Google had warned Samsung from copying Apple's designs

[Archean]

Google had warned Samsung from copying Apple's designs

Google themselves warned Samsung back in 2010, who noticed that Samsung's tablets ‘P1’ (Galaxy Tab) and ‘P3’ (Galaxy Tab 10.1) were “too similar” to the iPad and demanded “distinguishable design vis-à-vis the iPad for the P3.” Google even asked Samsung to make the tablets noticeably different, starting from the front side.

Another interesting things is that Samsung's own Product Design Group also noted in 2011 that it is “regrettable” that the Galaxy S “looks similar” to the older iPhone models.

Also interesting is the fact that famous designers as part of a Samsung sponsored evaluation said that the Galaxy S “looked like it copied the iPhone too much” and that “innovation is needed.” They felt that the design resembles the iPhone's design too closely so that the buyer would confuse between the two and that all you have to do is cover up the logo and there won't be any difference between them.

Funny, people in glass houses etc. An OS with copycat UI on copycat designs . To put things into perspective:

One last and rather damning piece of evidence against Samsung is a document that says that in seven out of the thirty Best Buy stores that Samsung surveyed, the main reason for returning Samsung's tablets was that people bought them thinking they were iPads, thus proving Apple's original point for suing Samsung.

 

[SNGX1275]

Jeez. This doesn't really surprise me, I've seen the (probably cherrypicked) images of 'tablets before the iPad, tablets after the iPad' but there is absolutely no doubt the design was copied. The same thing happened with the iPhone.

Look at the news stories on this site and then the comments saying that people know the difference and aren't confusing the iPad and Samsung's offering.

Everything in this story is exactly what everyone already knew, maybe now that Google has said it people will be less bold in their comments against Apple in these Samsung lawsuit stories.

People will say, and have, that there is only so many ways to make a tablet or a phone, but I say look at the examples before Apple's products and those after, there is a distinct change. And the OS, ffs you can do almost identical things in Mac OS and Win XP/Vista/7/8 and they don't look the same at all.

 

[Archean]

So true, even more intriguing for me is the fact that, Google keep getting away from various patent theft cases, in effect leaving OEMs like Samsung to face the brunt of the likes of Apple/MS and others. So they either have to pay them fee or get their products banned. Over the weekend Motorola lost out to MS in German courts as well.

So this situation can't go on forever, in effect it can slowly start to make android lot less desirable platform for OEMs in the longer run (not to mention the OS forking which is just about taking off). What if, MS say is charging 10-15$ for patent licensing, and start selling WP8 for 5-10$ price range. IMHO, apart from iOS, WP is the only easy to use / genuinely efficient / stable mobile OS out there.

 

[Jay Pfoutz]

And yet...Samsung claims Apple copied off of them, especially with the round corners design that they (Samsung) were "doing for years".