James Harvey. Warhol commissioned his assistants to build large wood replicas of the boxes, I'm guessing Malanga did the silkscreen print and then someone else stacked them as part of a grocery-themed exhibit in a museum somewhere. The art world is still in awe of that, er, accomplishment.

You're taking one artist you can attack and using him to dismiss the entire art world.

Well then, by your logic, since Apple clearly had a flunky in graphics design copy this clock, it follows that every design apple has ever come up with was a copy.

And for your original question, no I wouldn't consider Warhol an artist or a genius. He was a good salesman but that's about it.

 

[Carouser]

You're taking one artist you can attack and using him to dismiss the entire art world.

Well then, by your logic, since Apple clearly had a flunky in graphics design copy this clock, it follows that every design apple has ever come up with was a copy.

It's not a dismissal of the art world, it's a description of it. Whatever Apple did with this clock face, the point is it's not as simple as two categories of "Geniuses whose work has zero relation to anything else" and "Non-geniuses who literally counterfeit the Mona Lisa and present it as their own."

 

[gnasher729]

Then Jobs was a complete idiot.

Michelangelo didn't steal
Rembrandt didn't steal
van Gogh didn't steal
Renoir didn't steal
Picasso/Braque didn't steal
Matisse didn't steal
Rothko didn't steal
Pollock didn't

great artists strive to say something in their own voice, they do not stand on shoulders of others.

they stand alone.

You call Steve Jobs an idiot (which is quite obviously wrong), but you actually fail to understand what he, or better, what Picasso was saying. Many people could, with a bit of practice, copy someone else's designs or pictures or art; often the copy would be clearly inferior, sometimes it wouldn't.

"Great artists steal" means exactly that a great artist can take an inspiration and make it his or her own. Clearly Picasso wasn't talking about the legal definition of "stealing" when he said that. And all of the above did steal within Picasso's meaning of the word.

Now this is beginning to irritate me.

Steve Jobs was NOT a genius.

Anyone who read or watched 2001:A Space Odyssey has already seen all of these toys/gadgets back in 1968. All Jobs did is say make this happen in a commercialized, economically viable, manufacturing process. He didn't create or envisage anything new, he just drove it into production.

Now you're getting silly.

Just curious, how could a designer possibly know that an image was trademarked by a Swiss railroad of all things and not in the public domaine? And how about the other zillion images in IOS 6? Just askin

If the designer had never seen it anywhere else, then chances are close to zero to come up with exactly this design. If the designer had seen it elsewhere, then he or she should have gone to their manager and said "this is how our clock should look like, but I've seen this image somewhere else". And they could have used it if they _knew_ it was in the public domain, and if they didn't _know_ whether it was trademarked, just protected by copyright, or in the public domain, they shouldn't have used it.

I would fire the employee who confirmed this style clock to be on the iPad. If you choose, at least make a licensing agreement before. Probably, it would have been cheaper than doing the agreement now.

Definitely cheaper, but I don't think it was too bad. Apple would have said "we either license the design for the next few years at some reasonable rate, or we remove it immediately and you can sue us for damages for 7 days of use". My guess is Apple paid maybe twice as much as they should have (by negotiating properly). And anyway, I think there is now at least _one_ designer at Apple who will not make that mistake ever again.

This was a smart business move by Apple. There is no reason to pay for a license until you are called out on it. They did the same thing with Nokia and are currently doing it with other FRAND patents. Don't pay until you are left with no other option. To do so would be silly.

I think that is wrong. With Nokia vs. Apple, both Apple and Nokia knew exactly that Apple would be paying, they just disagreed about how much.

 

[ps45]

Definitely cheaper, but I don't think it was too bad. Apple would have said "we either license the design for the next few years at some reasonable rate, or we remove it immediately and you can sue us for damages for 7 days of use". My guess is Apple paid maybe twice as much as they should have (by negotiating properly).

The litigation route would not have been cheap because you would not be simply looking at '7 days of use' you would have been looking at x million copies which may or may not be revoked subsequently, plus punitive damages that would probably be elevated due to Apple's stature.

I'm sure if they had wanted to, the licensor could have extracted a decent pound of flesh for this clear cut infringement.

However in this case, I suspect they have instead licensed at reasonable market rates, the same as they would have charged if asked before, and the same as they would charge another company for usage on this scale. Because there are still some companies in the world who are out to make their money fair and square and not opportunistically at the expense of others.

 

[skottichan]

Myself and people I know do create our own pigments, materials and bindings. No I don't rely on any color theories, I rely on nature.

I think I just hand an aneurism.

Nature is the most beautiful example of color theories.

Altho, congrats on making your own materials and pigments. I used to as a kid, helped me understand color and texture better than any of the droning in my art theory classes.


As to the OP, and I think it was Carouser that mentioned the designer should have recognized it. I'm a 36 year old graphic designer with about 15 years of experience, I didn't recognize it per se. It "felt" familiar, but I didn't know from what, so I'm sure I'd have let that design slip through.

 

[Veinticinco]

Haven't got an iPad (yet) to check but can anyone confirm if the clock app mirrors the fact that the Swiss clock completes 1 'minute' in 58 seconds and pauses for the remaining 2 seconds jumping to the 12 o'clock position?

 

[j-traxx]

I want to be able to look at my watch, or clock, and know what time it is. I do not want to have to sit there and count hash marks to figure out what time it is.

You made me lose all hope in humanity this sad day. Smh

 

[RVdave]

You made me lose all hope in humanity this sad day. Smh

That tells me you've never put your watch on upside down, so just wait till you're a senior #.

 

[winglet69]

Reading this whole thread - well, ok, it's the internet at large - really makes me realize just how banal and ignorant we are becoming as a race. Everything in tiny soundbites and dumbed down as absolutely far as we can go. People sneering at the Swiss clock design, as if they could have come up with it effortlessly. Right. Just stick to your Honey Boo Boo world and keep telling yourself your comments contribute something useful.

Simple, clean, iconic design is NOT easy. It's inspired.

And analog displays have some very large advantages over digital, which is why even the most modern of machines - for example, F1 cars and modern airliners - still use analog depictions for certain things, even if the display is electronic. Why? Because it requires less time to interpret a needle's position in a dial - especially in something fast moving like a race car or aircraft - than it does to actually scan an instrument, READ it, and then interpret the data. Yes, there are also uses for digital numeric readouts, but analog will always give you the information more quickly because it's simpler by DESIGN. And that was the whole point of the original Swiss clock, if the people crapping all over it bothered to educate themselves. It was designed to be readable from across a railway station. No, it may not display time to the 1/100th of a second like a digital chronograph. But it performs its intended function perfectly, which is the definition of superlative design. And why it has survived for many decades without modification.

 

[thefourthpope]

Okay... here's how I define 'art.' If it's something I could copy PERFECTLY in illustrator by having GLANCED at it ONCE... it's not art. Its design is minimal and functional. I think it's an effective design... high contrast with black on white and with varied weights.

...

A master painting hanging in the louvre? DeVinci? Art. Picasso? Art. A basic clock face that is similar to ones I had in my grammar school? Meh.

Mondrian? That minimal and functional enough for you?

----------

This is a bunch of nonsense. Every last one of those artists was carrying on a 'conversation' with their precursors and their contemporaries and are indebted to them as such. Every last bit of them used allegory in their works, which at times blurs the line between homage and theft. The 'singular genius' model of the Great Artist who bootstraps him- or herself above contemporaries through a unique, self-generated vision is a joke to anybody who knows anything about art history.

Yup.
And what distinguishes this case from those kinds of conversations and enters patent infringement is that here both parties are trying to market their specific creation, except one came first and introduced the _exact_ thing that apple is now marketing.

 

[AmpSkillz]

Haven't got an iPad (yet) to check but can anyone confirm if the clock app mirrors the fact that the Swiss clock completes 1 'minute' in 58 seconds and pauses for the remaining 2 seconds jumping to the 12 o'clock position?

No.. it does not, and it was obviously never meant to be some sort of digital replica of the Swiss clock, which you are apparently assuming, based on your question.

There are many differences in its appearance which make it fairly obvious.

Do I think the Swiss clock was the inspiration? Yes, I'd say that's a fair assumtion, whether intentional or not.

 

[sitsonthefence]

So much anger in one thread...

 

[Anuba]

Clockfacepalm

So much anger in one thread...

Well, scoffing at simplicity and purity of design on a forum related to Apple products is bound to stir up some anger, since Apple fans of all people should know all about the insane amounts of anal-retentive refinement that goes into creating a simple, beautiful, iconic and timeless design.

"What's so special about the Swiss railway clock face? It's totally generic, I could've designed that in my sleep."

"What's so special about a Mondrian painting? It's just a bunch of lines and squares. My 3-year old could've made that."

"What's so special about the iPad design? It's just a rectangular slab with rounded corners. I have a blind, quadriplegic cousin with Down's, and he could've pooped out a more sophisticated design than that."

"What's so special about Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye? It's just a big square on some pillars. A blindfolded monkey on valium could've designed that with creative assistance from a stillborn squirrel."

"What's so special about the Washington Monument? It's just a gargantuan granite dildo. A single cell organism could've designed that and later remarked 'it's not my best work'."

The world clearly needs more education with blunt objects.

 

[miazma]

You didn't

I guess I licensed mine when I bought it.

You're waring a Swiss Federal Railways watch. The logo containing "SBB" = Swiss Federal Railways.

 

[nebo1ss]

I guess I licensed mine when I bought it.

The Clock in question is one of the most famous Clocks in the world designed by Hans Hilfiker in 1944. The second hand represents the device railway men hold in their hands on stations in Europe to signal to the driver when he can leave the station.

The design was licensed by Mondaine which explains your watch. In fact I was under the impression they took exclusivity on the design. I cannot imagine that the railway company could have negotiated with apple without approval from Mondaine.

 

[turtlez]

Now that is funny. A super blurry image of two black objects that are not even discernible as phones.

I blurred them enough to remove the details so you can see that by standing far back it looks identical to each other. One is iPhone one is Galaxy. If you were an artist you would understand this. Blur your eyes at a photograph you can still tell what it is. Foundations are what works not tiny details. You could render a rock all day in photoshop but it wouldn't make your design cool unless you got the foundations right.

So basically the galaxy and iphone share the same foundations. AKA copy.

 

[nebo1ss]

Haven't got an iPad (yet) to check but can anyone confirm if the clock app mirrors the fact that the Swiss clock completes 1 'minute' in 58 seconds and pauses for the remaining 2 seconds jumping to the 12 o'clock position?

No it does not. The only real difference between the two clocks is that the original has an Analogue movement "Smooth Scroll" Apple implementation has a digital movement "Hand jumps from second to second".

 

[Macboy Pro]

I blurred them enough to remove the details so you can see that by standing far back it looks identical to each other. One is iPhone one is Galaxy. If you were an artist you would understand this. Blur your eyes at a photograph you can still tell what it is. Foundations are what works not tiny details. You could render a rock all day in photoshop but it wouldn't make your design cool unless you got the foundations right.

So basically the galaxy and iphone share the same foundations. AKA copy.

Dude, I could blurr two of many things in this world and make them look similar. That doesn't make them copies. LOL.

 

[Anuba]

No it does not. The only real difference between the two clocks is that the original has an Analogue movement "Smooth Scroll" Apple implementation has a digital movement "Hand jumps from second to second".

Um, no it doesn't, not on the iPad anyway. I'm looking at the iPad clock in fullscreen mode right now, and the seconds hand glides smoothly like on a Rolex. The minutes hand jumps from minute to minute and they've included a subtle bounce effect so that the minute hand trembles a little before it settles in its new position.

Design wise there are subtle differences in the thickness and length of lines on the scale, or the thickness of the hands, but those differences don't say "oops, we accidentally happened to make a very similar clock, we blame cryptomnesia", nor do they say "yeah the Swiss railway clock face was a good start but we perfected the design"... they say "we started with an exact copy of Swiss clock face, and then we tweaked it a bit, hopefully enough to fly under the radar or, failing that, have a better shot at dodging potential lawsuits".