Quite a few posts and stories are going around alleging “infringement” if not outright “theft” by Apple Computer of LG Electronics’ rights and secrets. At issue is the recently released iPhone vs. the other recently released LG KE850 (aka the LG Prada Phone, due to a branding agreement between LG and the fashion house).
This is the following side-by-side comparison of the phones usually used:
Oddly there is/was another series of unofficial/rumor photos of the “Prada Phone” well before the iPhone was released:
No doubt they look similar, but so do a lot of mobile phone or for that matter so do a lot of touch screen palmtop computing devices. To be frank when I saw the iPhone I thought quietly “It’s True! The Newton Lives! John Sculley must be sitting back smiling thinking ‘Who’s your daddy Jobs!” However I digress.
It is funny to me because we have a similar situation to my post yesterday on the Starbucks/Starpreya controversy. Quite a few people are willing to try and convict a company based on some very generic features. In this case:
- Black Plastic Case
- Touch screen interface as primary input method
- Similar form factor and screen size
- A phone keypad layout shared by 99% of the phones on the planet
- A “softbutton” menu bar at the bottom of screen
Note none of these delve into the actual FEATURES of the phone. Nor does it get into what individual patents may, or may not, have been infringed. We have no idea of things such as the similarly of input devices, touch screen technology, and dynamic changing screen orientation (however LG does seem to have a button supporting this). A final thought, some things may be the same because they are. LG and Apple may be licensing or exchanging patents behind the scenes (for example, neither the GSM technology in the phones).
So what we actually tell or argue from the photos given as evidence? Well one could argue a copyright on the icons, and in that case I do not see the similarity, except for long standing public domain ones such as the phone outline or an envelope for mail. In short, not much infringement here I can see so far.
Lets see what happens if we get a side-by-side. Right now its all hubris on the part of some.
Update: True to what I referred to Apple seems intent to defend its copyright on the look and feel of the UI (on second though perhaps the use of “feel” may be obsolete in this context)
{ 38 comments… read them below or add one }
I don’t really see the similarity.
But anyhow, really we’re talking about two very different creatures here — trademark and patent law. In this case (unlike trademark law from a North American perspective), similarities in the design of the phone actually mean very little. Whereas in the American trademark law context, the fact that the Starbucks mark contained ‘generic features’ (and really, I’m fairly sure the only truly ‘generic’ feature a court in the US would find in the Starbucks mark would be the word ‘Coffee’) would be fairly well disregarded in consideration of the mark as a whole, such would probably not be the case in American patent law. It’s almost common sense for people to believe that the Starpreya trademark infringes upon the Starbucks trademark based solely on their similar appearances (although the Korean law doesn’t see it that way, and that’s where I think a lot of confusion/indignation came in). Likewise, it could also be considered common sense for people to assume that, based on the similarities between the two phones, some amount of inappropriate copying went on there, as well. But in the case of the phones (as is the case with Korean trademark law, apparently), one actually has to look at the thing component by component in order to find out if any substantive right has been infringed… and that’s really the difference here.
Of course nobody would be calling foul play if Samsung came up with a similary designed phone. LG needs to stop wasting their time in court and come up with some decent product with SUBSTANCE. It’s been over 5 years since the introduction of iPod and no Korean (or Japanese) Mp3 players with usuability as good as the iPod. Apple has impeccable track record for their gadgets where as LG probaly needs some work.
As far as Starbucks is concerned, we had a similar suit was filed in Oregon not too long ago. The owner called it “SamBucks” after her name. Of course she lost but Starbucks was nice enough to buy all the inventory from her and didn’t ask for any damages in return. BTW, I hate Starbucks coffee.
Did anyone check how many bottles of
varnish thinnersoju this yobosayo had before opening the fish-mouth.God, here we go again. It speaks volumes that certain Korean cell phone manufacturers are unleashing a media blitz against the iPhone all the while claiming that they’re so ‘unimpressed’. Fact is, they were caught way behind and know they’ll have to try to again cajole the consumer into believing their phones are somehow still ‘cutting edge’, as if they ever were. Nokia have always blown them away, and now, so does Apple.
LG and Samsung should perhaps get over their precious selves and realize that we’re not all in awe of their supposed ‘high-tech’ gizmos and purported ‘tech-savvy’ (whatever that means) local user-base.
The LG accusation is akin to suggesting the latest Ferrari is a copy of a Hyundai (Pony?) because it too has four wheels and an engine. The LG phone is simply so far behind the iPhone for Apple to have wanted to ‘copy’ it that it’s laughable. It’s not just the outside that they need to compare, but what’s running under the hood. Who cares about 3G when this can be unlocked in the iPhone once the carriers get up to speed. The LG phone has no patented Multi-touch UI, no proximity sensor, no accelerometer, a ‘last century’ dialpad, no visual voicemail, no comparable rich HTML browsing, no finger scroll or pinch zoom, no Coverflow, no iPod/iTunes compatability, and certainly no Mac OSX running under the hood. In short, nowhere near enough high tech innovation to have produced such a breakthrough user interface.
If LG are going to go this route and seriously accuse Apple of copying their stuff then let’s call a spade a spade and show that LG are simply copying every foreign cellphone innovation ever conceived. After all, their gadgets use western/Japanese inventions like flash memory, 3G, the Internet, text messaging, relay stations, copper wire, computer chips, plastics, computers, DMB (DVB-H)tv signals and transmission codecs, and of course, cellphones. Innovators they aint, great marketers of standard useless crap like cutesy ringtones they are.
Perhaps these guys should stop their whining and try to catch up before they are again left in the dust by another market upstart.
Talking of varnished soju, somebody drank too much furniture polish. “Impeccable track record”, my that’s a good one. This iPhone will probably do well, just because it’s Apple. But so many people got burned by shoddy workmanship of iPods, a lot of people will simply not buy this phone.
It might interest some to know, if you don’t already, but there have been a number of reports that indicate that the iPhone is powered by Samsung. I don’t have the link anymore but one of the Korean English language news sites also reported this shortly after the intro at the Vegas show.
ahh…. dap dap han ingandeul…
I had to drink some varnish thinner to realize that it’s a great marketing strategy to sue apple for iphone.
Before today I never heard of “prada phone.” After today, I know that there is a competing phone to the iphone.
Oh wait. LG is a Korean company. This is an obvious case of national chauvinism at work.
Hahahaha! A Korean company accusing an American company of technology patent infringement? Now I have heard it all! That’s like the Charles Manson accusing the Pope of being a satanist..hahaha.
Fly: “Mac OSX under the hood” –?
Assuming the iPhone does use Mac OSX (probably a very stripped version like the iPod)… then please remember that Mac OSX is not 100% Apple. It is based on BSD (and therefore Unix)… and is very similar to Linux. Most phones use some relative of Linux as their OS.
With all those features and that price… Apple is trying to sell a what is likely to be a closed-source and upgrade-for-fee disabled handheld PC that happens to include a phone. Interesting approach, since Microsoft’s Origami project (AKA the Samsung Q1) has been largely viewed as a failure…
The true winner of this story is Samsung…
The Japanese aren’t impressed.
Japan far ahead of iPhone
TOKYO–Tomoaki Kurita presides over racks of cellphones lined up outside his shop on a busy sidewalk in Harajuku, Tokyo’s catwalk of youth street culture where people attracted by the riot of phone options can stop to flip open and fondle the latest models of what the Japanese call a “keitai.”
From behind his busy counter, Kurita giggles when asked about the excitement in the United States over the arrival of Apple’s iPhone cellphone that also could be used to download music and surf the Internet.
“Sounds like business as usual,” he says.
As stock markets swooned and techies buzzed over Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs’ long-awaited entry into the cellphone market, Japanese consumers could be excused for wondering: Why the fuss?
Many Japanese had a hard time buying Jobs’ hype about “reinventing” the phone. The revolution is well underway in Japan, where cellphones are used for everything from navigating your way home by GPS to buying movie tickets and updating your blog from wherever you are.
Oh yeah. Japanese cellphones also download music, surf the Net and make phone calls.
They’ve been a natural extension of daily life the past few years, spurred by the Japanese decision to be the first country to upgrade to third-generation cellphone networks, or 3G, which increased broadband capabilities and allowed for greater, faster transmission of voice and data. Apple’s iPhone, by comparison, will operate on a 2G network.
It was 3G that sparked the boom in music downloads that makes it common for phones to be used as portable digital music players here.
And it is 3G that has led the Japanese into a world where they can watch live TV on their phones, use the phone as a charge card to ride trains or buy milk at the corner store or take a taxi, and conduct conference calls between as many as five people. Ticket Pia, Japan’s major entertainment ticketing agency, has been selling email tickets to cellphones since 2003.
Most observers contend the U.S. has begun to close the gap on cellphone use in Japan, South Korea and Europe. Music downloads by cellphone are rising in the U.S. – and the long-term threat to iPod’s lead in downloads was a major force behind Apple’s entry into cellphones. Other functions are following.
“We plan to introduce one-way video conferencing in the U.S. this year,” says Melissa Elkins of LG Electronics MobileCOMM, referring to a function that would allow one person to be visible to the other during a phone call. Two-way telephony has been available in South Korea for about 18 months, Elkins says.
But the biggest difference between the U.S. and countries like Japan is the culture the keitai has created. To wait for a light on a Tokyo street corner or ride a train these days is to see crowds of people with their heads down, thumbs pumping as they send photos, text message or play online games on their phone. Increasingly, they are reading books and manga comics on their phones, too.
The keitai has become an extension of personality.
There is software to create a personalized home page on the cellphone. Young men and women customize their phones, hang posses of tiny dolls off them, cover them with stickers and paints.
“I like it because it’s cute,” says Mami Nawa, 23, as she shows off the dial pad she has painted in purple and pink tones. “And with my long nails, the paint gives me a better feel for the phone. It curves more.”
Nawa spent about $170 (U.S.) on her phone and another $25 to decorate it, although she says some friends spend much more – on the decoration, not the phone. But neither she nor friend Makiko Yamada, who are sampling the phones in Harajuku, would pay anything close to $500 for a cellphone, they say.
Like other Japanese consumers, Nawa and Yamada pick and choose the functions they want. They don’t use their phones as charge cards – known here as the “wallet function.”
But they check train schedules and have made hotel reservations with their phones. They keep music on their phones and subscribe to daily emails that deliver news headlines and fortune telling. They shop from their phones from online sites and bid for goods in online auctions.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
A lot of Koreans are missing the point regarding the iPhone.
The matter of who copied who is not important nor is the matter of whether or not the iPhone is a glorified PDA phone.
What is important is that Apple has given cell phone users an alternative to phones that are clunky and complicated. Because of that a lot of people will go for it and when that happens mobile phone service providers will be begging Apple to include the iPhone in their network, which I’m sure Apple will happily oblige, which will in turn increase the marketshare of the iPhone.
Sure Korean phones have a lot of bells and whistles, but seriously how many users actually use all those features or even know they exist. On top of that I have yet to see a Korean phone which looks like it was designed by a designer who knows the meaning of cool and sleek.
Also thanks to Mac OS X, Apple can simply add new features to the iPhone while LG and Samsung will have to create a new phone and a new OS everytime it wants to add a new feature.
In conclusion, LG and Samsung are in the same position as iRiver and co. were when Apple first introduced the iPod. Five to six years from now, I won’t be surprised if the only products that those two companies can sell viably in the global market are Flat panel digital TVs and in the case of LG, airconditioners.
…and thank God for that. Now that Apple has eliminated buttons on their phones, I can stop fretting over how to operate my horribly complicated phone, which has upwards of 15 (!!!) buttons on it.
bipolar mindscrew, it’s no secret that OSX is UNIX-based and Apple regularly promotes this as a selling point. Kind of fitting that UNIX was born out of Bell Labs (Ken Thompson) and that Apple is now dealing with AT&T and Cingular.
cm, You sure have the wood on for Apple and I’m pretty sure you’ve swallowed the myth that Mac users are by default not ‘tech-savvy’. What you’re missing is that truly ‘tech-savvy’ people simply want a stable platform that lets them get their work done. The high-tech wizards at Cambridge University, Harvard Medical School, Lucas films (Star Wars) or thousands of high profile scientists, pro musicians, sound engineers, bioinformatics specialists, film-makers, and photographers aren’t using Mac systems just because they look ‘cute’, trust me.
Regarding music players the ipod rules the market in the USA and UK, arguably the most high-tech nations on earth and personally it doesn’t matter to me that some Japanese consumers prefer ‘cuddly’. But if you insist that Apple is somehow unpopular in gadget-conscious Japan you’d be way off the mark…
(BUSINESSWEEK Online, 2006) “iPod Takes Japan by Storm”
The Godzilla of digital-music players far outsells rivals from local consumer-electronics giants like Sony. After all, it’s so kawaii (cute).
Spend any time hanging around Tokyo’s bustling Shibuya retail and fashion conclave, and you will doubtless see electronic shops galore hawking MP3 players such as Sony’s (SNE) Walkman, Toshiba’s Gigabeat, and the Panasonic D-Snap brand. Yet a determined young couple on hand recently — Megumi Mizuno, 22, and Takaaki Tokuyoshi, 17 — bypassed them all, making a straight shot to the Apple (AAPL) outlet. Why? They’ve been infected by the near-global iPod obsession.
“The iPod design is cool,” says Mizuno, a college student majoring in psychology, who wants a replacement for her aging mini-disk player. Tokuyoshi, meanwhile, is looking for a step up from his DoCoMo (DCM) mobile phone, which he currently uses to listen to music. “iPod’s sound quality is better, and the cell-phone battery doesn’t last long enough to enjoy listening to music,” he says. “The prices are reasonable, too.
It seems iPod mania is alive and well in Japan — one of the most competitive consumer-electronics markets on the planet. Despite an array of well-entrenched Japanese rivals, such as Sony and Matsushita (MC), the iPod had cornered 51.3% of the digital-music player market as of the end of 2005, up from about 32% in 2004, according to research firm BCN. Sony was a distant second with 16.2%, while Panasonic grabbed just 8.2% of the market…
Japanese consumers, much like their U.S. counterparts, are jazzed by iPod’s sleek and hip design, easy-to-use functions, and first-class software — something local rivals have yet to match. “Apple has focused on developing a seamless, end-to-end experience for the consumer when it comes to portable music,” says Jon Erensen, a senior research analyst at Gartner Dataquest. “Other companies, including the Japanese consumer-electronics giants, have been focused on one or two pieces of the equation.” Sony, for example, has received plaudits for design and sound quality, but criticism for its Connect software…”
So there you have it. 17 million iPod buyers, including many of the biggest names in the music industry, might contest your view that it’s a shoddy product. Perhaps you should just accept the fact that other companies are going to have to play catch up and copy with Apple for a long time, and move on.
Almost all the products you mentioned continue to use things like WAP and have really low end UIs. Jobs has set a new benchmark for phones and is aiming for a modest 1% high-end market share with iPhone. With the kickass product he previewed last week, I’m sure that won’t be a problem. Korea, re-start your photocopiers.
Hacker> Already mentioned that Samsung was the ASIC provider for the iPhone silli. I also read they were the OEM, but am unable to verify it.
Bipolar>A couple points. OS X does have a unix/linux/bsd background, and I agree it’s more of a complement of those systems rather than Apple. That said, something should be said for Apple/O SX’s ability to move beyond the OS. To determine you need a solid foundation, given by unix/linix/bsd, and build from it.
The iPod is not an OS X device, but a different OS. As I recall its provided by Pica, ironically a spinoff of Apple’s Newton Project( note not a derivative of the NewtonOS).
Finally I think the problem, and frankly why I will personally hold off on the iPhone, is the real gatekeepers are the service providers. Right now they are set up for only fee-based systems run other their networks. Not open-source projects that would plug into any connection (GSM network, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc.) I think we are seeing a lot of this via the Cingular speech at the keynote and as well as some of the details leaking out about the implementation about the iPhone (must have Cingular sevice, no third party apps, etc.)
Nope. Mac OS X – and please note that Jobs said the iPhone was running OS X, sans Mac – is based on Darwin, which is a product by Apple. It sits on top of XNU, based on the Mach 3 microkernel, some bits from FreeBSD 5 and their own I/O Kit. Darwin is actually the successor of NextStep/OpenStep, and the result of years of development at Next and then Apple. While it did and still does profit from open-source, Darwin is a mostly one-way open-source project: Apple releases a new version of Darwin for each major Mac OS X release, but these are read-only.
As for mobile phones using Linux for their OS, 0_0
I would be very surprised if this were the outcome. These chaebol are not so fragile. Yes, iPhone will cream off the most profitable segment of the Korean makers’ phone businesses. But Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics are more than just phone makers — Samsung has a thriving semiconductor and component business, while LGE just about owns the “white goods” (home appliances such as microwave ovens, air conditioners, refrigerators, and washers and dryers) market under its own brand and as an OEM supplier. Remember Sears’ Kenmore brand? LGE. In the States, LGE also supplies OEM to Whirlpool and GE. LGE’s white goods contribute two-thirds of the company’s profit from one-third of its sales. And right now, LGE is in the downmarket and mid-grade market only — once it comes up with (or acquires) luxury models, LGE will be the clear market leader. What they ought to do is dump the other electronics, the stuff on which they can’t make any money.
LGE makes excellent white goods. My own satisfaction comes from my now 17 year-old Goldstar (the “G” in LG) microwave oven, which I bought in the Osan AB PX for $99 in 1990 when I arrived in-country. That oven has never given me a lick of trouble and on an amortized basis I think it has cost me less than $5 for each year of service. Not at all bad for “cheap Korean crap”. We also have an LG washing machine going on 10 years now.
However, on the LGE claim that Apple stole their design, color me skeptical.
Reminds me of the biggest riddles I had growing up. Why did we have a “Frigidaire” brand stove and a “Hotpoint” refrigerator?
Mr. Carr, sorry for creating a html mess all the time. Thanks for the kind notice.
Thank you for reminding me of LGE’s white goods.
I only took into consideration the products that Samsung and LGE sells under its own brands and are the most visible, which are mobile devices, digital TVs, DVD players, and airconditioners, when I said that Samsung and LGE won’t have anything much to sell globally.
Yes that’s what they should do. But Korean companies are not known for throwing away non-profitable businesses. If a certain product gives a certain Korean company visibility and is a flagship product, that company will hold on to it even if the product is losing money.
min0306, I heard choco pie by Orion was such as product. Kind of like the jajang myun of a Korean Chinese restaurant.
With more years going by, the choco pie stays cheap and available, but tastes cheaper, too.
Apple unveiled the iPhone 5 months prior to releasing it because they had to file papers that would have revealed it to the outside world.
My questions: How much catch-up can other companies do in five months? Is Steve Jobs’ prediction of 1% share of the market extremely conservative?
CNN has a video up now about the iPhone claiming “Many in Asia are ignoring the iPhone because their cell phones do more.”
Well duh! Hey everyone, Apple isn’t marketing this phone to those people! They have found that some people don’t like all that crap. There is such a thing as a “target market.” Could it be that not everyone wants a cell phone to do everything? Could it be that some people want a very specific combination of functions that doesn’t extend into blowing bubbles and sending cute colormessagees? Could it be that different cultures have varying senses of what they expect their technology to do and how it should appear? Could it be that some prefer simple functionality over the all-in-one? No, of course not. It’s all about Asia where people say they don’t want what hasn’t been marketed to them.
It’s really hard to justify Apple hater’s position. As of January, 2007, they’ve sold over 88 mil. units of iPod since the introduction. Probably sold couple thousand while I type this. Sure with volume like that there are bound to be few defects but it doesn’t diminish the fact that companies like LG and Samsung are only able to produce wannabe iPod-killers even with plenty of catchup time. One area I think Korean companies will have hard time entering is where it requires a lot of software expertise. Of course unless they partner with other US companies.
They’re trying.
what about the model name Prada… wonder if the designer label will take them to court over that?
LG, “World’s First Company to Release an (attempted) iPhone Clone”.
LGE made no such claim. All the controversy was from a US web site http://www.engadget.com, and reported by Korea Times. According to Korea Times, LGE hasn’t decided whether there was any patent infringement. One LG official did say LG was flattered that some companies are copying the looks of its Prada phone. As pointed out by everyone else, copying looks is not the same thing as copying what’s inside. Korea Times also reported back in the summer the fact that Samsung copied Motorola’s RAZR phone, and there wasn’t an ounce of controversy at Marmots.
That would be rather odd, considering they reportedly partnered with LG in creating the design for the phone. I’m fairly sure LG is aware enough about trademark law not to engage in blatantly copying another famous company’s brand name for their products.
LG’s knockoff is garnering a collective yawn from the web while iPhone is already the number one searchword on Google and even the number one seller (as a pre-order) in parts of Europe.
LGYawn
It’s nice of the LG official to say he’s flattered other companies are “following their (LG’s) design policy” because as everyone knows, LG are so well known for cutting edge design while Apple isn’t. Groan. Someone should inform LG Spokesman Lee that (even bad) imitation is the highest form of flattery before he ends up with his other foot in his mouth. Lucky Goldstar, what a joke.
BTW Brendon, somewhat OTT, but since you’ve disaparaged people here as “hippies” and have a rather dim opinion of pot smoking, I’m curious as to how you’ve come to be such a fan of Apple, a company whose roots in the Bay Area sixties counterculture are visible even today, and whose whole identity is premised on marketing an alternative, nonconformist “lifestyle.”
It’s a damn product; buy it or don’t buy it but don’t get all freakin social sciency on the psychosis of why people like or don’t like what they buy. What does the quality of Apple have to do with the 60s counterculture and how does that affect the products they make?
Hey! I’m a nonconformist too. Do I have to live in a camper van to be a nonconformist?
There are a number of reasons I’m a fan of Apple, some of which I won’t get into here. But one of my earliest jobs was hanging around and helping flog Apples at Century Next Computers in Columbia, Mo. ($2.00 an hour!) and I have liked computers for a very long time. The original Macintosh was exciting for its time, NeXT Computer was exciting, and NextStep 5.0 (Mac OS X) is exciting. Shouldn’t computers be fun again? There’s so much advanced engineering going on under the hood of a Macintosh these days that’s so demonstrably superior and elegant, it’s hard not to be a fan. So far, there hasn’t been any pot in any of the computers I’ve bought from Apple — nary a seed or stray fleck of tar.
Plus, they have outstanding taste and discerning judgment in the lawyers they hire.
I just love the Mac people over hype and tripple hype something that is nothing technologically speaking. Mac does something well, which is marketing and creating a hype out of nothing. It’ll probably do well in America considering all the bandwagon hype. But in Europe and Asia where the network infrastructures are much more developed, this phone will fall flat on itself, since it’s only a 2.5 G phone, not nearly good enough for what people are used to in Europe and Asia.
This author agrees with me that’s it’s all hype.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070119.gtweb19/BNStory/Technology/home
Macs and iPods are gateway devices that lead to Phish/Trey concerts, hackey-sack and eventually LSD.
cm: “Mac does something well, which is marketing and creating a hype out of nothing. It’ll probably do well in America considering all the bandwagon hype. But in Europe and Asia where the network infrastructures are much more developed, this phone will fall flat on itself, since it’s only a 2.5 G phone, not nearly good enough for what people are used to in Europe and Asia.”
“Fall flat on itself in Europe”? Well I think the good folks at Amazon Germany would disagree with you seeing as iPhone is already the #1 selling device there and it’s still only at the pre-order stage with release not until August. Insane. I’m sure even you will agree, cm, those Germans know high-tech when they see it.
But just so you know, it’s not Korea pioneering the most cutting edge data transfer processes anyway. Qualcomm along with Canada’s Nortel last year made the world’s fastest data transfer call and developed the latest HSDPA tech for LG and other customers. Elisa of Finland put it to market first. Nice of them, huh?
Nobody would argue that Apple are great at marketing, even hyping, their product but when you’re leading the high-tech industry why not advertise it?
3G is old hat these days and covers 90% of the UK and other European countries where high population densities can help support it. It’s quite possible that Apple will bypass standard 3G at home and adopt HSDPA (up to 4 times faster)… if the North American networks decide to offer it. This will largely depend on whether their customers actually want this and many could care less. So I guess it depends on what you like to do with your device. For many North American users, watching TV on a phone with a clunky T-fold screen simply doesn’t interest them. Who wants live corporate TV anymore? Yawn. But having their own movies, music and rich HTML web-browsing does interest many. This is why iTunes dominates the market in North America, large parts of Europe and Japan. At heart many iPod fans will still see the music and killer UI as the most important offering of the iPhone.
You imply that under the design, iPhone is lacking in substance. In fact, no Korean company is anywhere NEAR able to combine high-technology or develop in-house software like Apple or Nokia (iPhone will reportedly run on Leopard). Show me an LG phone that can surf the web as well as iPhone’s rich HTML enabled device. There aren’t any. Show me a Korean company which has developed and incorporated a UI anywhere near as sophisticated as Multi-touch. None. Show me a Korean company that combines an iPod with a phone with a rich HTML browser. Again, none. In any event even iPhone 1.0 is wi-fi enabled, and this is faster than 3G in many cases. Apple isn’t listed as the World’s Most Innovative Company (Google it) for nothing.
Perhaps the Korean handset manufacturers haven’t quite grasped the concept that a highly intuitive UI is much more important than extraneous shite like bubbles and cutesy ringtones. But it proves Andrea del Sarto was dead on when he wrote [sometimes ]“less is more”.
Just to put it all in perspective let’s step back and appreciate that we’d all still be communicating by semaphore if it weren’t for Alexander Graham Bell, Antonio Meucci and Martin Cooper. Jobs is just taking their revolutions to the next level. Get left behind again if you wish.
I don’t want to get into a huge Apple flamewar, but being “social sciency” about why people buy things is called marketing. It has never been just about product quality and reliability with Apple (and certainly not if you bought an early Newton, an exploding Powerbook, or a scratch prone Ipod Nano). As far as Apple marketing a countercultural lifestyle:
1984 Macintosh ad
Lemmings
Think Different
Mac guy vs. PC guy .
hacker wrote …” It might interest some to know, if you don’t already, but there have been a number of reports that indicate that the iPhone is powered by Samsung. I don’t have the link anymore but one of the Korean English language news sites also reported this shortly after the intro at the Vegas show.”
The latest reports have it that iPhone is actually powered by an Xscale chip originally developed by Intel, then sold to Marvell Technology Group (from California). Seems Intel supplies the NAND flash for iPhone, too.
Apple sources components from a myriad of suppliers, from Intel, Portal Player, Texas Instruments, Toshiba and others. It also develops its own stuff, particularly application and UI software. All companies do this. Doesn’t matter much anyway because the end products are a lot more than the sum of their parts.
As evident in this tardy post I’m taking a wait-and-see approach to the iPhone, but this CBS news report certainly shows the iPhone in an impressive light. Wish the reporter was a bit more inquisitive, especially when the web browser was shown. He could have asked to see an URL typed in when the browser was being shown. Fortunately Apple shows us how Safari is used–without fingers. Gotta wonder about how long the battery will hold a charge.
I haven’t seen LG’s Prada phone either, but this Frog has. Looks similar, but the iPhone operates at a much higher level; for example the KE850 has a scroll bar and it looks like it doesn’t automagically rotate images. The iphone’s zoom feature is far cooler. Reminds me a bit of Minority Report. Battery life of the KE850 is not covered also.
Did Apple rip off LG? Kinda hard to determine from a video of still shots.
You must log in to post a comment.