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Apple Never Designed the iPad - They Undesigned it
- Turing_Machine 15y agoOur eyes don't "see the world as a rectangle". The reason that newspapers, etc. are rectangular has more to do with efficient space packing (and linear text, as the author mentions) than the inherent capabilities of the eye.
- Turing_Machine 15y agohttps://www.google.com/search?q=goldmann+visual+field&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=goldmann+visual+field&tb... Not very rectangular. :-)
- spwmoni 15y agoUpvoted primarily for the Shearer's potato chip plug.
- jinushaun 15y agoWell argued rebuttal of Apple's claim about Samsung copying its tablet design. Although I disagree on color. Before the iPhone, and after, electronic devices have been all sorts of color. For example, the Kindle debuted in off white. Moto Razrs came in pink. Black is not the only logical solution. As the Nokia Lumia 800 has shown, there is still a lot of room for design in smartphones that don't resemble the iPhone as well. Samsung has no excuse.
- jacobbijani 15y agoAgreed -- The iPad is already available in white, and IMO looks even nicer than the black one.
- pseudonym 15y ago>>Black is not the only logical solution. Given that Apple itself has tablets shipping in white, I'd agree with this. This article does a good job of presenting how Apple potentially came to the answer of how a tablet should look, but as noted above, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's the be-all and end-all of tablet design. It just means that Apple tablets sell well enough to "force" everyone else into their vantage point.
- JulianMorrison 15y agoBlack, white, and 50% grey do seem to be the attractors.
- wmeredith 15y agoYeah, that point was dubious, at best.I have a white iPhone and you can, in fact, get a frickin' iPad that's not black.
- bergie 15y agoThere is probably a reason why most TVs come in black - it makes the colors and the picture to stand out more. Go and take a look at the flat-screen TV section of any electronics store. All of them look pretty much alike, and actually also very much like iPad. The main difference is size, and iPad's rounded corners which are nicer to have in a device that you hold in your hands. You can even compare Nokia's circa 2005 Internet Tablet, the 770 with an iPad. Same black color, bottom corners are rounded. Sure, it still has some more buttons and a resistive screen, but it even came with a "smart cover" (turn the hard cover around, and the magnets in it will put the device to sleep) http://www.flickr.com/photos/bergie/4554791832/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bergie/4554791832/
- Pedrom 15y ago> There is probably a reason why most TVs come in black - it makes the colors and the picture to stand out more. Not all flat monitors come in black thought. I actually I prefer them on white or light gray. And for Flat TV's .. what about these ones?: http://www.p4c.philips.com/cgi-bin/dcbint/cpindex.pl?scy=TH&slg=ENG&sct=PLASMA_TV_SU&cat=TELEVISIONS_CA&grp=SOUND_AND_VISION_GR&session=20110801184059_66.249.72.3&ctn=42PF9966/98&mid=Link_ProductInformation&hlt=Link_ProductInformation http://www.p4c.philips.com/cgi-bin/dcbint/cpindex.pl?scy=TH&... http://www.techfresh.net/philips-aurea-ii-enhanced-fhd-1080p-lcd-flat-tv/ http://www.techfresh.net/philips-aurea-ii-enhanced-fhd-1080p...
- alldaybreakfast 15y agoI've been shopping for a new large screen tellie for a few months and while what you say is generally true, ironically given the situation, Samsung TVs are noticeably different from the bulk of the competition from their ultra thinness to their silver colour. Samsung tellies are noticeably unique. When it comes to small cameras one can easily say that a camera is a 3d rectangle with a lens but if you look at Sammy's NX100/200 series you'll see they went out of their way to make the camera look unique by giving it a curved face rather than flat. On the general topic, I remember being interested in tablets early on when they were a Microsoft thing and none of them looked like an iPad. Now almost all tablets look iPad like. Samsung in particular seemed to have gone out of their way to make a product that mimicked the look of an iPad. That being said, I'm sad that Apple has taken to the courts over these small issues. The best way to have a leading product is to make a leading product and then continually improving it so that customers want to buy it. This Apple does well. But as an Apple shareholder I'd say playing defence with court suits is a waste of $£ in my opinion but sadly Apple execs didn't ask me. On the other hand withdrawing the bulk of $8billion in parts purchasing from Samsung should have made the point alone IMO.
- carldall 15y agoThe author invested quite some time to make his point, however, I disagree. First of all, if this is the only possible way for a tablet to look, why did all the other Microsoft tablets up to the iPad look vastly different? Second, there're two famuos quotes: "The obvious is always least understood." and "All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them." - Galileo Galilei The problem here is that Apple invested a lot of time and thinking into designing a fantastic solution to a problem. But that doesn't mean that it is the only solution. Instead, people are now seeing the world from this point of view, and can't fathom that there is any other solution to this problem - just like before the iPad everybody thought that the Windows Tablet Design was the best solution. Does the author really believe that the iPad design is the answer to all questions? The final? I bet there're better, more intriguing, more beautiful, and more usable designs that yet have to be discovered.
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- nimblegorilla 15y agoYeah, I thought some of the points contradicted too. At one point he says a curved edge is better for holding, but it is "impossible" to engineer it that way due to batteries. Then he says the Sony S tablet's curve makes it unusable. hmmm.... I've never used the S tablet, but it does seem like it might be more comfortable to hold in portrait mode. I almost never use my iPad lying flat on the table and when I do it is usually an uncomfortable reading angle unless I prop it.
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- warmfuzzykitten 15y agoComplete nonsense. The iPad design only seems inevitable in hindsight. If you want to appreciate the iPad's originality, look at the crap tablets that existed before the iPad
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- JulianMorrison 15y agoThis article is probably falling for the cognitive bias (whose name I forget), where what actually happened looks inevitable in retrospect, but looked much more undecided in prospect. Contrast all the other tablet PCs and so forth which have had a tendency to be sharp-cornered and bulky with asymmetric elements like buttons. The idea of having no favored orientation, for example, is innovative. Most historical tablets had one way up, and it was SVGA landscape.
- rincewind 15y agoIt is called "creeping determinism" or simply hindsight bias. http://www.gladwell.com/2003/2003_03_10_a_dots.html http://www.gladwell.com/2003/2003_03_10_a_dots.html
- iopuy 15y agoI didn't just read the article, I unread it.
- roadnottaken 15y agoIt is not so simple. Tablet computers before the iPad did not look anything like the iPad: http://osxdaily.com/2011/08/18/tablet-design-before-after-the-ipad/ http://osxdaily.com/2011/08/18/tablet-design-before-after-th... in hindsight, it seems like the only completely obvious way to design a tablet, but that fact in itself is the mark of great design.
- brazzy 15y agoSome tablet computers before the iPad looked very differently. Others... not so much.
- tikhonj 15y agoThat picture, which is shown much too often, is a perfect illustration only of selection bias. Going through past tablets and choosing the ones that were not black rectangles proves nothing except that some tablets did not look like the ipad. Some tablets now also don't look like the ipad.
- sbuk 15y agoIt's also a perfect illustration of why this and Samsung's arguments to the contrary are invalid.
- sanj 15y agoThis would be a lot more believable if all of the Tablets that came before the iPad also looked identical to the iPad and Samsung devices. They didn't: http://twitpic.com/67ykpa http://twitpic.com/67ykpa
- brazzy 15y agoSome did: http://www.2imgs.com/6c941c36e5 http://www.2imgs.com/6c941c36e5
- ricardobeat 15y agoThe HP Slate didn't come before the iPad, in fact it came to market 10 months later. Neither did the Joojoo, unless you think Apple developed the iPad in one year's time. This doesn't look like an iPad to me: http://www.rainbowskill.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/hp-500-tablet-pc.jpg http://www.rainbowskill.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/hp-50...
- wmf 15y agoThe HP Slate was shown three weeks before the iPad, so it couldn't be a copy (although at that point the iPhone aesthetic was well known). http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/06/the-hp-slate/ http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/06/the-hp-slate/
- Pewpewarrows 15y agoI'll just leave this here for everyone saying that iPad-like designs never existed before the iPad: http://gdeluxe.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/20111004-034552.jpg http://gdeluxe.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/20111004-03455...
- Legion 15y agoThere's plenty of use of the color black, rectangular shapes, rounded corners, and centered screens in the "before iPad" group.
- bergie 15y agoIn general, the tablet design language seems to have evolved over time. Here are the four pre-iPad generations of Nokia's internet tablets: 770 (2005): http://www.flickr.com/photos/bergie/231781513/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bergie/231781513/ N800 (2007): http://www.flickr.com/photos/bergie/399708279/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bergie/399708279/ N810 (2007): http://www.flickr.com/photos/bergie/2290709295/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bergie/2290709295/ N900 (2009): http://www.flickr.com/photos/bergie/4706326072/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bergie/4706326072/ In those pictures you can also see some common tablet features like on-screen keyboards, video chat, maps, and even augmented reality. All of the Nokia tablets came with a stylus but were mostly used with fingers. The stylus was handy for web browsing - for example, on the iPad I have to zoom HN quite a bit before I can reliably hit the up/down voting buttons. At some point Nokia even introduced a feature where the UI elements would sense whether you're using stylus or finger, and would size themselves accordingly.
- D_Drake 15y agoBy those standards Apple ripped off 50% of the UMPCs ever made along with quite a few tablet PCs and PDAs. (Cue poorly-drawn comic of Bill Gates hurling a TC1100 through Apple's front window.)
- TechNewb 15y agoThe author is not giving Apple credit for the design it deserves. Why did no other tablets look like the iPad before the iPad then? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindsight_bias http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindsight_bias I don't remember any of the Windows based tablets looking this way. Or even the Newton, not even the Dynabook looked like the iPad. Edit: And the author overlooks the fact that multi orientation is a unique design feature onto itself.
- Tyrannosaurs 15y agoThere are fair points here but in terms of the bezel having to be black - neither my Kindle (grey) nor the screen surround of my Macbook (brushed silver) are black and they're both completely usable.
- bonch 15y agoI can't help but disagree. The implication here is that there is no other way to design a tablet, as if progress is officially halted now, and Apple's design is the only design can ever exist. He mentions the New York Times suing over the design of a newspaper, but if someone else used the same fonts, sizes, layouts, and more to exploit customer confusion and make a newspaper that looked like the New York Times, the New York Times probably would sue them. Besides, Samsung's tablets are a very obvious case of copying. It isn't just the shape. Everything is a clone of Apple's designs--the chargers are the same, the cables are the same, the packaging is the same, the home screen icons look the same (Samsung even stole Apple icon artwork and used it in their store)--it's completely obvious that the goal was to make a knock-off of Apple's design. Anyone with common sense can see that just by comparing the two devices. Bad, cheap knock-offs can damage the original brand. I don't blame Apple for going after Samsung at all.
- pazimzadeh 15y agoThe author must think that design is adding random colors and textures, because he keeps saying things like: "none of this is a design problem. It is all about usability" "The shape of a tablet has nothing to do with design. It is simple logic."
- Xuzz 15y agoSee, to me, Samsung does have an issue here, but it's not about the "rounded rectangle" shape or the "reasonably thick black bezel": it's the fact they have both of those, like the iPad, but then also surround them with a marginal silver border. I own both the Galaxy Tab 10.1" and an iPad 2, and I actually do get confused between the two all the time, when looking at them from above. They're about the same thickness and reasonably similar shapes, and with the same "rounded rectangle with a black bezel surrounded by a silver frame" I honestly have grabbed the wrong tablet before. To contrast, I never get confused with my HP TouchPad or my Kindle Fire (although that one is smaller). I'd be perfectly happy if Samsung just switched to a matte black border instead, and Apple should be too: it would, at least from what I've seen, fix most of the confusion here between the two products.
- X-Istence 15y agoI just know from personal experience that I was having flashbacks to opening my iPad 2 compared to when I was opening my HP TouchPad. It seems almost all manufacturers have gone to the same sort of packaging that Apple has been doing for years.
- cma 15y agoBlack bezel, marginal silver border, years before the iPad, made by Samsung: http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2006/1/SAMS.jpg http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2006/1/SAMS.jp...
- shinratdr 15y agoDamn. Probably would have been a good idea to patent that, eh?
- guelo 15y agoMaybe a picture frame designer should have patented it 100 years ago.
- Apple-Guy 15y agoSamsung's picture frame is no iPad: http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2011/08/23/samsungs-digital-picture-frame-was-no-ipad/ http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2011/08/23/samsungs-digital-pi...
- bornon5 15y agoI'm not convinced that rounded corners are anything more than a trend right now. Aesthetically, many beautiful objects have sharp corners - tables, windows, and computer screens, not to mention the universal reading tablet, a.k.a. the piece of paper. Our eyes haven't had a problem staying focused inside these rectangles. The big draw for rounded corners is comfort. But we've been using sharp rectangular folders, binders, magazines, etc. for decades without complaint. Apple used the rounded corner to great effect, and for now it seems like the only possible design choice. But some point, someone is going to produce an elegant matboard-thin computer tablet with "sharp" corners that don't cut your fingers, and suddenly the rounded corner will seem like a childish relic of the naughts.
- mannicken 15y agoActually, yes. The research in neuroaesthetics has shown some interesting results that point out humans' natural preference towards straight, rather than oblique lines: http://www.wfu.edu/psychology/faculty/pubs/schirillo/Article%2031.pdf http://www.wfu.edu/psychology/faculty/pubs/schirillo/Article... I do not know where the author got his "curved lines pull people in" effect. I also feel like simple vignettes on the corners would make tablets seem much more sophisticated and intricate. Another related URL: http://www.artlebedev.com/mandership/147/ http://www.artlebedev.com/mandership/147/ here Lebedev talks about the difference between simplicity and primitivism. This probably most closely hints at what I think is wrong with Apple's design.
- r00fus 15y agoObligatory folklore.org [1]... design is often how to incorporate what we already know and see in the digital world... regarding your comment about folders, if you do a google image search for "folder" you'll find most of them are rounded. In drawer at home, most of the folders have rounded edges where possible (ie, not at the hinge of the folder due to increased tear potential). ' Steve suddenly got more intense. "Rectangles with rounded corners are everywhere! Just look around this room!". And sure enough, there were lots of them, like the whiteboard and some of the desks and tables. Then he pointed out the window. "And look outside, there's even more, practically everywhere you look!". He even persuaded Bill to take a quick walk around the block with him, pointing out every rectangle with rounded corners that he could find. ' [1] http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Round_Rects_Are_Everywhere.txt http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Round_Rects_Are_E...
- ctdonath 15y agoApple need be careful what they insist others do - it may be done, and well, and Apple prohibited from doing it too. Example: the color of the margin should be the same as the background color of the content This after insisting on a sufficient inactive margin, and going on to say the technology doesn't exist. The thought ends with the conclusion of a one-inch-ish black margin. But wait: what if a tablet DID run its display area to the edge? just with the understanding among developers that any user activity within a specified margin would be ignored, either for lack of sensors or programed disuse. Bingo: Apple's odd requirements of no margin (per se) and no black is satisfied and surpassed by a superior user experience of relevant, dynamic borders; anything from automatic color matching to extending a background image to the edges or even putting useful dynamic information & imagery in the margin may/would be preferred to a space-occupying dead black zone. ...then Samsung patents the idea, leaving Apple with, well, a dead black space-occupying margin. Methinks the term "malicious obedience" applies. Careful what you ask for...
- X-Istence 15y agoApple never suggested that the margin should be the same as the background colour of the content. The author of the article is stating that would be even better.
- ctdonath 15y agoI didn't suggest Apple suggested that. I'm noting that the author stated that color matched borders would be even better, but then abandoned the idea. I'm suggesting running with it in a manner which would benefit, instead of hinder, Samsung with an edge over Apple with a "what goes around comes around", "malicious obedience" unexpected consequence.
- X-Istence 15y ago"Apple need be careful what they insist others do - it may be done, and well, and Apple prohibited from doing it too. Example:" And then you use an example. From that sentence, quoted above, it sure does sound like you were suggesting that Apple insisted Samsung do this...
- blhack 15y agoOh for frak's sake, Apple. This design came out before the iPad and looks identical to it. HN readers, you especially should know about this since it was all over the front page forever: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JooJoo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JooJoo Here's an article from June 2009 that you could almost literally just swap the word Apple and iPad into. http://techcrunch.com/2009/06/03/crunchpad-the-launch-prototype/ http://techcrunch.com/2009/06/03/crunchpad-the-launch-protot...
- dazbradbury 15y agoBut how can this be? Steve Jobs himself said: "iPad creates and defines an entirely new category of devices" Clearly, JooJoo was copied from Apple.
- ricardobeat 15y agoThis is what the JooJoo originally looked like (2008): http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3030/2689708043_3afee5af69_o.jpg http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3030/2689708043_3afee5af69_o.... This is what a 1st gen iPod touch looked like in 2007: http://media.gdgt.com/img/product/1/101/ipod-touch-1st-gen-3g8-460.jpg http://media.gdgt.com/img/product/1/101/ipod-touch-1st-gen-3... On top of that, designs aren't pulled from thin air, you can subtract at least 1-2 years from the launch date.
- blhack 15y agoWhat's your point? The only difference between the the 2008 Crunchpad/JooJoo and the iPad is the color black.
- kingsidharth 15y agoThree of my favorite design quotes: "Best design is least design." "Best design is invisible." "Give less a chance."
- sbuk 15y agohttp://tenprinciplesofgooddesign.com/ http://tenprinciplesofgooddesign.com/ from Dieter Rams. Jonathan Ive's and by extension Apple's approach to design expressed in 10 simple statements.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- devenson 15y agoThe appearance of TV's have converged upon the current form of minimalism and simplicity given the current technology available--all screen, small black border. Isn't this simply what's happening in the tablet market? Why must the courts protect consumers from potential confusion among competing tablets but not among competing but similar looking TV's? Seems like an abuse of the legal system, which has soured me to Apple's products.
- tlholaday 15y agoDo you have any evidence that the European design laws were intended to protect against consumer confusion? All the evidence I have seen is that the laws were intended to protect designers of a product sold in country A from copycats in country B. That way you can start on a small scale in Denmark (say), and if it catches on, ramp up and sell throughout the EU.
- samtregar2 15y agoThat's amazing - this site managed to come up with CSS that prevents the font from getting bigger even when I ctrl-+ the page. Thanks for making it impossible for me to read, asshats.
- robin_reala 15y agoUpgrade from IE - it doesn’t resize fonts specified in pixels in text resize mode.
- eren-tantekin 15y agoI seriously doubt they are using IE. Using Google Chrome, I can't resize text either. On Firefox, I can though.
- Stratoscope 15y agoYes, that is because they are using a webkit CSS style that is not intended for normal websites. See my comment above for a fix.
- samtregar2 15y agoYou wound me sir. I use Chrome on Linux. Linux user since v1.2.3!
- robin_reala 15y agoI take it all back!
- Stratoscope 15y agoThey are using this evil CSS style: body { -webkit-text-size-adjust: none; } Here is a userstyle that will fix the problem on this site and on all other sites that use this style: http://userstyles.org/styles/54719/ctrl-plus-text-zoom-fix http://userstyles.org/styles/54719/ctrl-plus-text-zoom-fix
- john2x 15y agoMy favorite quote, and my motto when making anything > Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. - Antoine de Saint-Exupery Also, that thing about the margin matching the color of the content sounds awesome.
- jopt 15y agoThe author seems to argue that only unsuccessful design is entitled to protection.
- freehunter 15y agoNo, just that only non-obvious design should be entitled to protection. A thumb-width, neutrally colored bezel, a rectangle screen, and non-lethal corners are obvious. Apple's suggestions are to specifically engineer a device that looks unlike an Apple product, rather than designing a device in the obvious way. Apple wants to corner the market on simple design. Imagine if your coffee cup couldn't be designed to be round, have a handle that goes from the top to the bottom, or have an opening on the top to drink from.
- sbuk 15y ago>>Apple wants to corner the market on simple design. Imagine if your coffee cup couldn't be designed to be round, have a handle that goes from the top to the bottom, or have an opening on the top to drink from. I don't understand this point of view at all. It's seems loaded and emotive. I'll ask you this; why can other hardware manufacturers make tablet devices that are aesthetically appealing to consumers that aren't using a near identical visual language.
- freehunter 15y agoCan you link me to one? I'm having a hard time finding a tablet that does not look like an iPad. The HP Touchpad, the Playbook, Motorola Xoom, even the Kindle Fire looks like a 7" iPad. The Nook Tablet is about the only one, and it's just a silver iPad with a notch cut out of the corner for some reason. Eee Transformer? iPad with an optional keyboard. The Acer Iconia has a silver lining around the bezel. That and the Nook are about as "different" as I'm seeing. They're all 7" or 10" TV screens. No one is screaming that their TVs or monitors all look the same, but they're all black boxes with a screen.
- sbuk 15y ago
- 9oliYQjP 15y agoApple didn't give design advice to Samsung because they're arrogant. It's because for them to argue that their patents are being infringed, they have to point out alternative designs that could have achieved the same effect. IP laws are screwed up, but a lot of people are jumping on this bandwagon out of ignorance. It's like people who get mad because a brand comes down hard on folks using their trademark. It's a legal requirement that they enforce the trademark, otherwise they lose it.
- freehunter 15y ago>they have to point out alternative designs that could have achieved the same effect. And this post proves that those alternative designs would make for a decidedly unappealing tablet experience. If Apple designs their products to be the bare minimum that looks good, they don't have the right to be surprised when other companies come to the same conclusion.
- 5hoom 15y agoI don't think the onus is on Apple to suggest how Samsung could design a good alternative tablet.
- jasongullickson 15y ago"Optimally speaking, the color of the margin should be the same as the background color of the content. That way, the margin would be there but not attract your attention. But that is not actually possible with today's technology." What? There are several comments here which ring with the similar, "this is the only way it could be" tone that is morally disturbing (although always pleasing to hear from the competition...). (edit: spelling)
- its_so_on 15y agoI consider Apple's design aesthetic to be the "mercedes" of phones, laptops, etc. I've never mistaken another car for a mercedes (I'm thinking of the e-class), nor have I ever mistaken another laptop for a macbook, nor have I ever mistaken another mp3 player for an ipad. i mistook someone using a samsung tablet for them using an ipad - I thought that's what it was, looking at them interacting with it fairly closely, etc. I disagree with the argument in this article and elsewhere. The fact is, you could make basically the exact same arguments for why things HAVE to look like a MacBook or an iMac. But I've never seen anyone who cares about APPLE products in particular, mistake another computer for a MacBook or another computer for an iMac - have you? When an expert does a double-take two minutes in and realizes that's not the Apple product it looks exactly like, then a line has been crossed. you guys can mod me down, doesn't change this fact.
- mahyarm 15y agoMercedes is such a generic luxury model in many of their cars that it's easy to overlook them as generi-sedans for the most part.
- karolist 15y agoMercedes luxurious design of cars is nothing like Apple's design of tech. Apple is BMW of computers and BMW is Apple of cars - just look at this and honestly tell me this is beautiful and simple: http://l.yimg.com/dv/izp/mercedes_benz_e_class_e320_bluetec_sedan_2009_dashboard_dashboard.jpg http://l.yimg.com/dv/izp/mercedes_benz_e_class_e320_bluetec_... Compare that to the 5er sedan of same year (if we go back to e60 of mid 2003 things look even worse for Mercs) http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2009/09/19-bmw-5-gt-live-frankfurt.jpg http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2009/09/19-bmw... I'm not even talking about A6 http://0.tqn.com/d/cars/1/0/1/P/1/09a6_interior.jpg http://0.tqn.com/d/cars/1/0/1/P/1/09a6_interior.jpg This is all personal I suppose, but I take issue when people relate Apple with Mercedes, just not the same level of attention to details between the two.
- fuzzythinker 15y ago"Thickness: The batteries make it impossible to create the optional shape for gripping. Instead, the back is shaped to be slightly thicker to fit the batteries, while keeping the edge as thin as possible. Flat back: It simply doesn't work." These 2 assertions are basically the same, and were made with next to no basis. Had they actually used the Sony tablet? How do they know that it "It simply doesn't work."? I haven't used the Sony tablet before, but I did use the REB2100 color ebook which is similar to the Sony design where the batteries are in one edge instead of being flat on the back. It is much easier to hold than the ipad. I will argue that a tablet with an edge heavy side like the Sony, if it isn't currently easy to hold with 2 hands for gaming or other applications due to sharp edges, can be redesigned more like the 1st gen macbook air where user can hold the heavy edge comfortably by either a single hand or both hands.
- webjprgm 15y agoThey could have made the margins with a raised border, like the Kindle, and still had a black border, rectangular with rounded corners, flat back tablet that didn't look quite so much like an iPad. They could have put their logo in a shallow etching on that margin. The margin could be plastic, rubber, or any other material more comfortable for grip and/or better for protecting the screen. They also could easily have the thumb margin on only 1 side, provided their software allows the user to flip the device upside down to switch between left-handed and right-handed users. They could have put the speakers as a visible part of the top or bottom margin. They could have the margin be a screen that does not have touch capabilities and is there simply to extend the background color all the way to the edge. They could design a new battery that would fit around the outer rim of the tablet internally so that the middle of the device could be thinner. This would be technically difficult and expensive though. Also, simplicity is very obvious when you see it, but before you see it you might not think of reducing things down quite that far. Case in point: Apple's device is not as simple as the one the author at baekdal.com designed because Apple's has a home button, a lock button, and volume buttons. Those are not necessary, but Apple designed them into the iPad.
- funkah 15y ago> Apple never designed the iPad. They undesigned the tablet. They focused on creating the simplest form possible. Every single decision is based on usability, readability, comfort, and focusing your eyes on the content itself. IANAD, but everything I have read about design indicates that this is precisely what design is. So, the premise that Apple "undesigned" the iPad is a shaky one. That doesn't make Apple's list of demands any less silly, though.
- georgieporgie 15y agoThis guy's argument seems to lead to, "Apple has designed the ultimate possible tablet shape," which I don't believe in the least. Samsung obviously copied their design concept, and didn't even try to improve on it. How about a rubberized, textured back, like the Kobo ebook reader?
- danilocampos 15y agoI want these people who are running around saying there's no other way to design Samsung's stuff to explain to me one thing. Why, of all the devices on earth, does Samsung's tablet exactly mimic Apple's USB connector? I've got a Galaxy Tab sitting right next to me, here. The design isn't just similar, the dimensions are nearly identical. Explain it to me. Please. If you can offer a compelling case for why Samsung isn't a shameless industrial design thief that can also account for their USB connector, I will be very impressed. It is, to me, the smoking gun. Don't tell me it's the only way to design a low-profile USB connector. It's the only way when Apple does it – everyone else has been doing fine with USB mini and micro. Samsung: http://i.imgur.com/eyqGw.jpg http://i.imgur.com/eyqGw.jpg Apple: http://i.imgur.com/nh0eI.jpg http://i.imgur.com/nh0eI.jpg Everyone else: http://i.imgur.com/vpPhZ.jpg http://i.imgur.com/vpPhZ.jpg Oh, and for thoroughness, how Amazon designed a beautiful USB micro cable that looked nothing at all like Apple's: http://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Replacement-Display-Generation-Kindles/dp/B003M5IQLU http://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Replacement-Display-Generation-... Maybe Apple had a time machine and traveled into the future, stealing Samsung's wholly original USB cable design?
- Qz 15y agoA wide plug is less likely to get jostled out by moving the cord sideways back and forth. It's fairly common sense.
- danilocampos 15y agoAnd a width of 21mm is the only configuration that could satisfy this requirement? Precisely that, and no other? I don't mean to be flip, but it beggars belief to say that this is some sort of platonic form of tablet connector, especially given that the connector originated on the iPod in 2003, and existed not for stability, but for thinness, and to provide additional pins for accessories in a larger Apple-specific ecosystem. It was designed with a purpose, no part of which beyond thinness obtains when applied to a non-Apple device.
- Tichy 15y agoI am sure they did not copy the 21mm because it looks the best. There must be some other reason.
- icebraining 15y agoWhat I like about the rounded corners debate is the Job's quote/story: Steve suddenly got more intense. "Rectangles with rounded corners are everywhere! Just look around this room!". And sure enough, there were lots of them, like the whiteboard and some of the desks and tables. Then he pointed out the window. "And look outside, there's even more, practically everywhere you look!". He even persuaded Bill to take a quick walk around the block with him, pointing out every rectangle with rounded corners that he could find. So, are they everywhere, or are they innovative? ;) http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Round_Rects_Are_Everywhere.txt http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Round_Rects_Are_E...
- ianstormtaylor 15y agoThis article is fraught with frustratingly-incorrect use of the word "design". The author continually mistakes "design" for visual appearance. "Apple never designed the iPad. They undesigned the tablet. They focused on creating the simplest form possible. Every single decision is based on usability, readability, comfort, and focusing your eyes on the content itself." That's exactly what design is: finding the problems that need to be solved and devising a solution that solves them. One that respects usability, readability, comfort, etc. "The shape of a tablet has nothing to do with design. It is simple logic." Wrong again. "Again, this has nothing to do with design. The width of the margin is an engineering problem with only one solution." And again. It is a design decision. "Again, none of this is a design problem. It is all about usability." Because usability has nothing to do with design... nope. "What has happened here is that Samsung has been forced to add design elements that don't need to be there." Here you mean "visual elements" not "design elements". "Again, this has nothing to do with design. This is an engineering constraint." (talking about the batteries) Still wrong, it has something to do with design. This however is the only one that gets close to its claim. The author makes a lot of interesting points, but he clearly doesn't know what "design" means.
- Helianthus 15y agoI'm furious over the use of the 'word' "undesign." THEY'RE DESTROYING MY LANGUAGE.
- Gring 15y agoActually, they're undesigning your language.
- Helianthus 15y agoSTOP IT YOU'RE HURTING AMERICA
- stan_rogers 15y ago"un" is a productive negation prefix. That means that it can freely be used just about anywhere it makes lexical sense to use it; there is no list of approved verbs with which it may be used. Undesign is a perfectly valid word (and preferable to alternatives like dedesign in terms of aestheitics). Dictionaries cannot be expected to contain every variant of a word created by valid and systematic use of affixes.
- bluekeybox 15y ago> since a tablet has to work with any content, the only color that is both neutral and more subdued than any other...is black. As well as white, silver, beige, or any of the hundreds possible distinct shades of gray. Throughout 1980-90s, computer monitors were beige, and that was considered to be a classy, neutral, subdued color that works with any content, just like black is considered today. I'm not saying beige is better; I'm just saying that this whole thing that black is "the only possible color" is annoying. Apple themselves make a white iPad as well as covers in different colors, so clearly black is not the only game in town. Oh, and I've held Sony Tablet S, and it works just fine in portrait orientation; as a matter of fact Sony's tablet is easier to hold with one hand in portrait mode than iPad is. What a bunch of whiners.
- commieneko 15y agoDesign by simplification is hard. And surprisingly not intuitive. Look at a Picasso and realize it took hundreds of years of western art before something so "simple" could be appreciated. It's made even harder because engineers and business managers often insist on extra functionality or visual clutter. (Often there are good usability or marketing reasons for this, but too often it's simply the desire to be "part of the process".) Now you do give up something with simplicity. In art you force the user to supply context and sometimes even interpretation; in software design this can actually be a plus. One of the things you give up in software, and hardware, design is novelty. When you boil a solution down to its essence there's often not room for differentiation. You have to change either the constraints, smaller batteries, for example, or change user expectations. This makes competing against something so "undesigned" very difficult without trying to completely re-conceptualize a product. This is what Apple did with the iPhone. Now it helped them in that the basic "smart phone" was so utterly, indescribably awful before they entered the market. I imagine the process Jobs went through involved looking at the current market and deciding that there was no way to fix any of that. So they started from scratch. A big deal was realizing that they weren't simply making a phone with some connectivity features and a bigger display, but they were designing a small, portable communication platform that needed to have absolutely minimal impact on, well, portability. They looked at the problem and built just enough to solve the basics and provide a minimal amount of hardware and software to support the ideas. Anything added needs to have minimal impact on the basics. Now they didn't get it perfect, by any means. But they did a good, credible job. Good enough that if you are a competitor you are going to have a hard time solving the same problems, with the same constraints, and not come up with something that a layman would have a hard time distinguishing from the original. Now I'm against software patents myself, and think hardware patents should be much more difficult to get and keep. But legal issues aside, if you want to compete against the iPhone and iPad, and not seem like an also-ran, you are going to have to come up with a different interaction paradigm. A device built into spectacles with a heads up display and vision tracking? Something totally audio based; Siri anyone? I can see the attraction to a phone with no display or buttons at all. I don't know the solution(s) myself, this is not an area I'm interested in developing in. But I'll probably want to own whatever the next "Steve Jobs" comes up with. A Samsung iPhone/iPad knockoff? Not so much...
- Androsynth 15y agoAm I the only person who doesn't care? Apple produced a well designed piece of hardware. It is superior to other designs, so therefore I would like my tablets to have that design, regardless of what the actual OS is or what company built it. On a side note, HN is usually strongly against patents. The argument is that it is all about execution and patents only retard innovation. Why is everyone up in arms when it is Apple getting copied? They innovated and now the rest of the market is absorbing that design into their products, because it is superior. This is good, for everyone.
- freemarketteddy 15y agoI agree with some of the author's argument but he seems to be missing the logical fallacy in the use of the word "undesign". Thats equivalent to arguing that a flat screen tv is obtained by "undesigning" a TV from the 90's and thus there is no real innovation involved!Simlarly a laptop then was made by "undesigning" a desktop computer! Yes an iPad is what a tablet should look and feel like but it is so obvious because Apple pointed these seemingly "simple" things out and they absolutely deserve credit for it. If you go ahead and "undesign" a Boeing 747 airliner and make it work as efficient and smooth as a bird shouldnt you deserve credit for it?
- sbuk 15y agoPerhaps the articles author should employ a morphological chart to properly investigate the many different design solutions available to Samsung and everybody else before declaring Apple's design the definitive one: http://wikid.eu/index.php/Morphological_chart http://wikid.eu/index.php/Morphological_chart
- happle 15y agoAm I the only one who hates design patents? Wait, you're telling me you created a screen with rounded edges? There's probably over a 1,000 people who conceptually designed iPod/iPad type devices since the late 90s on. None of this is new. It's absurd to claim it's original.
- brindle 15y agoI'm a bit late to this party... I liked the article title but the article is weak. First of all, there are many ways to create a viable tablet. Apple's approach to enumerate the challenges/problems associated with the new form factor and then to solve them not come up with an ad hoc hack and to protect their unique patentable solutions. At the same time, other companies were creating netbooks because they were to lazy to figure out how to design a fully functional computer and cram it into a notebook form factor. Probably one of the key breakthroughs was their realization that it didn't need to be a full computer. Seems so obvious now doesn't it? Also that they needed to augment the current state of the touch based UI. All very obvious in retrospect. If there is prior art then it will remove some of the violations. If you are going to post stuff like this, do the necessary research on when the iPad IP was patented. Its appalling to see companies blatantly copying better technology and then selling it. They should respect it, either license the technology, develop their own or work on something that Apple hasn't done yet and isn't in the process of doing.
- protomyth 15y agoI would normally give a company the benefit of the doubt, but after the SGH-i607 (Blackjack)[1] I just assume Samsung is a copy type company for design. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_SGH-i607 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_SGH-i607
- alexwolfe 15y agoEvery designer I know will tell you it take much longer and requires much more difficulty to make something complicated look very very simple. Most peoples reaction to something designed very well is: "oh of course you do it like that, how would you do it anyway else". But this is naive thinking, there are plenty of ways to design and most are not simple. The beauty of the iPad is that people understand it at a glance, that is incredibly profound. I think it is really unfortunate that the writer of this article took the stance that they undesigned it, simply wrong. They intelligently designed every aspect of this device which is exactly what his diagrams point out. Apple's computers, tablets, phone, iPod, all look very unique and were certainly designed not undesigned. All of these objects are man made and inherently require design for them to take shape.
- bane 15y agoIn my opinion, the real problem is not who copied who. Reading through these comments it's clear both companies are standing on the shoulders of giants (and in some cases of each other). The real problem I'm seeing in most of these comments is that there's a stark denial that somebody, anybody, could possibly design and build a tablet that's as good (or better) than Apple's flagship product because after all, isn't Apple's design by definition the best?
- cadalac 15y agoAbout the corners, It's not just about comfort. When CNC machines cut surfaces, the corners are naturally rounded, that's the main reason tablets, smartphones and pretty much everything coming out of a factory has rounded edges.
- idspispopd 15y agoThe logic of this article is flawed and deliberately trying to deceive. This is an article which assumes that the designer will value identical design problems as Apple. Hence they incorrectly argue that since Apple's design is simple, it's automatic to come to a similar design. It's trivial to argue that it's not only possible to solve the problems differently, but that other designers (e.g. HTC) have valued different design problems which result in a different looking tablet, that while similar(mostly for technical reasons), is different enough to escape scrutiny. Not unlike the joke of the expert who knows where the place the chalk 'x' on the broken machine.(http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/where.asp http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/where.asp) Apple's choice of favouring certain design problems over others is the result of their own research and how they want their users to experience their device. Valuing different problems produces different results, e.g. if Apple were adamant that the device should be held with one hand the design might approximate an artists palette or have a dedicated strap. It's up to the lawyers from here, however Apple has been having success in demonstrating that the few differences between the devices are confusingly similar. Samsung's case is weakened by copying, not only the look and feel of the applications, but also the packaging, and even the 30 pin connector which rather than being an elegant solution it's a compatibility choice inherited from other iDevices. To me, as a consumer, while my opinion is worthless in the matter: I feel it's a high profile knock off and something I'd expect to find in the chinese markets. Also it's association with Android damages the Android brand, allowing people to assume that Android is a rough counterfeit.
- Artagra 15y agoVery interesting. I agree with a lot of what the author says, and I think that aspects of Apple's case against Samsung are spurious, to say the least. However, I also see one major flaw in his argument. If this design is obvious, why then do all tablets made trior to the iPad look nothing like the iPad? (Windows Tablets, Apple Newton, Specialist Medical Tablets, Grid Tablet, etc etc) http://www.cultofmac.com/109373/what-tablets-looked-like-before-the-ipad-proves-how-revolutionary-apples-tablet-really-was/ http://www.cultofmac.com/109373/what-tablets-looked-like-bef...