3 ms·

If a company is making a product which people switch every two years, and if a competitor is shamelessly ripping off features, it is extremely insulting and awf

by arihant 14y ago

If a company is making a product which people switch every two years, and if a competitor is shamelessly ripping off features, it is extremely insulting and awfully naive for them not to seek legal measures. Imagine if people switched social networks every two years, and Twitter copied everything Facebook comes up with. What in the OP's mind should Facebook do? Ignore and compete? Probably not. Protect and compete? Maybe. It is Apple's (or Samsung's) responsibility to protect interest of people who spent years imagining and inventing these features. It is also their responsibility to protect themselves and the thousands of developers who earn their living off their platform. Microsoft just showed just how much more can be done in phone and tablet world. Samsung shamelessly copies. So does Apple, but that does not mean companies should ignore blind ripping off of their hard work. Besides, the competition from copycats does not actually help customers. Hundreds of companies ripped off the Walkman. How much innovation did we see from what Sony had? It only usually drives the race to the bottom of pricing tier until the actual innovator chokes to death.

nirvana 14y ago
You make good points, and it is worth noting that, unlike Samsung, microsoft has a license from Apple to use Apple's technology. (they have a cross licensing agreement) That agreement prohibits copying. As a result, Microsoft made a touch screen based UI, but made an innovative one. Whether Microsofts work is good or not, it is clear that they tried something very new (unlike Android which is a replication of the iPhone UI to a large extent) and only by doing something new can we move the ball forward. I am sometimes surprised to see, on a site ostensibly for people who want to found startups, and thus do new things, that people are so defensive of products that are simple copies of others when Google does it, but pretty hostile when someone copies another startups HTML code or when the Samwer borthers clones YC companies.
- bornhuetter 14y ago
  > people are so defensive of products that are simple copies of others when Google does it You are honestly trying to say that Android is just a simple copy of iPhone? Honestly? Frothing at the mouth fanboyism like this really detracts from the credibility of HN as a source of serious discussion.
bornhuetter 14y ago
> Imagine if people switched social networks every two years, and Twitter copied everything Facebook comes up with. Imagine if Facebook had not been allowed to copy any features of social networking sites that came before it. Imagine if no other phone company had been able to borrow ideas from Motorola. Android phones are obviously very different from iPhones. Sure they both borrow ideas from eachother, but that's in everyone's best interest. The idea that an entire market should come to a standstill as soon as the first entrant comes along, until someone comes up with a radically different way of doing things, is utterly ridiculous.
- arihant 14y ago
  Well, even Nokia and Microsoft in principle borrowed from iPhone and Android success. Nobody is blaming them. Because everyone can see that they haven't copied. They have borrowed and "built upon" the state of the art. Android has shamelessly copied iPhone. Show this image to one's mom and ask her which one is iPhone: http://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/images/2012/8/24//201282452720262734_20.jpg http://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/images/2012/8/24//201282452... iPhone wasn't a direct rip off of any Moto phone. Android is a rip off of iPhone. Before iPhone was launched, Andoird was a rip off of Blackberry. It amazes me how Google uses open source wildcard to mind-wash hackers. When MS "borrowed idea" of GUI from Apple, whose best interest did it work for? I do not see how encouraging copy cats would work in everyone's best interest.
  - bornhuetter 14y ago
    Well if the photo hadn't been doctored, it would be quite easy to tell - the one with SAMSUNG written in large friendly letters across the top is the Samsung. I won't bother going through the other reasons why that photo comparison is deliberately misleading, I'm sure you already know. > When MS "borrowed idea" of GUI from Apple When MS borrowed the idea of a GUI from Xerox, it was in the interest of all consumers. Can you imagine a world there there was only one company making GUIs, one company making phones, one company making each item in each product category? Android was clearly inspired by many aspects of the iPhone. I could point to dozens of aspects of the iPhone that was inspired by earlier phones. Granting monopolies on entire broad product categories would be a disaster for everyone.

by arihant 14y ago

nirvana 14y ago

You make good points, and it is worth noting that, unlike Samsung, microsoft has a license from Apple to use Apple's technology. (they have a cross licensing agreement) That agreement prohibits copying. As a result, Microsoft made a touch screen based UI, but made an innovative one. Whether Microsofts work is good or not, it is clear that they tried something very new (unlike Android which is a replication of the iPhone UI to a large extent) and only by doing something new can we move the ball forward. I am sometimes surprised to see, on a site ostensibly for people who want to found startups, and thus do new things, that people are so defensive of products that are simple copies of others when Google does it, but pretty hostile when someone copies another startups HTML code or when the Samwer borthers clones YC companies.

bornhuetter 14y ago
> people are so defensive of products that are simple copies of others when Google does it You are honestly trying to say that Android is just a simple copy of iPhone? Honestly? Frothing at the mouth fanboyism like this really detracts from the credibility of HN as a source of serious discussion.

bornhuetter 14y ago

> Imagine if people switched social networks every two years, and Twitter copied everything Facebook comes up with. Imagine if Facebook had not been allowed to copy any features of social networking sites that came before it. Imagine if no other phone company had been able to borrow ideas from Motorola. Android phones are obviously very different from iPhones. Sure they both borrow ideas from eachother, but that's in everyone's best interest. The idea that an entire market should come to a standstill as soon as the first entrant comes along, until someone comes up with a radically different way of doing things, is utterly ridiculous.

arihant 14y ago
Well, even Nokia and Microsoft in principle borrowed from iPhone and Android success. Nobody is blaming them. Because everyone can see that they haven't copied. They have borrowed and "built upon" the state of the art. Android has shamelessly copied iPhone. Show this image to one's mom and ask her which one is iPhone: http://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/images/2012/8/24//201282452720262734_20.jpg http://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/images/2012/8/24//201282452... iPhone wasn't a direct rip off of any Moto phone. Android is a rip off of iPhone. Before iPhone was launched, Andoird was a rip off of Blackberry. It amazes me how Google uses open source wildcard to mind-wash hackers. When MS "borrowed idea" of GUI from Apple, whose best interest did it work for? I do not see how encouraging copy cats would work in everyone's best interest.
- bornhuetter 14y ago
  Well if the photo hadn't been doctored, it would be quite easy to tell - the one with SAMSUNG written in large friendly letters across the top is the Samsung. I won't bother going through the other reasons why that photo comparison is deliberately misleading, I'm sure you already know. > When MS "borrowed idea" of GUI from Apple When MS borrowed the idea of a GUI from Xerox, it was in the interest of all consumers. Can you imagine a world there there was only one company making GUIs, one company making phones, one company making each item in each product category? Android was clearly inspired by many aspects of the iPhone. I could point to dozens of aspects of the iPhone that was inspired by earlier phones. Granting monopolies on entire broad product categories would be a disaster for everyone.