Samsung Opens New Apple Store In Australia 154
An anonymous reader writes "Samsung opened its first retail 'Experience' store in Sydney, Australia today and its design and ethos, even in the most generous light, bear an uncanny resemblance to those of the Apple Store. Now, to be fair, Samsung’s corporate color is blue and there are only so many ways you can design a retail experience. That said, it seems difficult to look at Samsung’s store and not immediately be reminded of Apple’s understated chain of brick-and-mortar retail stores which, at the time it debuted, was considered pioneering. And it’s awfully hard to imagine that the similarities between the two won’t further bolster Apple’s allegations that Samsung is a 'copyist.'" This comes on the heels of both companies claiming the other is "anticompetitive" during Tuesday’s summations in the Apple-Samsung trial.
Not an uncommon layout anymore (Score:5, Insightful)
If you run up and down george st (where it is located), you'll be amazing at how many of the tech stores look very similar in layout (esp all the mobile phone stores).
hell even some of the food stores (mainly cupcake!) are using similar layouts now as well.
Troll bait :-) (Score:5, Insightful)
Out of spite (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple ripped off telephone stores (Score:3, Insightful)
It just dawned on my how much Apple's store looks like every single mobile phone store in Australia, with the exception of the "3" stores and their former neon coloured changing lighting which made your eyes bleed, but even they are now Vodafone stores so there goes that resemblance.
The only thing that makes this look at all like an Apple store is that an article about it brings out trolls and fanbois who post on slashdot.
Re:Apple store? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, hadn't you heard? Apple has a design patent on Scandinavian minimalist furniture. Sweden and Denmark are currently scrambling as Apple's lawyers gear up to take on Scandinavia for design infringement.
Also, Apple has just filed a patent for the use of "tables". No store shall be allowed to use "tables" to display product without paying the Apple tax.
copy (Score:1, Insightful)
Of course it's a copy, that much is obvious. And there are other ways of designing a retail outlet.
That said, most of them are copies. Everyone looks at everyone else and checks on what works and what doesn't. Most supermarkets look so much the same that if I blindfolded you and dropped you inside of one, you'd have trouble telling which one it is. Same for most clothing stores, hardware shops, etc. etc.
Because while there are many ways to do it, there is always a rather small number (often just one) that the majority converge to. Mostly because it simply works (or everyone believes it does) and store layout is not the point at which they're willing to take a risk. Everyone once in a while, someone does and everyone else watches closely, and if it works, you'll find it copied elsewhere quickly.
So, tl;dr: Yes, it's a copy. No big deal, happens all the time in retail stores.
Re:And the real article with more information is.. (Score:5, Insightful)
So... who cares?
It is a very common design (Score:5, Insightful)
Some far older stores look like this. Hell, a make-up department in Bijenkorf Amsterdam (big rounded white curves, lots of light, big displays) (dutch department store) looked like this long before Apple became cool again.
There really are only so many designs and layouts you can think off. Even only a few colors. You could for instance color your store yellow but everyone would go insane. Yellow is NOT a good color for interiors. And entire range of the spectrum OUT of the question.
Please stop it NOW! (Score:5, Insightful)
This thing is going far beyond any reasonableness.
Samsung is not adding an apple logo on their product. This is a fact.
"SAMSUNG" is clearly different from "APPLE". This is a fact.
There are not many choices to "design" a touch tablet/smartphone:
- they have to have a rectangular shape (triangular? Pentagonal? Irregular?);
- sharp corners are not viable, so they have to be more or less rounded;
- thickness cannot be increased just to look different;
- icons are a de facto standard in GUIs.
Also these are facts.
99.9% of users can read and can tell an Apple product apart of a Samsung one. This is a fact.
So, finally, what's Apple protecting? The shape? The corners? The proportions? The icon shape and colors? The concept design of a store?
Or are they concerned about their customers not being intelligent enough to distinguish two different brands?
Ah! All this is frivolous and needs a good quantity of crack to go on!
If I was Apple, I would rather sue the pletora of Chinese companies manufacturing and selling touch smartphones which are clearly designed and packaged to mimic Apple products.
Sony Style stores were decades before Apple. (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple directly took the idea of opening it's own one-brand direct retail store from Sony.
Now get off lawn etc etc