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Besides the fact that Samsung is always listed in the top 20 "most innovative" companies in the world by major magazines, two things come to mind right away.

  • Samsung was the first maker to build an MP3 capable phone, years before even iPods existed.
  • Samsung has been the first to break many Flash memory boundaries, which Apple has relied upon in their products.


True, it is different. I was stationed in Korea for a year, worked with Koreans and had many dinners with their families. Also worked with Koreans in the USA, albeit in New York, not the west coast.

So I would point out that innovation is different even in California vs New York, as some decisions are made differently even in various parts of the USA:

When the iPhone was first announced, many were flabbergasted that it didn't have 3G at a time when every other smartphone did. Of course, free WiFi was more abundant in California at the time, so it made sense to the Apple designers.

Then there was the capacitive screen choice, which meant gloved fingers wouldn't work. Again, a Californian weather style choice. I'm half convinced that Apple waited until summer to start sales partly because they were afraid of losing huge Northern markets in the winter :)

It sometimes feels really sad to read this kind of stuff from you.

A better perspective please.
 
A better perspective please.

Well, gosh, then you could present what you think is a better one instead of taking the lazy way out and knocking mine :)

My intention was to lightly point out that even people in various parts of the US will design products differently. It's not just a per-country thing, although certainly there's a lot of that in world products as well.

For instance, if the iPhone had been designed in humid Florida, its moisture sensor positions and sensitivity might've been quite different.

It's like with my older Jaguars: being designed in the UK, they had nice heaters and windshield wipers, but their air conditioners and tiny air vents often couldn't keep up in the Southern USA heat.

Cheers!
 
Well, gosh, then you could present what you think is a better one instead of taking the lazy way out and knocking mine :)

My intention was to lightly point out that even people in various parts of the US will design products differently. It's not just a per-country thing, although certainly there's a lot of that in world products as well.

Your posts usually make a lot of sense but occasionally they deserve a head scratching facepalm. People in various parts of the US or intact the world do design products differently but the examples you laid out were wide of the mark.

For instance, if the iPhone had been designed in humid Florida, its moisture sensor positions and sensitivity might've been quite different.

This is totally irrelevant. I understand these physical properties but for a mobile phone these are irrelevant. A common range is chosen which is based on universal standards and based on these universal standards, the product is designed. Humid conditions in florida or low temperature in Antarctica is irrelevant.

...

Cheers!

Cheers.
 
I won't go as far as to say that design elements would change based on region (although it could). But marketing (and the launch timing) is definitely a consideration.

Launching a product that requires a touch interface in a season when people are more likely to have their hands unclothed is a lot smarter than releasing it in the middle of winter. Intentional or not - it would have/should have been a consideration.

There's a reason that new TVs are brought to market based on sports, for example.
 
I won't go as far as to say that design elements would change based on region (although it could). But marketing (and the launch timing) is definitely a consideration.

Launching a product that requires a touch interface in a season when people are more likely to have their hands unclothed is a lot smarter than releasing it in the middle of winter. Intentional or not - it would have/should have been a consideration.

There's a reason that new TVs are brought to market based on sports, for example.

October (rumoured date october 15th) is not mid winter, it is mid autumn or fall as you guys call it, the temperature is still mild and there is not snow on the ground and people wearing gloves
 
October (rumoured date october 15th) is not mid winter, it is mid autumn or fall as you guys call it, the temperature is still mild and there is not snow on the ground and people wearing gloves

Welcome to the conversation - we were referencing the original launch...

The first iPhone was unveiled on January 9, 2007 and released on June 29, 2007.
 
It is easy just don't by Samsung. Just because Apple has been able to show the world how great products will sell at high prices the rest who cannot, give them a hard time. Samsung are losing big time in the courts. I for one will never buy Samsung branded products again

Why not, their flatpanels tv's are the best you can get.
 
It sometimes feels really sad to read this kind of stuff from you.

A better perspective please.

based on the research i have been reading lately, i'd say he has somewhat of a point - albeit perhaps drawn to the extreme. Lets put it this way: weirder things surely has happened, than what was posited in the post.

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Well, gosh, then you could present what you think is a better one instead of taking the lazy way out and knocking mine :)

My intention was to lightly point out that even people in various parts of the US will design products differently. It's not just a per-country thing, although certainly there's a lot of that in world products as well.

For instance, if the iPhone had been designed in humid Florida, its moisture sensor positions and sensitivity might've been quite different.

It's like with my older Jaguars: being designed in the UK, they had nice heaters and windshield wipers, but their air conditioners and tiny air vents often couldn't keep up in the Southern USA heat.

Cheers!

A very valid point, if one is to believe related research holds any value. Believe it or not, engineers (or whatever) are people too.

----------

Your posts usually make a lot of sense but occasionally they deserve a head scratching facepalm. People in various parts of the US or intact the world do design products differently but the examples you laid out were wide of the mark.



This is totally irrelevant. I understand these physical properties but for a mobile phone these are irrelevant. A common range is chosen which is based on universal standards and based on these universal standards, the product is designed. Humid conditions in florida or low temperature in Antarctica is irrelevant.

Cheers.

You are right that they may be irrelevant for the mobile phone per se. You are - however - wrong if you with this wish to imply that this also means that such variables are irrelevant for the technology concepts brought to life by designers and engineers. Clearly, and as evidenced by research, different perspectives or knowledge frames will produce different end results, simply through the way the involved actors draw upon their own (subjective and cultural) frames to envision the intertwined problem-solution.

There are, of course, means to avoid such blindness in technology development, and innovation at large, but one would be wrong in assuming that the phenomenon outlined above holds no relevance for research and product development.

For example, the iphone, as built, is not capable of handling the climate in the part of the world in which i live*. Had it been developed here (and intended for this market), one could easily imagine that the problem as such had been lesser (i.e., that the product had been developed with these particular environmental aspects in mind**).

* in fact, one should not even use it for a large part of the year if one is to take the specifications seriously. Wouldnt be surprised if use, in spite of this, voids your warranty too.

** the above Jaguar case is another good example of this.
 
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Your posts usually make a lot of sense but occasionally they deserve a head scratching facepalm.

That's probably whenever my posts come from real life experience instead of what people (often sensibly) _think_ must happen :)

I've helped design a few custom touchscreen devices and phones over the past two decades.

Regional differences and even individual ideas make a lot of difference. This would be especially true in the case of the iPhone where only a very tiny handful of people ever even saw a complete working model before the final version was revealed to the mass public.

So yes, being designed in a very secretive insular and WiFi-rich environment with almost zero field testers would've made the decision to leave out 3G to save money on parts and data plans seem more palatable to a few execs. Ditto for not worrying about cold weather when the designers were stuck in California and the first customer came from Texas.

As for individuals, somewhere there is a single Apple programmer who changed everything by showing Jobs an example of finger flick scrolling. Just imagine if that one person had not done that... the current iPhone could easily instead have a home button surrounded by a cursor pad. That's the way real life works: no magic, just hard work and lucky timing.

This is totally irrelevant. I understand these physical properties but for a mobile phone these are irrelevant. A common range is chosen which is based on universal standards and based on these universal standards, the product is designed. Humid conditions in florida or low temperature in Antarctica is irrelevant.

No sir. The only "universal standards" for building phones are related to the radios and consumer and environmental safety.

Here's a list of such standards that I can think of, off the top of my head:

  • Radio standards - required compliance
  • Safety standards- required battery materials and temperature protection
  • Charging stds - for the EU, universal charger connection
  • US State rules - required avoidance of materials mined in the Congo
  • Security rules - required avoid certain crypto methods for export
  • Toxic standards - required or optional limits on mercury, lead, etc
  • Green standards - optional amount of recycleable material, reduction of packaging, etc
There are also universal testing standards that anyone can use to compare their phone to, but they are totally optional.

(Otherwise, iPhones would never have been made of glass instead of a more drop resistant material. They'd have their moisture sensors hidden deep under a removable battery back like every other phone on the planet, instead of being very exposed. They would have heater elements in the LCD so it would work in the Arctic.)

For common example:

  • Dust & Water - International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) IEC60529 standards, e.g a phone might be rated "IP54", which means protected from dust (not dust proof though) and protected from splashing water. Optional drop test results can be added, but rarely are for mass consumer items.
  • Then you have the infamous MIL-STD-810 which manufacturers can make up their own tests for. So if you read "complies with MIL-STD-810", it's not very meaningful.
In other words, there is no required "standard" that a phone must be designed to for humidity and so forth. Different levels are chosen for different markets and models. That's why say, Verizon makes a big deal out of their Boulder phone which is more hardened against drops and water.

TL;DR - outside of radio and safety standards, there are no required minimum performance standards for phones except for what the maker or customer dreams up.
 
LoL indeed

lol. So I guess Burger King should sue McDonalds because they made a Big Mac larger than their biggest burger?

And I thought that humans were born with a logical mind, not acquired.

It depends. Only if Bruger King patented their biggest burger. It's all about patents.
 
As you say, Samsung can't refuse to offer Apple fair licensing terms for essential communications technology, other legal actions between the companies notwithstanding. Otherwise, no company other than Samsung could make mobile phones, and given the patent portfolios owned by other companies, even they couldn't make then due to the IP that Samsung has to license under fair licensing terms.

I quite dislike this whole line of thinking, though, to announce that you are going to sue someone for patent infringement on a product before you even know what they are making. Now we know why Samsung demanded to see prototypes of the iPhone 5 "and any future products".

"no company other than Samsung could make mobile phones, and given the patent portfolios owned by other companies, even they couldn't make then due to the IP that Samsung has to license under fair licensing terms" <- Funny if that's the case, then isn't Samsung a monopolist since if they're suing apple for the wireless technology that they is said they owned. Isn't there a law about this somewhere.. remember Microsoft? Patent laws need to be reviewed and applied globally. Maybe Samsung's understanding of global is only applied within their border country.
 
They are disrespecting not only Apple by doing this they are also disrespecting the users of Apple and Apple fans, a maker of inferior tat telling consumers they can't have the iPhone 5 when they want it, how dare they.
How about Apple denying the rights of consumers in Germany that want a Galaxy Tab 10.1? ;)
 
It's about disrubting sales than actually winning the lawsuit. They are both trying to inflict damages than collecting loyalties. Apple started this for unknown reason, and they are going to pay for this quite literally.
 
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