Apple Design Fight, Could Samsung Lose
As you more than likely know, Apple and Samsung are going at it head to head in a fight over Apple claiming that old Sammy copied the design and feel of the iPhone and Apple iPad with Samsung Galaxy devices and want to ban Sammy from selling said devices across the globe.
And the guys over at Razorianfly have come up with an image as to why they think Samsung will probably lose the battle with Apple, the image can be seen below, and says, “Does anything else really need to be said?”
Well yes actually there is more to be said, because if Apple is successful in banning all Samsung Galaxy gear such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Samsung Galaxy S II amongst others, where will it end? Will Apple then go after other mobile phone makers whose products resemble Apple gear?
We all know that Apple wants to get rid of their biggest rival in the mobile space, Android and it seems to me that Apple is targeting Android devices, but no matter how much Apple would like that to happen, Android is here to stay.
In the image below is shown old Samsung phones and tablets, and the new Samsung smartphone and tablet against the iPhone and Apple iPad, but so what, every manufacturer needs to move with the times and make better and classier products otherwise be left behind in the mobile space, something we have all seen with Nokia and LG.
Does Samsung Gear copy Apple gear? Probably, but then not exactly, as there are of course visual differences. When it comes to tablets well I’d say that most tablets look like each other anyway otherwise they wouldn’t be a tablet would they, but then that’s just my personal view.
And as it stands my personal view is if Apple is successful in getting Samsung Galaxy products banned across the globe, Apple wont stop there and in the end it will be customer choice that suffers the most.
What do our readers think of this fight, should Apple be allowed to win and force Samsung to stop offering their Galaxy devices, or do you come down on Apple side and think customer choice should be strangled all in the name of design?
Comments
13 thoughts on “Apple Design Fight, Could Samsung Lose”
We all have to remember that just because your the first to patent a design doesn’t mean it didn’t exist before the application was made. Honestly if Apple feels that the Galaxy tab will confuse its customers because it looks similar (aka like a tablet) with the Samsung logo on the front and lacking the massive apple symbol off the back really does shout volumes of what Apple actually thinks of its customers.
I mean the galaxy tab appears to be following the evolutionary trend of all other Samsung display devices this includes monitors and television sets which as a company has been producing for many years now.
Now focusing on the smart phones, we have to remember the smart phones existed for many years before the iPhone was ever thought of and you have to look at HTC’s white labelled products such as the o2 XDA range where we see many examples of touch screen phones with a primary button in the bottom centre with answer and put down buttons either side.
I personally think this Apple at its best, and that’s as one of the worlds greatest marketing machines with free advertising in news articles all over the world, feeding its user base with the confidence of owning market leading innovative products.
I see this as a sign of Apples worries about history repeating itself as those of us draw parallels between the Win/Mac years and the Android/iOs years ahead.
I seriously don’t understand what Apple really means by copying. I can point out a dozen places where Apple has copied others on their phones. The most recent being the Android style notification bar for example. Apple only introduced this on the latest operating system, iOS 5. Folders on mobile devices is another that was copied from Android. I can go on and on…
I think Apple is scared till its pants wetting. Come on Man up!
You may be mistaking designs law for US “Trade dress” laws which is almost a fork of Trademark law and is about consumer confusion caused by similar packaging.
Design law is not really concerned with customer confusion but about protecting the creative output of designers in a a similar way to how copyright protects the creative output of artists and authors and patents protect the output of inventors.
You could put a huge sticker on rip-off DVDs that informed the consumer that they were not legitimate so that there was no consumer confusion at all, but it would not get around IP laws. Similarly whether consumers are informed that rip off designs are not from the same trade origin as the original designs is of little relevance.
We all have to remember that just because your the first to patent a design doesn’t mean it didn’t exist before the application was made. Honestly if Apple feels that the Galaxy tab will confuse its customers because it looks similar (aka like a tablet) with the Samsung logo on the front and lacking the massive apple symbol off the back really does shout volumes of what Apple actually thinks of its customers.
I mean the galaxy tab appears to be following the evolutionary trend of all other Samsung display devices this includes monitors and television sets which as a company has been producing for many years now.
Now focusing on the smart phones, we have to remember the smart phones existed for many years before the iPhone was ever thought of and you have to look at HTC’s white labelled products such as the o2 XDA range where we see many examples of touch screen phones with a primary button in the bottom centre with answer and put down buttons either side.
I personally think this Apple at its best, and that’s as one of the worlds greatest marketing machines with free advertising in news articles all over the world, feeding its user base with the confidence of owning market leading innovative products.
I see this as a sign of Apples worries about history repeating itself as those of us draw parallels between the Win/Mac years and the Android/iOs years ahead.
It is now becoming obvious that Apple innovates, others copy, which means there is little or no innovation by other companies. This is what kills cutomers choice being all similar. The difference is that some people buy the original (Apple) product and others buy the less expenssive copy products.
Thus, Apple’e claim is legitimate and it will alert all other “smart phone copiers” to be engaged on the innovation so that we will have more options to choose from. No one denies that the current smart phone (and also tablet) market is all the same, all are Apple like products.
Apple has not invented ANYTHING new since the Apple I and the Macintosh, all other products are just new implementations (excellent ones, don’t get me wrong) of already invented technology. They didn’t invent the mp3 player, they didn’t invent the UI Mac OS is built upon, they didn’t invent touch screens or laptops or PDAs or touch-controlled computers or wireless routers or media boxes or wireless mouses or coumputer Chips. They didn’t invent 3rd party apps, or grids of icons or accesory “ecosystems”. They didn’t invent ANY of the products in today’s Apple Catalog, including TABLETS (no, they did not invent it), they took technology already available and came up with mass market products.
That’s not a small thing to do, just let’s not keep saying Apple is the creative one here. Samsung has CREATED far more techonolgy than Apple.
It is now becoming obvious that Apple innovates, others copy, which means there is little or no innovation by other companies. This is what kills cutomers choice being all similar. The difference is that some people buy the original (Apple) product and others buy the less expenssive copy products.
Thus, Apple’e claim is legitimate and it will alert all other “smart phone copiers” to be engaged on the innovation so that we will have more options to choose from. No one denies that the current smart phone (and also tablet) market is all the same, all are Apple like products.
It is now becoming obvious that Apple innovates, others copy, which means there is little or no innovation by other companies. This is what kills cutomers choice being all similar. The difference is that some people buy the original (Apple) product and others buy the less expenssive copy products.
Thus, Apple’e claim is legitimate and it will alert all other “smart phone copiers” to be engaged on the innovation so that we will have more options to choose from. No one denies that the current smart phone (and also tablet) market is all the same, all are Apple like products.
It is now becoming obvious that Apple innovates, others copy, which means there is little or no innovation by other companies. This is what kills cutomers choice being all similar. The difference is that some people buy the original (Apple) product and others buy the less expenssive copy products.
Thus, Apple’e claim is legitimate and it will alert all other “smart phone copiers” to be engaged on the innovation so that we will have more options to choose from. No one denies that the current smart phone (and also tablet) market is all the same, all are Apple like products.
This is idiotic. TVs all look alike, PCs all look alike, refrigerators, etc etc. Phones and tablets are no different. This is nothing more than Apple trying to eliminate competition in the courts, rather than making in the marketplace.
Samsung did not steal iOS, which would be intellectual property.
All TVs do not look alike, all PCs do not look alike and so on…There is some kind of a touch on most products which makes up the companies brand (identity) . We are in a time where we see even many icons and naming are being copied by others like the phone (caling) icon, iPod icon on the iPhone etc and names like Samsung Galaxy S (which, I think, is a derivate from the iPhone 3GS). We all know it from inside that most companies want their products to look like an apple product and many things are trimmed like with a copy machine so that they can enter the market with a brand and identity of the product already built by apple. We can denie others, but it is hard to denie ourselves…we all know it….
People like to say it all look s the sam ie tv’s and fridges, but what about cars? they all have wheels, they all work the same, but it is the shape and design that make people buy the car, i wonder what would happen if ford made a NEW focus look just like a Bugati but slaped a ford logo on the bonnet? would we all turn and say oh thats ok, the shape has been done before therfore its ok to rip and copy it regardless, NO ford would get the stuffing ripped out of them, and letts face it, in all honesty, befor 2007 all bloody phones looked the same and the sony erricson k800i was the champ. and then this ugly big brick with no buttons and a touch screen walts in and we all said it was going to be a fad and bite the dust, and 1.5 yrs on they all are cut/copy/pasting the damb thing and that fad seems to be the new k8001, but like hp head said:” the pad fad is here to stay” and what did everyone say when the ipad poped out? no one will buy this, it will be deas in 1 yr, but how they are all cut/copy/pasting now! it is sad and laughable. GO AND CREATE YOUR OWN STUFF
The image comparing devices from Samsung before and after is manipulative and biased. The same can be said about almost every cell phone manufacturer. You could even put Apple Tablets before the iPad and see how the Newton is identical to the Samsung previous tablets.
As for cell phones, since there are no Apple phones before iPhone, all you have to do is put Motorola’s, Nokia’s, Sony Ericsson’s phones before iPhone and after, you will see the same similarities. You could do the same with cars, TVs and almost every appliance ever made, they follow TRENDS.
Was Apple a touch screen trend-setter? of course! but that’s not the point.