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by maegget 5066 days ago
Almost every "Directions for improvement" statement could be replaced with "Do it how the iPhone does it" and still basically be saying the same thing.

Some example "Directions for improvement" statements:

* Phone: Need to modify the call end button on the call screen so that it is a separate large button

* Calendar: The date displayed on the Calendar icon should match the current date on the phone

* Calendar: Need to modify by enlarging the area displaying daily schedule and the font size in order to address the low visibility

* PC Program: Need to [make some kind of change], like iTunes

Picturing myself as a Samsung engineer having finished reading that document, I could quite easily think "they just want us to copy the iPhone as closely as possible" even though the wording in the document itself doesn't explicitly say "copy the iPhone".

2 comments

As a Samsung engineer I would think "they want us to stop making crap and learn from the iPhone". These are all cases where the iPhone basically does it the Right Way.

For every issue they explain why the iPhone does it well and the S1 not. To me it doesn't read like they want to copy the iPhone, but rather like they want to make it right (by copying the iPhone). Important distinction. This is consistent with their last direction for improvement: "Remove a feeling that iPhone's menu icons are copied by differentiating design".

The intuitiveness is why Apple makes great products. That takes time and money to do right. Everything looks obvious and simple in hindsight. This really makes me question my stance on software patents.
Thanks to the iPhone, Apple has become the largest publicly traded company in the world and stashed 100 billion dollars in the bank.

They did this without winning a big trial against Samsung, HTC or Google. I don't think Apple needs to win this or another patent trial to have the incentives to build top quality products. On the contrary, letting them secure a monopoly on all these good ideas might diminish the incentive for innovation. They already have ridiculous profit margins[1], which if anything indicates a lack of competition.

[1] over 50% gross margins: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/26/us-apple-margins-i...

Then it must also make you question your stance on recipe patents, fashion patents, and screenplay patents.
After all it would be so nice if Microsoft patented kernel low level algorithms and we would not be able to run these cheap Linux servers in the US.

Or if IBM patented them first in which case MS and Apple would not even exists, long live software patents.

Sorry for the sarcasm.

I would suggest we are not even talking about software patents but design and dress patents. I dont really think you can compare low level kernel algorithms to a visual design and dress patents. So to me thats an unfair comparison. In fact according to to other documents Ive seen, these are all dress patents being argued over.
Usability is technology. In every case in the document, it's, we got it wrong, the iphone got it right, let's fix it. Not, let's copy the look and feel of the iphone, it's purely a usability comparison not a style comparison.
In other words, you dont know what a design patent or a dress patent is. gotcha...
A note of caution, this is a translated document. I have no experience with Korean but in Mandarin and Japanese a LOT of subtleties are lost when translated.

That said, you're probably right and it probably is a pretty accurate representation of how bluntly they wanted to grok the iPhone.