Samsung Ordered To Hand Over Unreleased Designs To Apple 260
An anonymous reader writes with an article in Edible Apple "Samsung last Wednesday was ordered to hand over to Apple five as-of-yet unreleased products so that Apple can compare them to their own offerings ahead of litigation. Apple of course claims that Samsung's products blatantly copy the look and feel of Apple's iOS devices."
Except That Is Completely Incorrect (Score:5, Informative)
Samsung Ordered to Hand Over Unreleased Designs to Apple
Uh huh ... well, when I go to the original source cited in the article [courthousenews.com] I find this piece of text:
She [Judge Koh] also limited the results of discovery to "Outside Counsel Eyes Only," meaning neither Apple nor its in-house counsel will get a peek at the phones or related marketing materials.
(Emphasis mine.) I must confess that one does have to read the entire article of Courthouse News to get to that somewhat important and relevant tidbit but that is asking a bit much for an editor. Or perhaps that was known but "Court Counsel to Judge Samsung Prototypes" just doesn't boil up the anti-Apple blood like the current headline does?
Re:Except That Is Completely Incorrect (Score:4, Informative)
Addendum:
The three phones can be purchased today (the Galaxy S2 may not ship for about two weeks). The Galaxy Tab 10.1 will be officially available June 6. The Galaxy Tab 8.9 will be in stores "very early summer".
Samsung has 30 days to provide these gadgets.
According to TFA the judge herself "highlighted that Samsung has 'already released images and samples of its forthcoming products to the media and members of the public.'"
Industrial espionage this ain't.
Re:I have lots of Samsung Phones (Score:4, Informative)
Well presumably they are only going to copy the good ideas, not the stupid ones.
Not so. Apple's claim shows that Samsung have copied Apple's dock connector design too.
Re:no surprise (Score:4, Informative)
Like I said, it's not something that is easily glanced from screenshots. I was similarly skeptical of any such claims in past discussions on Slashdot. But seeing the thing live, I changed my mind. Most of all, the tab switching UI in the browser convinced me that it's deliberate copying - it's not just similar, it's practically identical. Icon tweaks can be explained as coincidence, but this - no way.
Also keep in mind that Samsung was not designing this from grounds-up - they had stock Android to begin with. That also has 4 icons across, and it has fixed buttons at the bottom. And yet stock Android UI looks nothing like iPhone (e.g. the fixed buttons on the bottom visually distinct from app icons), while TouchWiz does. It goes down even to minor touches - e.g. stock Android has five screens, and, like on iPhone, you can flick left/right to switch. But the default screen there is the "middle" one (i.e. you have two on the left, and two on the right). In TouchWiz, the default screen is the leftmost one, so any icons you add always fill up screens to the right. Furthermore, if you flick to the left from the leftmost screen, you get to the "search screen", just like on iPhone - and visually very similar as well.