I think they have an actual case here. That's about as blatantly-copying as you can get without making a complete knock-off that's designed to fool people.
There's only so much variation you can have once you've decided that most of the surface area of a phone is going to be taken up by a touch-sensitive screen.
Yeah, exactly: Samsung was FORCED into using the exact same number of icons, arranged in the same 5 rows of 4 icons, in the exact same shape. Also forced into a 4-icon shaded bar at the bottom with the 4 key icons in said bar, and forced into using a near-identical "phone" icon in the exact same place, because after all, a light-green phone icon with a diagonally-slanted depiction of a phone handset was the only possible way to go. Samsung was also clearly forced into using the exact same means of depicting multiple screens of icons.
Come on. Samsung clearly didn't even TRY to distinguish their product, here. This is about as obvious as it gets.
The 5x4 layout seems pretty unremarkable -- should each phone manufacturer have to trademark their own layout (n,m), for nonzero integers n,m? Will small players be forced to adopt button grids like 21x1 if they can't license actually-usable arrangements?
I don't think it's reasonable that a simple silhouette of a phone, used as an icon to represent a phone, is trademarkable. The color is more interesting, until you look at wikipedia and see that mobile phones were using almost the exact same iconography -- phone silhouette over light green background -- at least as far back as 1989:
>I don't think it's reasonable that a simple silhouette of a phone, used as an icon to represent a phone, is trademarkable.
Trademarks are an interesting case, though. You can trademark common ideas, especially if you're the first one to get the trademark for that specific use. They're extremely focused in that they can only be used in a specific way. MS' trademarks on Windows and Word, for example, only apply to operating systems and word processors.
Wrong on both counts. Steve Jobs IS Apple, as evidenced by the rather impressive performance of Apple since he returned as CEO, and Wall St. HAS realized it, and Wall St. is right.
Or do you think someone else is chiefly responsible?
Jobs built a great team, and of course he didn't do it all himself, but he sure makes one hell of a great figurehead. :)
Windows Phone 7 looks pretty substantially different from iOS. Unlike most of the rapid followers of the iPhone, it looks like Microsoft really tried to rethink a mobile interface. It looks different and fresh, even if it's not the best mobile operating system out there.
Samsung's design isn't just derivative, it's more or less a straight copy. Microsoft illustrates that there's no necessity built into the medium that requires an iOS-like interface.
Apple may forever be chasing "look and feel" violations in vain, but I think they have a point when they say that Samsung's interface is basically just a rip off.
"A grid of icons isn't exactly new. Palm did it before Apple. Windows 3.11 before Palm."
Apple's Newton OS came three years before Palm's Pilot. Apple's Mac System came 8 years before Windows 3.11. They all used grids of icons, it's part of the desktop metaphor. If that were the only thing Samsung copied, I doubt they would be getting sued now.
Correction: It's Google's interface. Apple is suing all of Google's hardware partners, but the software Apple is complaining about is Google's. It isn't in the All Things D article, but TechCrunch's coverage includes the important fact that the suit includes the Nexus S, which is stock Android: http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/18/apple-sues-samsung-claims-i...
I know all that, but the Nexus S — which is included in Apple's suit — is completely stock Android as far as I know, so Samsung's modifications seem to be irrelevant to Apple's beef with the phones.
As also mentioned elsewhere, the Nexus S — which is included in Apple's suit — is completely stock Android as far as I know, so Samsung's modifications seem to be irrelevant to Apple's beef with the phones.
Yeah, there there's too much of a difference (IMO), especially as the device itself looks substantially different. Android, I think, looks plenty different to avoid the suit - the Galaxy S in particular, though, doesn't. Not sure what their aim is there.
Where does the coloured background for the Android icons come from? On my Nexus One, all the icons are transparent, but on my Samsung devices the icons have colored backgrounds. It seems as if this is another thing Samsung did to make it more like the iPhone. Can anyone confirm this?
(Messaging, browser, and the keyboard shading also seem to reflect much more iPhone than stock Android.)
As much as I usually hate Apple, I'm with you on this one. One of my coworkers had the phone in that picture, and I almost asked her when she got an iPhone before I recognized that some of the icons were a bit off.
I think they have an actual case here. That's about as blatantly-copying as you can get without making a complete knock-off that's designed to fool people.