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In UK, Apple Must Run Ad Apologizing to Samsung
sfcrazy writes "Apple has lost is appeal in a UK court against Samsung's Galaxy Tab. The court of appeals has upheld its previous judgment that Samsung did not infringe on any Apple design. According to the order Apple will have to run an ads in leading UK newspapers as well its own website stating that Samsung did not infringes its products. To ensure that the ad is visible the court also ordered that the text of the ad must not be in a font size smaller than Ariel 14. Apple will have to run the ad on its site for a period of one month."
Britannia rules!
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
"The judge actually criticized Samsung's design by stating that they 'do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design.'"
Ever since the first iPods became popular I haven't understood this obsession with simplicity. I do get it that there are more non-geeks than geeks out there and that the non-geeks don't want to have to work to learn how to use anything. Still.. I want my stuff to actually do something, doesn't everyone? How can it be easier to accomplish a task of a certain complexity with fewer and fewer controls? For example, going back to MP3 players, if I want to pick a playlist from my music collection of just the songs I am in the mood for at this time how do I do this with just one rotating control? I'm guessing what is really happening is that people have a low expectation of what their devices should do but also don't have the imagination to realize that expectation is low
What I really don't get is that the rest of the industry just tries to copy it rather than attack it. Yes, Apple has a huge market of simplicity hungry people with money to spend. Guess what... imitate that simplicity, through copying or through your own desings and you still aren't Apple! Nobody is going to out Apple Apple because even if you do the inertia is all Apple's anyway.
Instead, why hasn't anybody tried building the market for non simlistic devices? I can imagine there being some pretty great marketing campaign opportunities in that. For example.. how about a commercial where a hipster looking guy is showing off his shiny new car with it's sexy extreme simplicity elegance to his friends and the girl he obviously wants to impress. It's so simple, there is just one button. He presses the button and the car promply crashes because there is no wheel to steer it! At the end you hear an announcer say "Android - because it's not TOO simple" or some similar but more polished tag line.
Actually it's worth bearing in mind that the Apple product is also substantially from Samsung. Many of the components come from Samsung and Apple could never have achieved their form factor if not for Samsung's technology. However, there is nothing made by Apple in any Samsung product. Now... who's the innovator ?