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Also submitted to evidence was an internal Samsung document which reviews Samsung's way vs Apple's way, and it made quite a compelling case that Samsung put for

by magoon 14y ago

Also submitted to evidence was an internal Samsung document which reviews Samsung's way vs Apple's way, and it made quite a compelling case that Samsung put forth significant effort in copying Apple's form and function. I'm sure much of the "evidence" can be debunked in such a way as this article has, but taken as a whole I think Apple's case was convincing. If you want to see other good examples of wholesale copying, go to a brick & mortar computer store (such as the new Microsoft Store) and view how all of the PC laptops have island key keyboards, aluminium or similar metal casings, cameras on top, drop hinges, and massive button-less touchpads.

fieryscribe 14y ago
Do you have a link to this internal document?
- magoon 14y ago
  http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/8/3227284/samsungs-directions-for-improvement#3639115 http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/8/3227284/samsungs-directions... Particularly interesting is the last slide, #126, which includes in its Directions For Improvement "Remove a feeling that iPhone's menu icons are copied by differentiating design"
  - fieryscribe 14y ago
    Proof of copying is an instruction to differentiate the design so it doesn't seem like they're copying?
lusr 14y ago
I really don't understand criticism of the Samsung document, and I say this as somebody who currently owns an iPhone 4S - and my previous phone was an iPhone 3G. I also own a Samsung television and home theatre system, and plan on buying a Macbook Pro at the end of the year. I like to think I'm pretty unbiased in this matter as I've spent equal amounts of money on products from both companies, at the same time, and I'm happy with all my purchases. From my cursory review of the document, all I can see it doing is compare the user experience between the two products. To me it's the difference between a clean-room reverse engineering exercise to build a competing product (implement, compare, revise) vs. a cloning manual (nowhere in that document does it instruct Samsung hardware/software engineers to copy Apple's form and function, it simply highlights areas of improvement; there are areas where I'm sure they concluded Samsung's implementation was better but they didn't write "hey guys we're busy cloning here, stop innovating!"). Look at #114 for example, which describes how Apple's phone has an animation when deleting notes. They don't write "we need an animation when deleting notes" (which would be copying). They identify the purpose of the animation ("fun factor") and recommend introducing some kind of "fun factor" in their own product, and leave details to designers to independently arrive at. In fact, I recommend reading the very last paragraph in that document: "Remove a feeling that iPhone's menu icons are copied by differentiating design." This is no more sinister than making car wheels round. Now you could argue that Samsung was just very clever about the way they went and copied things, but there's no concrete evidence of this theory of intent that I've seen presented. As a matter of practicality, are you honestly telling me if you manufactured [cars, fridges, stoves, watches, laptops, televisions, software, ...] you wouldn't look at your competitor's [cars, fridges, ...] to make sure your design didn't miss anything obvious? After the first reviews of your new product come in criticizing basic design flaws and viewing it as a "step backwards from competitor A", are you seriously telling me you'd be totally happy to stand there in front of your shareholders and say "Well yeah we could have done some competitive research but that'd be really unfair to our competitors they're actually pretty nice people and we don't want them to be mad!"? Yes Apple probably spent a fair bit of money researching their UX and Samsung piggy-backed on their research. No more so than Apple piggy-backing on Xerox's work 30 years ago. And their payoff was they were first to market and have become the biggest company in US history. I'm struggling to see where the damage is, or the loss for consumers.

by magoon 14y ago

fieryscribe 14y ago

Do you have a link to this internal document?

magoon 14y ago
http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/8/3227284/samsungs-directions-for-improvement#3639115 http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/8/3227284/samsungs-directions... Particularly interesting is the last slide, #126, which includes in its Directions For Improvement "Remove a feeling that iPhone's menu icons are copied by differentiating design"
- fieryscribe 14y ago
  Proof of copying is an instruction to differentiate the design so it doesn't seem like they're copying?

lusr 14y ago

I really don't understand criticism of the Samsung document, and I say this as somebody who currently owns an iPhone 4S - and my previous phone was an iPhone 3G. I also own a Samsung television and home theatre system, and plan on buying a Macbook Pro at the end of the year. I like to think I'm pretty unbiased in this matter as I've spent equal amounts of money on products from both companies, at the same time, and I'm happy with all my purchases. From my cursory review of the document, all I can see it doing is compare the user experience between the two products. To me it's the difference between a clean-room reverse engineering exercise to build a competing product (implement, compare, revise) vs. a cloning manual (nowhere in that document does it instruct Samsung hardware/software engineers to copy Apple's form and function, it simply highlights areas of improvement; there are areas where I'm sure they concluded Samsung's implementation was better but they didn't write "hey guys we're busy cloning here, stop innovating!"). Look at #114 for example, which describes how Apple's phone has an animation when deleting notes. They don't write "we need an animation when deleting notes" (which would be copying). They identify the purpose of the animation ("fun factor") and recommend introducing some kind of "fun factor" in their own product, and leave details to designers to independently arrive at. In fact, I recommend reading the very last paragraph in that document: "Remove a feeling that iPhone's menu icons are copied by differentiating design." This is no more sinister than making car wheels round. Now you could argue that Samsung was just very clever about the way they went and copied things, but there's no concrete evidence of this theory of intent that I've seen presented. As a matter of practicality, are you honestly telling me if you manufactured [cars, fridges, stoves, watches, laptops, televisions, software, ...] you wouldn't look at your competitor's [cars, fridges, ...] to make sure your design didn't miss anything obvious? After the first reviews of your new product come in criticizing basic design flaws and viewing it as a "step backwards from competitor A", are you seriously telling me you'd be totally happy to stand there in front of your shareholders and say "Well yeah we could have done some competitive research but that'd be really unfair to our competitors they're actually pretty nice people and we don't want them to be mad!"? Yes Apple probably spent a fair bit of money researching their UX and Samsung piggy-backed on their research. No more so than Apple piggy-backing on Xerox's work 30 years ago. And their payoff was they were first to market and have become the biggest company in US history. I'm struggling to see where the damage is, or the loss for consumers.