iPhone copies LG's new Prada phone?
Ugh.... Lg announced they may be suing Apple over the design of the iPhone which looks strkingly similar to LG's touch-screen Prada phone which debuted on Dec, 19 2006.
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/we...omments/12322/
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/we...omments/12322/
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Ugh.... Lg announced they may be suing Apple over the design of the iPhone which looks strkingly similar to LG's touch-screen Prada phone which debuted on Dec, 19 2006.
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/we...omments/12322/
This quote from that page says it all. (FUD FUD FUD)
"LG has yet to reveal specifications of the Prada phone, which the firm looks to market soon. Yet, its exterior was shown to the public when it won the International Forum Design Product Design Award for 2007."
Huh? They haven't revealed the specifications, but Apple copied them? How could they copy something they've never seen? And how did they win an award for best design of 2007 when it's only January 16? Weird world we live in.
And if they are phones, and you show the "phone dialing" interface, how are they not going to both have big buttons with numbers on them? Hey, I know, LG can show theirs displaying a web page next to the iPhone displaying the same web page. Holy shit, the New York Times looks the same!
It's like saying that your laptop is "strikingly similar" to another one because they both have a keyboard attached to a screen by a hinge and they are both black with roughly the same proportions, and if you take a picture with both of them showing a calendaring app you're proving something because both of them show the days of the week and the months of the year in the same format.
The LG phone is called "Prada". Where have I heard that trade marked name before? Humm?
It's obvious look-n-feel will be different since Apple uses multi-touch gestures instead of what has been seen on Palm and Windows Mobile.
For the form factor, ie, "big screen" on a candy bar phone with few buttons, not sure that's patentable.
If you've seen the video of the LG "Prada" (in French), it's essentially a beautifield single touch/scroll UI specialized for a small phone screen like seen on Palm and Windows CE/Mobile. Ie, touch this scroll bar and move it to scroll the screen down. Touch this icon, touch this virtual button. This is standard touchscreen UI stuff at least a decade old.
It's obvious look-n-feel will be different since Apple uses multi-touch gestures instead of what has been seen on Palm and Windows Mobile.
For the form factor, ie, "big screen" on a candy bar phone with few buttons, not sure that's patentable.
and OMG what a CRAPPY SLOW INTERFACE!! watch the video! The GUI IS NOT SMOOTH. POS. Same reaction I had to Zune, "... man... Why'd they even try?"
You cannot patent how something looks.
The LG phone is called "Prada". Where have I heard that trade marked name before? Humm?
Of course you can... it's called a "design patent". When you patent a method or how something functions, it's called a "utility patent".
The LG phone is called "Prada". Where have I heard that trade marked name before? Humm?
Err ... Prada are releasing the phone.
I'll be getting one to tide me over until the iPhone hits Canada. The fancy case will match my wallet.
Side by side the vid of the iPhone demo and the vid of the Prada demo is like a case study in what makes Apple so good.
Nobody at LG to say, "Those transitions look like shit! Make it better, I don't care if you have to start from scratch!" Nobody to say "I want that done in 3 taps, not 5. Take it away and don't show it to me again until it's fixed." Nobody to design a beautiful, integrated interface. Nobody to sweat the details, and then sweat them some more.
Apple makes the hardware to embody their vision of how things should work. If the hardware can't be made, they wait till it can. LG puts a cobbled together interface on what was already there and calls it a day.
The Apple iPhone and the LG KE850:
Here's the link:
http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2006/1...ble-chocolate/
Apple makes the hardware to embody their vision of how things should work. If the hardware can't be made, they wait till it can. LG puts a cobbled together interface on what was already there and calls it a day.
That is an incredibly accurate statement, I think, and the source of every technophile's frustration.
That is an incredibly accurate statement, I think, and the source of every technophile's frustration.
And the pleasure of every non-techie consumer
Err ... Prada are releasing the phone.
I'll be getting one to tide me over until the iPhone hits Canada. The fancy case will match my wallet.
What?
Well, these two phones look awfully similar to my eyes, folks...
Your eyes are fooling you. Similar doesn't mean copy. It's simply convergent evolution or convergent ideas. There is barely an original idea, ever. Even calculus wasn't an original idea from Newton; different approaches yes, but calculus nonetheless, let alone Archimedes almost achieving it ~2000 years before. The idea of having a phone that should be touchscreen-only isn't new, nor is it unique.
I really doubt this LG phone inspired Apple to copy it. Not to mention that the targetted release dates are like 2 months apart either. If they saw advanced versions of the K850, they would have laughably derided it like we are now. Such horrible UI is one of the reasons Apple thinks it has shot at being successful with a $500 to $600 "iPod cell phone internet communicator device."
Your eyes are fooling you. Similar doesn't mean copy. It's simply convergent evolution or convergent ideas. There is barely an original idea, ever. Even calculus wasn't an original idea from Newton; different approaches yes, but calculus nonetheless, let alone Archimedes almost achieving it ~2000 years before. The idea of having a phone that should be touchscreen-only isn't new, nor is it unique.
I really doubt this LG phone inspired Apple to copy it. Not to mention that the targetted release dates are like 2 months apart either. If they saw advanced versions of the K850, they would have laughably derided it like we are now. Such horrible UI is one of the reasons Apple thinks it has shot at being successful with a $500 to $600 "iPod cell phone internet communicator device."
Exactly.
For instance the prada does not only have one button and the interface is reportedly pretty weak and it's most likely like a pda and only has single touch instead of multi.
If you're talking about the point of having the touch screen do almost everything then the old palm in my nighttable drawer collecting dust should sue apple to.
Every touch screen device will look similar, it's an occupational hazard.
From looking at this new video, I'm weeping for it's UI.
Not the good sort of crying...
New video and more pictures of the Prada: Italian site review or Gizmodo linkage
From looking at this new video, I'm weeping for it's UI.
Not the good sort of crying...
Yikes. That should end any talk of copying.
Humorously, at the 3:35 mark you see the demonstrator start trying to scroll down with the awkwardly placed touch scroll bar at the side. Nothing, nothing, tries tapping lower down, nothing, scroll.
Can you imagine how old that kind of thing would get? A touchscreen interface better respond instantly, and every time, or you suddenly realize your poking uselessly at a piece of plastic.
The LG Prada UI is just a poor implementation of your usual WIMP interface, but with fingers and without the menus. It looks poor, poorly implemented. The touchscreen UIs present in restuarants the world over, and old UIs at that, are better implemented.
The UI probably works better with two hands, but it's a tragedy of design choices. Enough to make you weep. Never mind touchscreen sensitivity and the like, the UI design choices. Ugh.
1. For text messaging, the Prada has a virtual T9 keypad UI? Holy floating spaghetti monster, what in Tartarus is LG thinking? The demonstrator took about 10 seconds to write the word "hi". And that was before typing in the number to send a message. One could probably do it faster by binary searching on a 10,000 word dictionary.
2. For the photo browser, LG didn't put in the effort to design a UI that 99.9999% of digital cameras have. It sort of uses something like that by implementing a file browser with thumbnail preview! Folders can be seen, but they don't have names. They have a Windows filmstrip type viewing in another browse mode. To get into the filmstrip, the demonstrator was thinking single-touch on the thumbnail or maybe double-touch on the thumbnail, but it didn't work. It was single-touch to select, pressing "browse" or something.
iPhone does it a little bit better, but I think a virtual scroll wheel should be popped up somehow to enable superfast scroll of thumbnails and viewing of photos. We've seen it in Apple's patent filing, hopefully, they'll use it.
3. Pet peeve. The Prada's UI for dialing phone numbers mimics a phone keypad. Argh! The numbers are made to look like a physical phone key pad, and it leaves a row of 20 pixels high doing nothing. Touchscreen UIs for cashier machines the world over do it better. It should maximize the space it has. The iPhone does this right.
On my Treo, if I wanted to manually dial, I have the option of using the stylus driven touchscreen key pad or the tiny number pad on the thumb board, each key all of 4 sq mm. Jobs is right, taking out the stylus is cumbersome, pressing the touchscreen sort of sucks (it leaves in a lot of empty space for some reason), and micro-buttons on the thumb-board aint fun. Not very conducive to dialing numbers at all. Of course, the primary way of making phone calls is either search through contacts or the call log.
Well, there it is, the closest thing (almost) on the market to the iPhone, that can "do" all the things the iPhone can, and is a hideous train wreck that I can't imagine anyone wanting to use.
The interface is the product. Bad interface on features equals useless. Amazing interface on features equals useful in new ways, for more people.