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Did not the same thing occur prior where most cellphones had terrible menu based systems? If you shake up an industry with a superior interface, and users get c

Did not the same thing occur prior where most cellphones had terrible menu based systems? If you shake up an industry with a superior interface, and users get comfortable with it, there is no reasonable argument that continuing with an older standard would be a wise business decision.

taligent 14y ago
True. But it's what you do when faced with this predicament that counts. Compare the approach of Samsung versus Microsoft. Samsung pretty clearly took the iPhone and decided to make their own equivalent. It's an approach they've used (with great success) when competing with Sony. Unlucky for them Apple patented their work every step of the way. Microsoft however went back to the drawing board, looked at how users were actually using the iPhone, went through their own product development process and built something unquestionably unique.
- oemera 14y ago
  This is exactly what I'm trying to say when it comes to the discussing "Samsung had to copy the iPhone cause it is the defacto standard". It is not. Nothing should be a standard. Apple didn't copy Nokia even if Nokia was the defacto standard and the bestelling phone maker. It is not okay to just copy products and earn a fortune with it. I genuinely believe that Apple invested millions of dollars into the UX of the iOS platform and letting people just copy it would be a shame and just the wrong thing. Why can't Samsung just come up with it's own ideas? Why was there no S-Voice before Siri? Why is the Galaxy line pretty much the only Android Smartphone with a home button? Why do Samsung product packages (!!) look nearly the same as Apple? Even if people like Samsung or hate Apple they have to admit that something fishy is going on here.
  - rjzzleep 14y ago
    apples whole business is based on copy and clone, why are we even having this discussion again?
- kalleboo 14y ago
  And Windows Phone is tanking and Samsung are doing great.
brk 14y ago
Sure, you wouldn't want to continue with an older standard at that point, but I don't think that is the argument. If I've seen one consistent thing from Apple product design, it's that they appear to iterate continuously on the hardware and software/UI/IX components until they feel they have reached the absolute best (and before a wrong-tangent thread starts, that doesn't mean it is THE best, just Apple's opinion of best, etc.) Most likely in the course of designing the iPhone/iPad, Apple threw away countless hardware and software designs that would have frankly been great and significant game changers. So I would imagine their view is along the lines of "We know the iPhone isn't the only conceivable marketable smartphone layout." I personally believe that Samsung, or some other smart company, could have come up with an iPhone competitor that would not be so closely compared to and confused with the iPhone. Especially when you consider that the iPhone was groundbreaking in the sense of not having a physical keyboard. That was certainly not perceived as the "perfect" solution at the time, and probably still isn't. There was room for innovative differentiation in how user input was handled (physical keyboard, Palm grafitti-style input, chording keyboard, something new). Instead Samsung (and several other companies) immediately switched to the flat all-glass iPhone design with the same basic rows of squared icons.
- jsight 14y ago
  > That was certainly not perceived as the "perfect" solution > at the time, and probably still isn't. There was room for > innovative differentiation in how user input was handled > (physical keyboard, Palm grafitti-style input, chording keyboard, something new). I understand why this perception exists, but I do not think that it represents a fair assessment of what happened. The first Android device after the iPhone was the HTC G1, with both a keyboard and a trackball. The first two "high-end" (IMO) Android phones were the Motorola Droid and Nexus One (one had a keyboard, the other had a trackball). There were also some Blackberry-esque designs built in the past couple of years (cf, Motorola Charm, and a couple of others). There have also been variations on hinge design and screen setups (HTC Desire Z hinge, and Kyocera Echo). Samsung themselves have built a couple of high end Android phones with slideout keyboards for both AT&T and Sprint. The fact that they've settled on a slate design has less to do with their attempts at differentiation than it does with providing what the market has been asking for. They've tried building the other phones, they just don't sell to as large of a demographic. I can't imagine anyone today picking Palm graffiti-style input over Swype, for example.

taligent 14y ago

True. But it's what you do when faced with this predicament that counts. Compare the approach of Samsung versus Microsoft. Samsung pretty clearly took the iPhone and decided to make their own equivalent. It's an approach they've used (with great success) when competing with Sony. Unlucky for them Apple patented their work every step of the way. Microsoft however went back to the drawing board, looked at how users were actually using the iPhone, went through their own product development process and built something unquestionably unique.

oemera 14y ago
This is exactly what I'm trying to say when it comes to the discussing "Samsung had to copy the iPhone cause it is the defacto standard". It is not. Nothing should be a standard. Apple didn't copy Nokia even if Nokia was the defacto standard and the bestelling phone maker. It is not okay to just copy products and earn a fortune with it. I genuinely believe that Apple invested millions of dollars into the UX of the iOS platform and letting people just copy it would be a shame and just the wrong thing. Why can't Samsung just come up with it's own ideas? Why was there no S-Voice before Siri? Why is the Galaxy line pretty much the only Android Smartphone with a home button? Why do Samsung product packages (!!) look nearly the same as Apple? Even if people like Samsung or hate Apple they have to admit that something fishy is going on here.
- rjzzleep 14y ago
  apples whole business is based on copy and clone, why are we even having this discussion again?
kalleboo 14y ago
And Windows Phone is tanking and Samsung are doing great.

brk 14y ago

Sure, you wouldn't want to continue with an older standard at that point, but I don't think that is the argument. If I've seen one consistent thing from Apple product design, it's that they appear to iterate continuously on the hardware and software/UI/IX components until they feel they have reached the absolute best (and before a wrong-tangent thread starts, that doesn't mean it is THE best, just Apple's opinion of best, etc.) Most likely in the course of designing the iPhone/iPad, Apple threw away countless hardware and software designs that would have frankly been great and significant game changers. So I would imagine their view is along the lines of "We know the iPhone isn't the only conceivable marketable smartphone layout." I personally believe that Samsung, or some other smart company, could have come up with an iPhone competitor that would not be so closely compared to and confused with the iPhone. Especially when you consider that the iPhone was groundbreaking in the sense of not having a physical keyboard. That was certainly not perceived as the "perfect" solution at the time, and probably still isn't. There was room for innovative differentiation in how user input was handled (physical keyboard, Palm grafitti-style input, chording keyboard, something new). Instead Samsung (and several other companies) immediately switched to the flat all-glass iPhone design with the same basic rows of squared icons.

jsight 14y ago
> That was certainly not perceived as the "perfect" solution > at the time, and probably still isn't. There was room for > innovative differentiation in how user input was handled > (physical keyboard, Palm grafitti-style input, chording keyboard, something new). I understand why this perception exists, but I do not think that it represents a fair assessment of what happened. The first Android device after the iPhone was the HTC G1, with both a keyboard and a trackball. The first two "high-end" (IMO) Android phones were the Motorola Droid and Nexus One (one had a keyboard, the other had a trackball). There were also some Blackberry-esque designs built in the past couple of years (cf, Motorola Charm, and a couple of others). There have also been variations on hinge design and screen setups (HTC Desire Z hinge, and Kyocera Echo). Samsung themselves have built a couple of high end Android phones with slideout keyboards for both AT&T and Sprint. The fact that they've settled on a slate design has less to do with their attempts at differentiation than it does with providing what the market has been asking for. They've tried building the other phones, they just don't sell to as large of a demographic. I can't imagine anyone today picking Palm graffiti-style input over Swype, for example.