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Microsoft Research Demos Motion Sensing Keyboard with Gestures
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Just to clarify that this isn't really Microsoft R&D, as in what they do for product creation and development. This is purely technical research, the same kind of thing that you would find at, say, MIT or other educational facilities but without the attached bureaucracy. And MS of course has "dibs" on what is being created and can to some extent dictate what is being researched.
Nokia has a similar setup with the Nokia Research Center. At least in Finland they aren't located at corporate HQ, but instead co-locate with the leading technical university in Finland. The people who work there do what researchers do. Study, explore technology, write papers etc. AFAIK MS Research is pretty much the same. Only if they happen to come up with something that has immediate commercial application does Corporate HQ get interested, and that stuff is then usually patented and thrown into product creation.
I posted that before I read the thread and realized that. I looked at it compared to my wired keyboard with numpad and saw the key logos looked a little different so assumed it was a close ripoff. Regardless, my point still stands, every other tech company rips off Apple shamelessly. Just look at all those MBP design clones and most ultrabook MBA clones, also look at product introduction videos like Google's for the chromebook pixel. Shameless.
The only real design anyone's ripped off of Apple and their laptops is the touchpad. And rightly so, they're the best in the business. Everything else that we associate with Macbooks? The black chichlet keys? The grey and black color? The wedge design of the MBAs? They're hardly unique. A goodly bit of that Apple style came from Sony and their Vaio line.
Though I think Apple is still the only company that makes unibody shells for their laptops.
The MBA is a close to 1:1 copy of an early 2000-2002 or so Compaq (?). Can't remember the name of it, but the likeness is rather blatantly obvious.
I can't think of any Compaqs that looked like the MBA, but when it comes to the Vaios, the inspiration is all but obvious.
Like the article states, the first Vaio Z and X505 were ultrabooks nearly 8 years before ultrabooks became a thing, and 4 years before the MBA first showed up.
You really don't consider these a poor imitation of Apple design? Even if they weren't the first to make a gold phone or make a wedge laptop, it's painfully obvious that other companies do the same thing just because Apple did.
cMBP clone here
Black MBP here
Samesung's Macbook Air clone here
And last but not lease the Chromebook Pixel introduction, so shameless you'd swear it's a parody.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-XTpdDDXiU
The HP Envy is more than a little suspicious, yeah. Same with the Samsung. But the Razer Blade? Comeon. "It's got a screen and it's kinda squarish, that's like A TOTAL RIP OFF OF AN MPB WHICH ALSO HAS A SCREEN AND IS KINDA SQUARISH".
Same thing with the commercial. It's a bunch of talking heads going on and on about their product. Apple wasn't the first to do that, and they won't be the last.
The razor is basically the same shape and layout, just look at the insides. Same as rMBP. Their older layout looked exactly like the internals of the cMBP too.
The CEO doesn't even deny it, which I can kind of respect.
http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/1/4384738/razer-blade-hp-dell-innovation-apple-min-liang-tan
And about the Pixel video, if you don't think that is 100 percent inspired from Apple's product videos I don't know what to say. It's a total ripoff.
Yeah, you can't deny that.
Though he does have a point. With laptops slowly being replaced with tablets in the lower end consumer market, cheap and badly made machines aren't gonna cut it anymore. It's gonna be a market dedicated to the prosumer, the professional, and gamers. All groups of people who want something good, and are willing to spend the money to get it.
HP and Dell, two companies who built their business around cheap machines (even though they do offer some good higher end machines), are the ones losing the most money. While Lenovo, Asus, Apple, and now apparently Razor are seeing growth in a declining market. Why? Because they're offering good machines.
So in this case, it's a great idea to ape Apple. There's nothing wrong with copying quality and good design. Though they're not just ripping them off outright. I looked at Razor's machines, and they've got some interesting options Apple does offer. Their tablet PC looks pretty cool, and the 17" machine has a nice touchscreen built into it that could be pretty cool if it's done well.
Ape Apple? So Apple is the only supplier of good machines? Doubt it, you can buy a good machine elsewhere, shop around. I would however like Apple, who make good machines to offer a full machine not a highend laptop with 2 USB 3 ports. Its got 2 Thunderbolt ports which are of little use to mist and to use them to attach an adapter with other ports is very expensive.
The masses are not interested on prosumer, they want machines that work at their price point.
Tablets are not replacing laptops at any market. The few who do just three things on their laptop will replace it. A tablet such as iPad is a consumption device, the Windows 8 tablets are to awkward to use touch on a laptop. Ask 20 people to fully ditch their laptop for a tablet, its not there yet.
You raise good points. Although I never said it wasn't a good idea to copy apple designs, clearly it's working for some of these companies. But it doesn't mean I have to like it. My issue is I find it rather tasteless, and I would never buy a product like that. That's all.
I mentioned three just above. When I say "ape Apple", I mean their attitude towards the market and their products. Providing good computers without sacrificing any quality to lower the price.
I think you missed my point. You're right that the masses aren't interested in prosumer goods. That's one of the reasons why tablets and smartphones are slowly overtaking the laptop market. For people who just want to read webpages, look at emails, and post to Facebook, they don't need a big laptop to do all that. A tablet or a smartphone works just fine. But for people who do need a machine to do some work on, they're gonna buy a laptop.
It's a market transition. Tablets are filling the space normally head by cheaper laptops, and laptops in turn are transitioning into higher end niche machines. The market won't be nearly as big for them, but there will still be plenty of people out there with a need for them.
Not yet, but it's very quickly heading that way. Tablet are going to be more than mere consumption devices. They're already 3/4ths of the way towards being decent productivity machines, with the Surface having the power, but not the interface, and the iPad having the interface but not the power. Once they converge, we'll be able to do quite a bit more on our tablets than just watch movies.
And then you'll see overlap with high end tablets and low-mid specced laptops alongside higher end pro-machine laptops. The future is just a steady roll of improvements and tweaks away.
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You raise good points. Although I never said it wasn't a good idea to copy apple designs, clearly it's working for some of these companies. But it doesn't mean I have to like it. My issue is I find it rather tasteless, and I would never buy a product like that. That's all.
Eh. It's all just tech fashion when you get right down to it. People used to copy Compaq and Dells in the past, and now Apple's defining the cool new look for tech, and now everyone's copying their style. As long as there are improvements beyond superficial looks, I have no problem with it.
Like the Asus Zenbook. They look a lot like an MBA, no doubt about it. But it's internals are much closer to a MBP. Even if it does share some style, it's a well designed machine overall that actually surpasses it's inspiration in a lot of ways.
Same with the Razer Blades. It's a much more powerful computer than an MBP, yet it's still just as sleek and stylish.
I think of the way computers look as being similar to car models. No matter who made what, it's easy to tell what era a car came from, because they all share similar overall stylings. Right now sleek minimalism is cool in the tech industry, so now all computers will share that sleek, minimalist look.
Yet Razer Blades are MUCH more expensive then rMBP. So much for the canard that Apple hardware is the most expensive. It's just not true.
Well, Apple's high end stuff is priced competitively. Anything they make with a Pro tagged to the end of the name is usually about the same price as a PC equivalent, plus or minus a couple hundred bucks.
That said, I do think some of their lower end stuff is a little overpriced. The Mac Mini is probably the most shining example of that.