5 ms·

My car looks like a sports car. Not just one corner rounded but look at all the aspects. Only I shall be able to make sports cars. I patented it. /s

dmitriid 5y ago
> My car looks like a sports car. You will then be surprised that car manufacturers often engage in court battles against Chinese knock-offs.
Retric 5y ago
Looks like a sports car isn’t a specific design. Compare a Bugatti Veyron with a 911 Turbo. They both have lot’s of rounded edges but somehow they are very easy to tell apart as are every brand of hyper car on the market. This wasn’t two companies that happened to come up with the same design, this was just blatant copying of pointless aesthetic details, which is illegal.
- dmitriid 5y ago
  > They both have lot’s of rounded edges but somehow they are very easy to tell apart as are every brand of hyper car on the market. Which is very relevant in this case as in the court Samsung's lawyer couldn't tell iPad and Galaxy Tab apart from 10 feet away: https://appleinsider.com/articles/11/10/14/samsung_lawyer_couldnt_tell_ipad_and_galaxy_tab_apart_from_10_feet_away https://appleinsider.com/articles/11/10/14/samsung_lawyer_co...
  - pmontra 5y ago
    I don't want to get into this old issue but I just noticed that all my notebooks are rectangular with sharp corners regardless of the manufacturer. I mean paper notebooks. It would be silly to patent and sue for that and with the hindsight of 11+ years that was a silly design patent to award. My Samsung from 2019 has rounded corners. I can't even remember how it ended except that some lawyers made a zillion of money out of it. Whether it's appropriate to use sharp or rounder corners for a given tool is common knowledge dating back thousands of years. In this case it's based on grip, handling, taking it out of a pocket, not piercing that pocket, coexisting with other items in bag, etc.
    - Retric 5y ago
      It was actually the specific curve used that was at issue, but behind that phone designs are not limited to 4 rounded off corners or sharp edges. Take say the blackberry bold 9930 it’s bottom is a single curve from edge to edge without any flat parts. Considering these phones had a single button at the bottom a curve like that would have simply saved material without compromising screen size and better fit into peoples hands. There are actually a host of odd ruggedized smartphones like: https://www.catphones.com/en-us/cat-s48c-smartphone/ https://www.catphones.com/en-us/cat-s48c-smartphone/ Even for laptops you get a lot of odd edges look at the HP’s Omen X 2S. Don’t want any of those looks? It’s fine there where plenty of other things they could have done to differentiate these phones like say volume buttons next to the center one, or a back button for web pages etc. It’s only when you copy everything that it’s no longer your style it’s Apple’s. Net result in the US: The jury trial for damages concluded on May 24, 2018, awarding Apple $539 million, which includes $399 million for damages of Samsung's products sold that infringed on the patents. Germany acted much faster and simply blocked Galaxy 10.1 sales.
  - dpark 5y ago
    That’s because the platonic ideal for a tablet is basically a thin plate of glass with rounded corners. Hell, even my kindle basically looks like this. My TV looks like this except for the rounded corners (which it doesn’t need because it’s not intended to be held).
    - Retric 5y ago
      Really or is that just what you’re used to? Many people buy cases with corners that protrude thus protecting those flat panels from drops. If anything that seems closer to an ideal design, let alone looking at the ergonomics of how to hold a tablet. IMO, these designs seem geared to upselling cases rather than anything approaching an ideal.
      - dpark 5y ago
        Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s approaching the ideal form. It makes complete sense that a device which is at its core just a screen, trends toward being literally nothing but a screen over time. You see the same with other items, including kindles, but also actual books, newspapers, magazines. These are all 100% content edge to edge with the exception of a margin to grip the thing. In 2nd grade we had individual chalk boards and they were literally the shape of an iPad. The ability to throw a case on it is a feature, not a misdesign. I don’t want a bulky tablet to protect the corners. I’ll put a case on it for that. I happen to not want that so I have a very minimal case on all my devices.
        Retric 5y ago
        A case over a tablet/phone is always significantly larger and heavier than the equivalent protection built into the device because the case needs attachment points and inherent structural rigidity. It’s not about design just physics. Every version of the current base/mini/pro model iPad actually has quite a wide bezel in part because people lose so much of the front screen to their cases/hands. https://www.apple.com/ipad-10.2/ https://www.apple.com/ipad-10.2/ You simply can’t comfortably cup them the way you can a phone.

dmitriid 5y ago

> My car looks like a sports car. You will then be surprised that car manufacturers often engage in court battles against Chinese knock-offs.

Retric 5y ago

Looks like a sports car isn’t a specific design. Compare a Bugatti Veyron with a 911 Turbo. They both have lot’s of rounded edges but somehow they are very easy to tell apart as are every brand of hyper car on the market. This wasn’t two companies that happened to come up with the same design, this was just blatant copying of pointless aesthetic details, which is illegal.

dmitriid 5y ago
> They both have lot’s of rounded edges but somehow they are very easy to tell apart as are every brand of hyper car on the market. Which is very relevant in this case as in the court Samsung's lawyer couldn't tell iPad and Galaxy Tab apart from 10 feet away: https://appleinsider.com/articles/11/10/14/samsung_lawyer_couldnt_tell_ipad_and_galaxy_tab_apart_from_10_feet_away https://appleinsider.com/articles/11/10/14/samsung_lawyer_co...
- pmontra 5y ago
  I don't want to get into this old issue but I just noticed that all my notebooks are rectangular with sharp corners regardless of the manufacturer. I mean paper notebooks. It would be silly to patent and sue for that and with the hindsight of 11+ years that was a silly design patent to award. My Samsung from 2019 has rounded corners. I can't even remember how it ended except that some lawyers made a zillion of money out of it. Whether it's appropriate to use sharp or rounder corners for a given tool is common knowledge dating back thousands of years. In this case it's based on grip, handling, taking it out of a pocket, not piercing that pocket, coexisting with other items in bag, etc.
  - Retric 5y ago
    It was actually the specific curve used that was at issue, but behind that phone designs are not limited to 4 rounded off corners or sharp edges. Take say the blackberry bold 9930 it’s bottom is a single curve from edge to edge without any flat parts. Considering these phones had a single button at the bottom a curve like that would have simply saved material without compromising screen size and better fit into peoples hands. There are actually a host of odd ruggedized smartphones like: https://www.catphones.com/en-us/cat-s48c-smartphone/ https://www.catphones.com/en-us/cat-s48c-smartphone/ Even for laptops you get a lot of odd edges look at the HP’s Omen X 2S. Don’t want any of those looks? It’s fine there where plenty of other things they could have done to differentiate these phones like say volume buttons next to the center one, or a back button for web pages etc. It’s only when you copy everything that it’s no longer your style it’s Apple’s. Net result in the US: The jury trial for damages concluded on May 24, 2018, awarding Apple $539 million, which includes $399 million for damages of Samsung's products sold that infringed on the patents. Germany acted much faster and simply blocked Galaxy 10.1 sales.
- dpark 5y ago
  That’s because the platonic ideal for a tablet is basically a thin plate of glass with rounded corners. Hell, even my kindle basically looks like this. My TV looks like this except for the rounded corners (which it doesn’t need because it’s not intended to be held).
  - Retric 5y ago
    Really or is that just what you’re used to? Many people buy cases with corners that protrude thus protecting those flat panels from drops. If anything that seems closer to an ideal design, let alone looking at the ergonomics of how to hold a tablet. IMO, these designs seem geared to upselling cases rather than anything approaching an ideal.
    - dpark 5y ago
      Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s approaching the ideal form. It makes complete sense that a device which is at its core just a screen, trends toward being literally nothing but a screen over time. You see the same with other items, including kindles, but also actual books, newspapers, magazines. These are all 100% content edge to edge with the exception of a margin to grip the thing. In 2nd grade we had individual chalk boards and they were literally the shape of an iPad. The ability to throw a case on it is a feature, not a misdesign. I don’t want a bulky tablet to protect the corners. I’ll put a case on it for that. I happen to not want that so I have a very minimal case on all my devices.
      - Retric 5y ago
        A case over a tablet/phone is always significantly larger and heavier than the equivalent protection built into the device because the case needs attachment points and inherent structural rigidity. It’s not about design just physics. Every version of the current base/mini/pro model iPad actually has quite a wide bezel in part because people lose so much of the front screen to their cases/hands. https://www.apple.com/ipad-10.2/ https://www.apple.com/ipad-10.2/ You simply can’t comfortably cup them the way you can a phone.