Google Warned Samsung not to Copy Apple

[Technarchy]

Samsung should have listened to Google and not copied Apple...

http://allthingsd.com/20120725/appl...inst-copying-us/?mod=googlenews_editors_picks

Apple: Google Warned Samsung Against Copying Us

Among those documents are a few purported to show that Samsung not only deliberately copied certain characteristics of the iPhone and iPad, but was also explicitily warned away from doing so by various third parties, including Google. Below, a sampling of some of Apple’s more compelling points excerpted from its brief.

In February 2010, Google told Samsung that Samsung’s “P1” and “P3” tablets (Galaxy Tab and Galaxy Tab 10.1) were “too similar” to the iPad and demanded “distinguishable design vis-à-vis the iPad for the P3.”

In 2011, Samsung’s own Product Design Group noted that it is “regrettable” that the Galaxy S “looks similar” to older iPhone models.

As part of a formal, Samsung-sponsored evaluation, famous designers warned Samsung that the Galaxy S “looked like it copied the iPhone too much,” and that “innovation is needed.” The designers explained that the appearance of the Galaxy S “[c]losely resembles the iPhone shape so as to have no distinguishable elements,” and “[a]ll you have to do is cover up the Samsung logo and it’s difficult to find anything different from the iPhone.”

 

[The iGentleman]

I will say the original Galaxy S design was quite similar to the iPhone. I remember when the design was just floating around the rumor mill, I said wow that looks like an iPhone! Since the first Galaxy S though, nothing else even remotely resembles it.

 

[kdarling]

Reminds me a bit of when the famous designer Philippe Starck ran into his friend Dieter Rams at a party, and cried out in dismay, "Apple is copying you!", in reference to Ive's designs. Fortunately, Rams was flattered instead of upset.

As to this thread, the flip side of the disclosure of the Google memos, was the disclosure of Apple internal memos:

In February 2006, before the claimed iPhone design was conceived of, Apple executive Tony Fadell circulated a news article that contained an interview of a Sony designer to Steve Jobs, Jonathan Ive and others. In the article, the Sony designer discussed Sony portable electronic device designs that lacked “excessive ornamentation” such as buttons, fit in the hand, were “square with a screen” and had “corners [which] have been rounded out.”

and

Contrary to the image it has cultivated in the popular press, Apple has admitted in internal documents that its strength is not in developing new technologies first, but in successfully commercializing them. . .

Anybody can come up with damning documents, because we all email too much these days

 

[ecwhite4S]

Reminds me a bit of when the famous designer Philippe Starck ran into his friend Dieter Rams at a party, and cried out in dismay, "Apple is copying you!", in reference to Ive's designs. Fortunately, Rams was flattered instead of upset.

As to this thread, the flip side of the disclosure of the Google memos, was the disclosure of Apple internal memos:



and



Anybody can come up with damning documents, because we all email too much these days

Again here you go twisting it around and evading truth/changing topics. That's so annoying, and please stop writing condescending (but horribly misinformed) posts and then ending it with a smiley face.

 

[Rennir]

Again here you go twisting it around and evading truth/changing topics. That's so annoying, and please stop writing condescending (but horribly misinformed) posts and then ending it with a smiley face.

Reported for personal attacks. What exactly was misinformed about that post? It would help if you substantiated your points instead of just blindly listing them. If you're going to be extremely biased at least do it with some detail.

To help you with understanding the relevance, try inferring from kdarling's post what he/she is trying to say about the topic at hand, specifically the reliability of certain articles? How can we be sure this article isn't just "using Apple's name to generate hits" like every other article that criticizes Apple is?

Oh wait...

PS: Technarchy, I'm wondering what you next thread-of-the-day is going to be about I'm searching up some iPhone/Apple articles right now!

 

[Mac.World]

Samsung should have listened to Google and not copied Apple...

Apple should have listened to the people and innovated some new features into iOS, instead of just copying Android.

By the way, love how you left out all the parts regarding the pro-Samsung statements and images from the article. Classic and expected from someone with your bias. It's too bad too. I know you are an intelligent person. I wish you weren't so biased.

 

[kdarling]

Interestingly, BGR left out the rest of the story of that internal Apple memo about a Sony design:

In February 2006, before the claimed iPhone design was conceived of, Apple executive Tony Fadell circulated a news article to Steve Jobs, Jonathan Ive and others. In the article, a Sony designer discussed Sony designs for portable electronic devices that lacked buttons and other excessive ornamentation, fit in the hand, were square with a screen and had corners [which] have been rounded out.

Right after this article was circulated internally, Apple industrial designer Shin Nishibori was directed to prepare a (redacted) design for an Apple phone and then had CAD drawings and a three-dimensional model prepared.

Confirming the origin of the design, these internal Apple CAD drawings prepared at Mr. Nishibori‘s direction even had (redacted - the Sony model name?) on the phone design, as the below images from Apple‘s internal documents show.

Soon afterward, on March 8, 2006, Apple designer Richard Howarth reported that, in contrast to another internal design that was then under consideration, Mr. Nishibori‘s (redacted) design enabled (redacted).

As Mr.Nishibori has confirmed in deposition testimony, this (redacted) design he prepared changed the course of the project that yielded the final iPhone design.

To make the redacted areas clearer, here's the source court document:

 

[Technarchy]

Interestingly, BGR left out the rest of the story of that internal Apple memo about a Sony design:

In the article, a Sony designer discussed Sony designs for portable electronic devices that lacked buttons and other excessive ornamentation, fit in the hand, were square with a screen and had corners [which] have been rounded out.

To make the redacted areas clearer, here's the source court document:

View attachment 349883

That device was introduced in 2001. It was called in iPod.

In fact Apple had about 13 different iPods designed and sold to consumers by 2006, long before Sony was getting clued in.

 

[ecwhite4S]

Reported for personal attacks. What exactly was misinformed about that post? It would help if you substantiated your points instead of just blindly listing them. If you're going to be extremely biased at least do it with some detail.

To help you with understanding the relevance, try inferring from kdarling's post what he/she is trying to say about the topic at hand, specifically the reliability of certain articles? How can we be sure this article isn't just "using Apple's name to generate hits" like every other article that criticizes Apple is?

Oh wait...

PS: Technarchy, I'm wondering what you next thread-of-the-day is going to be about I'm searching up some iPhone/Apple articles right now!

OMG you reported me? I'm so scared.

First of all, what I said is true. He twists things and changes subjects when he wants to avoid discussing the topic at hand. Children do that, just like the 12 smiley faces in a row that he will post after a comment.

And of course you guys are going to question the reliability of the article, it's going against your precious Androids, but it's stating the obvious. Samsung hardcore copied Apple, POINT BLANK. There really is no need for discussion.

And I'm not being biased, I'm being honest. If I'm being biased, then you're being biased. Think about it.

 

[kdarling]

To help you with understanding the relevance, try inferring from kdarling's post what he/she is trying to say about the topic at hand, specifically the reliability of certain articles?

Exactly. We are bombarded these days by click-bait articles, and recently it's gotten worse than ever, with "info" that has not just been manipulated, but totally made up (like that All Things D article claiming Google wanted to have Apple's patents made into public standards... unbelievable).

All we can do is present as many facts as we can find and let people decide for themselves. Certainly no one should take any of it personally.

Heck, I've been posting online for over 30 years under my own name, and while I try very hard to be accurate and avoid offense, I can also say from past history that, without a doubt, in ten years not a single one of us will care about this particular debate!

Regards!

 

[Rennir]

OMG you reported me? I'm so scared.

First of all, what I said is true. He twists things and changes subjects when he wants to avoid discussing the topic at hand. Children do that, just like the 12 smiley faces in a row that he will post after a comment.

And of course you guys are going to question the reliability of the article, it's going against your precious Androids, but it's stating the obvious. Samsung hardcore copied Apple, POINT BLANK. There really is no need for discussion.

And I'm not being biased, I'm being honest. If I'm being biased, then you're being biased. Think about it.

You know what children also do? Devolve arguments into ad hominem attacks when they realize they have nothing substantial to say, which is really counterproductive in the end.

I question the reliability of everything; I was just following the logic of a lot of users I see here in order to show them how biased they're being. Every article criticizing Apple is automatically analyzed to death with regards to the source and potential motivations of the author(s). That's a good habit actually, but only if people use it on all articles they read, not just ones they disagree with. It's called intellectual integrity.

Nope, not as clear as that. What makes Allthingsd more reliable than every single website/article that Apple fans have doubted in the past? Reuters, NYT, Gizmodo, the list goes on and on...If you really want me to, I will try to find every source that a majority of posters in a particular thread flat out doubted or labeled as click-bait.

You are right. Everyone is biased. The difference between you and me is that while you are aware of your bias, you just sit there, while I attempt to reduce my bias as much as possible. I actually don't own a single android device, and never have. I'm just sick of the blatantly biased posts and therefore argue the other side in order to show people that there really is two sides to every argument, and also as an exercise of my logical and rhetorical ability.

 

[Mac.World]

Exactly. We are bombarded these days by click-bait articles, and recently it's gotten worse than ever, with "info" that has not just been manipulated, but totally made up (like that All Things D article claiming Google wanted to have Apple's patents made into public standards... unbelievable).

All we can do is present as many facts as we can find and let people decide for themselves. Certainly no one should take any of it personally.

Heck, I've been posting online for over 30 years under my own name, and while I try very hard to be accurate and avoid offense, I can also say from past history that, without a doubt, in ten years not a single one of us will care about this particular debate!

Regards!

I was on a Commodore 64 with a 100 baud modem and a tape drive 30 years ago. There wasn't anything you could call 'online' back then. There were a few bbs' that took forever to download, 1 character at a time from left to right, but that was it (outside of universities). Or were you just stretching the years a bit for dramatic effect?

 

[Renzatic]

I remember my uncle posting on a BBS and downloading a corny Atari 800XL demo about 26 years ago (I was around 5-6 years old), so it's very possible. Considering Kdarling worked in the industry back in the 80's, he probably had better access to the latest and greatest of computer communications technology long before we did.

Hell, colleges have been sending emails to each other as early as the mid-70's. It's very possible.

 

[kdarling]

I was on a Commodore 64 with a 100 baud modem and a tape drive 30 years ago. There wasn't anything you could call 'online' back then. There were a few bbs' that took forever to download, 1 character at a time from left to right, but that was it (outside of universities). Or were you just stretching the years a bit for dramatic effect?

Nope, I actually dropped a few years to make me sound younger

I still won't reveal how far back I go with computers (okay, my first college computer course was in 1972), but my first public online postings date back to the original Tandy VideoTex (a connection to what was soon called CompuServe) in 1980. In 1982 I also started posting on the Micro Message Service BBS in Raleigh NC. My first modem was a 110 baud acoustic coupler.

By the early 1980s I was so well known for helping anyone and everyone on the CIS Color Computer, OS-9 and Graphics SIGs/forums (I helped with the GIF animation standard and am mentioned in a few books on animation file formats), that I was promoted to assistant SysOp and given a 1200 baud modem and free time.

Free time! That was a dream come true back when it cost $5 an hour for 300 baud access at night (and $22 an hour during the day). Before that, I remember writing up all my responses offline, then zipping online for a few minutes to post them as fast as I could, then downloading new posts to read and getting off again.

Folks these days have no idea how easy they have it. Remember how, at 300 baud, it would take almost 3 hours and $15 to download a single 1MB photo? I used to start the download before I went to bed and hope the modem would not glitch. Now we have wireless access at 10,000 times the speed and less than 1/1000th the price.

Regards to all the old timers here!

 

[Rogifan]

Again here you go twisting it around and evading truth/changing topics. That's so annoying, and please stop writing condescending (but horribly misinformed) posts and then ending it with a smiley face.

Jony Ive is a fan of Dieter Rams and his design principles. Ooh how shocking. Ive's never been shy about admitting that. Heck, he even wrote the forward to a book on Rams. Not sure what that has to do with the original Galaxy S looking a lot like the iPhone. The WJS reported that even internally within Samsung they worried that the phone looked too much like the iPhone. There is a difference between being inspired by certain design principles and just copying someone else's designs. Case in point some of these Ultrabooks that look just like MBA's (and no I'm not referring to the wedge shape, and yes I know that was pioneered by Sony). The Samsung Series 9 shows that you can build a good looking thin and light laptop without it being a MBA clone.

 

[thekev]

Folks these days have no idea how easy they have it. Remember how, at 300 baud, it would take almost 3 hours and $15 to download a single 1MB photo? I used to start the download before I went to bed and hope the modem would not glitch. Now we have wireless access at 10,000 times the speed and less than 1/1000th the price.

Regards to all the old timers here!

Apparently hard copies and overnight fedex did not exist in that era.

 

[kdarling]

Apparently hard copies and overnight fedex did not exist in that era.

Aha, so that's how we're supposed to download pictures on demand!

I knew I was doing it wrong all this time.

 

[John.B]

As to this thread, the flip side of the disclosure of the Google memos, was the disclosure of Apple internal memos:

In February 2006, before the claimed iPhone design was conceived of, Apple executive Tony Fadell circulated a news article that contained an interview of a Sony designer to Steve Jobs, Jonathan Ive and others. In the article, the Sony designer discussed Sony portable electronic device designs that lacked “excessive ornamentation” such as buttons, fit in the hand, were “square with a screen” and had “corners [which] have been rounded out.”

Dude, you are too much...

Perhaps Sony should've patented "lack of excessive ornamentation", "devices that fit in the hand", and “devices with corners [which] have been rounded out”?

How do these general design principals correlate to a patent lawsuit over devices that are almost exact copies of Apple's products (sans Samsung logo)?

Is this what you do with your 20% recess time at Google?

 

[thekev]

Aha, so that's how we're supposed to download pictures on demand!

I knew I was doing it wrong all this time.

You said it was hit and miss + an overnight thing, so my silly reference worked.

Dude, you are too much...

Perhaps Sony should've patented "lack of excessive ornamentation", "devices that fit in the hand", and “devices with corners [which] have been rounded out”?

How do these general design principals correlate to a patent lawsuit over devices that are almost exact copies of Apple's products (sans Samsung logo)?

Is this what you do with your 20% recess time at Google?

Look at some of what Apple patented. You aren't very far off target.

 

[kdarling]

Perhaps Sony should've patented "lack of excessive ornamentation", "devices that fit in the hand", and “devices with corners [which] have been rounded out”?

Maybe, since those are the simple features that Apple claims as their own in their court cases.

How do these general design principals correlate to a patent lawsuit over devices that are almost exact copies of Apple's products (sans Samsung logo)?

Wrong person to ask this time. I simply posted the rest of the story that was missing.

For the record, I've said before that I don't think Samsung did an exact copy (of course they didn't ... anyone can see that), but that they did go as close as they thought was legally possible a couple of years ago. Of course, now I think they're quite different.

Is this what you do with your 20% recess time at Google?

Wow. Just wow.

 

[Mac.World]

Nope, I actually dropped a few years to make me sound younger

I still won't reveal how far back I go with computers (okay, my first college computer course was in 1972), but my first public online postings date back to the original Tandy VideoTex (a connection to what was soon called CompuServe) in 1980. In 1982 I also started posting on the Micro Message Service BBS in Raleigh NC. My first modem was a 110 baud acoustic coupler.

By the early 1980s I was so well known for helping anyone and everyone on the CIS Color Computer, OS-9 and Graphics SIGs/forums (I helped with the GIF animation standard and am mentioned in a few books on animation file formats), that I was promoted to assistant SysOp and given a 1200 baud modem and free time.

Free time! That was a dream come true back when it cost $5 an hour for 300 baud access at night (and $22 an hour during the day). Before that, I remember writing up all my responses offline, then zipping online for a few minutes to post them as fast as I could, then downloading new posts to read and getting off again.

Folks these days have no idea how easy they have it. Remember how, at 300 baud, it would take almost 3 hours and $15 to download a single 1MB photo? I used to start the download before I went to bed and hope the modem would not glitch. Now we have wireless access at 10,000 times the speed and less than 1/1000th the price.

Regards to all the old timers here!

I salute you sir.
You have been doing this sort of thing far longer than me. I never really went online much back in the 80's, simply because there wasn't a lot to see or do. And it was so slow! Once 1200 baud came out and the Web became commercialized (I think I was using Juno at that point) things started getting interesting. Think that was in the early 90's? Ahh, the good old days.

 

[Technarchy]

Wrong person to ask this time. I simply posted the rest of the story that was missing.

For the record, I've said before that I don't think Samsung did an exact copy (of course they didn't ... anyone can see that), but that they did go as close as they thought was legally possible a couple of years ago. Of course, now I think they're quite different.

Exact copy? No, but Samsung already displayed a tacky, and crooked willingness to replicate as much as possible, and ride Apple's coattails.

Example

Mobile World Congress February 13 2011, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is shown to the public.

March 11 2011, Apple shows the iPad2

Samsung instantly sees that their product sucks, and instantly redesigns the Tab 10.1 to look more like the iPad2. It is released on June 8th 2011. Total time to redesign: 3 months.

End result

 

[BFizzzle]

Exact copy? No, but Samsung already displayed a tacky, and crooked willingness to replicate as much as possible, and ride Apple's coattails.

Example

Mobile World Congress February 13 2011, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is shown to the public.
Image
Image

March 11 2011, Apple shows the iPad2
Image

Samsung instantly sees that their product sucks, and instantly redesigns the Tab 10.1 to look more like the iPad2. It is released on June 8th 2011. Total time to redesign: 3 months.

Image

End result

Image

looks like they just changed the back and shell... doesnt look like the redesigned it much.

 

[ChazUK]

Do two "wrongs" make a right? I'm not sure how much of a defence this is?

http://9to5google.com/2012/07/26/samsung-says-apple-stole-iphone-design-from-sony/

Apple’s “revolutionary” iPhone design wasn’t an original creation, but a derivative one, and the company is just as much a “copyist” as it alleges Samsung to be. That’s one of the central arguments the Korean company will make against Apple when the pair’s patent trial kicks off next week.

 

[kdarling]

looks like they just changed the back and shell... doesnt look like the redesigned it much.

Agreed, although the back changed, the front looks the same. Basically Samsung made it thinner. (Isn't that what they said when the iPad 2 came out? That they needed to match that?)

To get around the original Dusseldorf injunction, Samsung only had to move their speakers to the front edges (look closely), and voila, the non-infringing Tab 10.1N was born:



It even had better sound after that. So I guess forced innovation does work!