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Samsung's Massive Document Outlining How to Improve Galaxy S by Adopting iPhone Solutions Surfaces
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Yay... KnightWRX is here, again, to argue and debate against Apple and straighten us out.
Let's see, Samsung wrote 132 pages on how to improve their phone .... to be more like the iPhone ... BUT ... they didn't copy anything, aha.
Thank you, I get it now now, Apple bad, Samsung good.
But for the heck let's let the jury decide, they'll have ALL the facts.
Which is exactly my point - Apple has superior design, superior hardware and just make better devices (I have iPhone, iPad and MBP).
So what is all this rubbish they are doing on trivial decisions made at Samsung that shouldn't be patentable in the first place.
Get back to making amazing devices Apple, and get out of the bloody courtrooms.
Must have looked like a button.....and given Apple has those.... Apple invented it
don't want MR getting sued now do we?
I don't see what's wrong with making comparisons? It's like adopting any trend in almost any industry; you compare your own work to what is happening around you. If Samsung used Apple's product as a good example then they should be flattered, but this doesn't instantly suggest that Samsung attempted to copy Apple. The iPhone rocked the whole industry, so I very much doubt that Samsung were the only company to produce these kinds of documents.
Obviously Samsung are guilty of more than a few patent infringements, but this evidence is really scraping the bottle of the barrel.
Obviously Samsung are guilty of more than a few patent infringements, but this evidence is really scraping the bottle of the barrel.
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this thread is going to be a massive breeding ground for some serious bitching, whining, rudeness and hate.
On more than 100 pages ? I could buy it for few examples or when compared against others, too.
I think the argument here is that it wasn't common sense until after they looked at Apple's design.
While still off topic i have to point out that the act of giving a tip is largely an american culture thing and isn't really expected or even done in many parts of the world and is in no way indicative of someones standing as a person.
The really interesting question here is not so much that of the patent dispute or the specific details here. I tend to agree that Samsung has tried to copy Apple's solutions and to make their products more similar to Apple's in order to gain sales. If there is a real leader in terms of customer experience and that leader is very famous and popular, the "this one is just like that one, only it's cheaper" sales pitch is very useful. Whether this amounts to patent infringement is not for me to say, I'm not a patent lawyer.
This all being said, there is a difference between aping someone else to gain sales, standardising certain aspects of a solution in order to make things easier for switchers and being "inspired" by something else.
I think Samsung has done a fair bit of the former - they seem to have chosen to copy or closely mimic Apple's iPhone in order to improve their own product and thus increase sales. This is morally grey and legally, well, we don't know yet.
The middle item, standardising elements, is a bit complex. For instance, using red text to highlight a mistake on an electronic form has now become fairly standard. If someone had patented that and enforced that patent, each place we go on the web, each time we filled in a form, we'd have to look out for a new kind of marker. That would be bad for all of us. Some things that are really, very obvious and very natural probably need to be open to all. I'm not sure how that can be properly defined.
But then we move on to inspiration. A lot of people like to bring up Jobs' quote about being proud to steal ideas but they tend to do so out of context. Stealing ideas and copying solutions are not the same thing. The idea to create a social network on the internet didn't belong to Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook wasn't the first and it won't be the last. But the implementation, the solution, that had to be his own. Had he just copied Myspace and slapped Facebook on it he'd have been in trouble. This is what Jobs meant when he spoke about stealing ideas. An idea is an idea and no one can own it. A solution, however, that can be owned. I think I'm roughly correct on that but, once again, I'm not a lawyer.
Now, taking inspiration from something as amazing as the first iPhone is not only a good thing but it's inevitable. Apple utterly blew away the competition with the iPhone and there's really no point denying it. Nokia, Samsumg, RIM, Palm - they were all shocked by what Apple had created. I'm sure if you ask the engineers working at RIM at the time they'd tell you they were amazed. The iPhone did us all a favour because it spurred the competition on to create better phones. That's inspiration. Showing people a new way and letting them use that information, use that knowledge, to come up with something better. That's the difference between using someone's research to support your own, and plagiarism. You can't just copy but you can be inspired.
I think that's the interesting discussion here - where does inspiration end and copying begin. Is it in the intention or is it about the end result? Can we even apply a hard and fast rule? I don't know but I think that's a great discussion that's worth having - and we don't need to get into any silly fanboy battles over it.
This all being said, there is a difference between aping someone else to gain sales, standardising certain aspects of a solution in order to make things easier for switchers and being "inspired" by something else.
I think Samsung has done a fair bit of the former - they seem to have chosen to copy or closely mimic Apple's iPhone in order to improve their own product and thus increase sales. This is morally grey and legally, well, we don't know yet.
The middle item, standardising elements, is a bit complex. For instance, using red text to highlight a mistake on an electronic form has now become fairly standard. If someone had patented that and enforced that patent, each place we go on the web, each time we filled in a form, we'd have to look out for a new kind of marker. That would be bad for all of us. Some things that are really, very obvious and very natural probably need to be open to all. I'm not sure how that can be properly defined.
But then we move on to inspiration. A lot of people like to bring up Jobs' quote about being proud to steal ideas but they tend to do so out of context. Stealing ideas and copying solutions are not the same thing. The idea to create a social network on the internet didn't belong to Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook wasn't the first and it won't be the last. But the implementation, the solution, that had to be his own. Had he just copied Myspace and slapped Facebook on it he'd have been in trouble. This is what Jobs meant when he spoke about stealing ideas. An idea is an idea and no one can own it. A solution, however, that can be owned. I think I'm roughly correct on that but, once again, I'm not a lawyer.
Now, taking inspiration from something as amazing as the first iPhone is not only a good thing but it's inevitable. Apple utterly blew away the competition with the iPhone and there's really no point denying it. Nokia, Samsumg, RIM, Palm - they were all shocked by what Apple had created. I'm sure if you ask the engineers working at RIM at the time they'd tell you they were amazed. The iPhone did us all a favour because it spurred the competition on to create better phones. That's inspiration. Showing people a new way and letting them use that information, use that knowledge, to come up with something better. That's the difference between using someone's research to support your own, and plagiarism. You can't just copy but you can be inspired.
I think that's the interesting discussion here - where does inspiration end and copying begin. Is it in the intention or is it about the end result? Can we even apply a hard and fast rule? I don't know but I think that's a great discussion that's worth having - and we don't need to get into any silly fanboy battles over it.
You said it yourself, companies. Believe it or not, this document wouldn't have carried any relevant weight has it, for example, compared the Galaxy S to the iPhone AND Blackberry Torche, Palm, or even Windows phone.
The fact that Samsung are disecting the iPhone, and only the iPhone, plus the other 'crisis of design' memo from 3 years earlier, gives Apple's case some merit.
Exactly! So instead of this legal crap how about some innovation instead of a longer iphone 4S..... The galaxy has has actually evolved nicely while Apple is about to give an a longer 4, so disappointed with Apple.
Apple needs to start innovating again!
So Samsung didn't think of this until they compared it to the iPhone?
What were you saying about common sense?
I can't even load the document, does every page list examples on the iPhone that Samsung wants to improve upon?
If so, why didn't they look at other Android UI Examples? Some of the early HTC, Motorola UI designs had some innovative touches of their own.
(that last question wasn't directed at you)
Yet. Give it time for people to come out of the woodworks. All of the other threads have ended up with two camps; there's undoubtedly Apple fanboys on here, that much is a given. If you're implying that I'm one, that's laughable at best. My post pretty much summed up whats going on -- a design ethos issue, but not a patent infringement (thus far). Prior art will become the basis of the trial, more than likely. I highly doubt Apple will win from a legal perspective, but may garner some negative PR for Samsung by the time the trial is complete.
True, but many people who think that basically don't think about prior art and patents, which is ultimately the crux of this trial.To some people: what is the best phone? The one I'm holding! Who copied who? The opposite camp copied the phone on my hand!
And yet Android pretty much stole its roots from iOS.
Don`t say that. You will get asked if you ever used an Android
. On the other hand, why isn`t Android or whoever is suing Apple for their `stealing`? Because they know it is a can of worms they have.
I also wonder if Hyundai has a similar document showing `improvement` they need to do compared to Mercedes-Benz and Toyota.
I understand that, but I'm still guessing it wasn't a coincidence. Picking September 11 would have been just as distasteful even though there would have been no overt connection.
it took apple themselves some time to decide that the date on the ical icon in the dock should be updated. and where did that idea originally come from? user feedback? another app?
does apple feel (when not adopting coverflow, wood shelves from delicious library, android notification system, browser tabs etc etc) that they and everyone else should be in some sort of a vacuum?
its seeing what is good around you and and trying to improve your own product as well.
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All their devices are trying to be more like Apple's
And in response, Apple has apparently stopped trying.
If Apple didn't make phones, would anyone here HONESTLY buy a phone similar to the iPhone 5?
Agreed with an earlier poster. Battles are won and money is made out of the courtroom.
Yes, but if their "solution" is to solve the problem the same way as Apple then that is copying, not making improvements. Things that are naturally intuitive on the iPhone were not trivial before the iPhone was released.
Note: I'm note saying that this is evidence that Samsung copied Apple/is using their patents. I think Apple should be open to licensing their technology patents so that the whole industry can move forward, Apple included.
They hand over this evidence because they were naive enough to think that what they were doing was ethical and legal and should be documented and of course, because it was subpoenaed.
It seems that Samsung used a competitors product to improve what they thought that competitor did right and what they(Samsung) did wrong..
So when apple made the iPhone, they made it in a vacuum right? Then didn't pull up a windows phone or a blackberry or nokia and say "Gee here is the current market leaders smartphones, what can we do to improve upon it?"
This is rhetorical because we all know Apple didn't invent the iphone or iOS in a vacuum it used what was currently on the market to improve on different aspects of the "smartphone" WHILE STILL BORROWING some aspects of what they thought was a best practice used by other smartphone leaders.
Ironically enough, they one pulled half the picture with the first iPhone release, they made a touchscreen OS very user friendly. But even still, other market leaders at the time had far better OS "smartphone" features.
So when apple made the iPhone, they made it in a vacuum right? Then didn't pull up a windows phone or a blackberry or nokia and say "Gee here is the current market leaders smartphones, what can we do to improve upon it?"
This is rhetorical because we all know Apple didn't invent the iphone or iOS in a vacuum it used what was currently on the market to improve on different aspects of the "smartphone" WHILE STILL BORROWING some aspects of what they thought was a best practice used by other smartphone leaders.
Ironically enough, they one pulled half the picture with the first iPhone release, they made a touchscreen OS very user friendly. But even still, other market leaders at the time had far better OS "smartphone" features.