All Tech Considered : NPR: A lot of thought goes into giving your smartphone a distinctive look and feel, from the shape of the speaker — square, round or oval — to where to put the buttons — side, front or back.
But industrial designers like Robert Brunner say he doesn't have a lot of room to be creative.
21 comments:
This article's focusing on the limits on phone design (Apple's winning patents meaning that competitor's phones may not appear rectangular with rounded edges and a single button at the bottom), which will be frustrating to designers but will have to be overcome - it seems the Windows phone has found a way. More of an issue to other designers are the utilities Apple patented and won - other phone operating systems may not lay out icons in a grid, twist to rotate, pinch to zoom, drag and drop, or scroll and bounce back at the end of a document. Those are some scarier limitations on app and OS designers, since several of them are inherent in most smartphone navigation (no drag and drop? Really?)
What this has really done, though, is immediately made other companies scared of doing anything remotely similar to Apple, even if it's better for the customer. Apple has, in one fell swoop, inspired innovation by setting up some pretty firm and challenging limitations on design, but has also somewhat tied designers' hands for fear of lawsuit. Are we looking toward ultimate market domination, or should we expect the best phones ever created in order to topple the giant?
the concept of creative ownership is a frustrating topic for any artist or creator. in my opinion it truely feels ridiculous that someone can be sued because they invented or designed something that looked slightly similar to theirs. Just as the writer of this article says, designers are artissts are inspired by other artisits and designers.
I must admit though (as much a die hard apple man i may be) the apple vs samsung patent lawsuit has gone on for far too long. the last article i read on the lawsuit stated something along the lines of samsung admitting that their tablets suck to much to have been ripped off of apple
I'm not surprised that Samsung is getting sued over the supposed violation of the design patent, just because businesses are always on each other's necks just to get an edge in the market. Although Apple didn't need to complain about Samsung's design (as if something like that could hinder their market dominance). I also find it interesting at the end of the article when the author describes people who furrow their brow at anything non-Apple. It's an interesting statement on how much people become attached to the social and personal connotations that following the current trends can have.
All of the previous posters of this article have valid points which I agree with completely. Creative ownership is a treacherous sea with lawsuits and copyright infringements at every turn. The biggest issue I have is that it took years to develop a corded phone design, and with the expection of color and minor changes, a lot of corded phones looked extremely similar. This one can assume came from a mix of functionality and visual appeal. It is my belief that the same thing is happening with the cell phones. They have been around long enough that people generally know what does and does not work. They say that imitation is the highest form of flattery, but I merely think that Apple's phone is by far the best in its feild and others are trying to join in. I feel that now a desired physical phone has come to be, the important battle in the smart phone world will be in the software.
Part of me is really mad at Apple for being so obnoxious, but the other part of me recognizes that Apple was very smart in protecting its design. They sure know how to dominate an industry. I sometimes wonder if Apple is heading too much in the direction of a monopoly...realistically, there are still plenty of people with Windows phones instead of iPhones (like me) and PCs instead of Macs (not like me), but it seems like Apple is just pushing further and further to dominate the market. In terms of the phone patent case, I think the ruling is only going to be able to be taken so far. I mean, in keeping with modern phone design, are the options really that different? Sure, you can have square corners and put the buttons in different places, but ultimately the phone is a thin rectangle. I think what should really matter more is the software design. As annoying as it is that Apple is squashing other companies' design options, it seems as though this patent case was a smart business move for them if they want to continue to dominate.
I am slightly surprised to see that Apple sued Samsung for designing a phone that resembled the iPhone. Although the Samsung phone does have a rectangular shape, with curved edges, and a button on the bottom, I feel as if suing another company in this manner is against what Steve Jobs would have wanted. Jobs believed in collaboration. He got the idea for the mouse through a different company himself. Also, the author of this article does point out that the phone industry has transformed into an extremely creative and trendy place. Just as a clothing vendor would not readily get sued for following the trends set by multiple other vendors, perhaps the same expectations should be set for the ever-evolving phone industry. However, this does not mean that Samsung was right in "copying" the design of the iPhone 5. Perhaps they should be more intent on creating their own new, unique, trend-setting phone instead of simply following in Apple's footsteps.
I agree with what everyone else has written above. Apple has such a market dominance at the moment that, while I understand why the lawyers wanted to sue, I'm not sure what Apple's goal was. Yes, they didn't want a Samsung phone that looked like the iPhone, but there are so many smart phones that are becoming more and more alike in how they look that it kind of seems like a losing battle. As companies discover more about what works and what consumers like and are comfortable with, there's only so many differences that can be supported by the market. If you think back a few years, Blackberry was the best smartphone out there, with its mini keyboard and email capabilities. Now, almost all smart phones are touch screen. There are still some Blackberry loyalists, but even Blackberry is pushing their touch screens. That's what the market demands and since Apple seems to have found the right formula for a smartphone that is universally popular, other companies are going to look at it and find out why it works and use it. I kind of feel like there's a slippery slope aspect to this lawsuit... if you can patent something as simple as a rounded rectangle with a button on the bottom, why couldn't you patent "a volume button on the side" and "a charger plug-in on the bottom", which are basically staples if almost every smart phone out there.
I really think Apple has gone to far especially when, as the article says, apple was founded on stolen idea. I think in an artistic sense taking someone idea and then changing it or expanding on it creates something of your own. If we are going to allow design patents they should be much more specific. If we give companies the ability to patent rectangular things with buttons at the bottom the opportunities for design get a lot smaller. And whats to stop people from then buying up patents like that just for the power. A similar thing happened with websites with companies buying up every reasonable domain name they could think of because then people desiring to use them have to purchase the domains from those companies who make very large profits. Design is too abstract a concept for this to be okay especially when it is allowed to be so vague.
I think the topic of ownership when it comes to design is always a sticky one, but honestly it should be expected. I agree with what the author says about designers being inspired by other designs. How else would we improve what already exists? While I understand that Apple had the right for the law suite I do thin it was a little unnecessary. True, the designs were similar. But, as supported by the example of the woman's reaction at the Windows phone, people obviously know Apple products well enough not to get confused by similar designs.
With mobile and tablet devices constantly being redesigned and engineered every 6 months to a year because of new technology, product rollover and market changes I can only imagine how difficult it is for designers to offer new designs so often. Unfortunately it's what we as consumers expect. Having said that, I am an iPhone user, and I was a Blackberry user before that, and the biggest thing that convinced me to switch was functionality and reliability. Aesthetics were secondary. The OS is huge nowadays, we want something fast that doesn't constantly freeze up and crash but also its pretty to look and simple to use. Now that I've rambled on for a bit I have to say that when it comes down it the next time I'm shopping for a new phone, iPhone or Android, whatever, I want some development in the hardware. I think that's where the designers really need to start stepping up their game if they want to start competing better with Apple, and maybe even that'll allow them to come up with some new styles...
I do think it is odd that companies are able to create patens that are so vague. I think that this can be seen as both a good and bad thing. It does inhibit companies and designers from creating a lot of designers but it also requires the designers to be more creative when coming up with designs. I wish that this article talked a bit more about what sort of designs they would use to get around the paten. It saddens me to think that the designers of these companies have to go through lawyers in order to get their creativity approved.
I'm a big Apple fan, as one could probably gather from my many Apple products, but I think they've gone a bit far with their design-based lawsuits. It's impossible to patent a design as vague as the iPhone - it's hard for me to grasp the concept of a patent of any design. I feel that I can recognize when something has intentionally ripped something else off, to put it in layman's terms, but I have no idea how to define that. Where exactly should we drawn the line in the sand? Why does one instance constitute a copyright infringement and another does not?
At the core of this question lies a great philosophical debate which I think is much more important than patents. What we need to be exploring (as artists) is what separates creative inspiration from copying. This will help us to become better artists.
This is interesting that apple is suing about the design of other phones. I am not surprised that they are suing about the design being infringed by other companies. I would not be surprised if this is not he beginning of a much larger lawsuit wave about the design of things in phones and technology. With apple there image is part of what you are buying when buying one of their products so anything that may go against patents that they have for that item and others will be acted upon. I wish that some other phone companies would become a competitor to the iPhone. I know that the new iPone 5 is making a lot of people extremely angry about the new things like connectors and headphones. We will see what happens.
This is such a tough situation to grapple with. That is, of course, because it is entirely possible for two people to have the same idea of what makes a good design. I'm sure there is a lot more scandal and story involved in the mobile phone industry that we are unaware of, and thus makes it difficult to say what the exact parameters of the situation truly are, but my point still stands. Apple can't say that Samsung took their design because there are only so many designs for a smartphone anyway. Most, if not all, of them have been used already. So if not apple then most likely somebody else. I'd be happy to say I was surprised that Apple won this case, but I'm not. All is not fair in love and war when money gets in the way.
The whole Samsung vs. Apple battle is old and tired at this point, but the implications of it really are interesting. What is the level of detail in the design at which the line is drawn, after which no patents can be filed? Is the fact that the phone is a rectangle with rounded corners really enough to file a patent with and sue over? This could be a good thing or a bad thing. It could inspire designers to come up with completely different ideas which have never been implemented before, resulting in a new generation of smartphone design. Or, it could scare designers so much that they work just outside the confines of the current patents, in order to be just different enough to avoid a lawsuit. Hopefully the former scenario actually occurs.
Samsung and apple have been suing each other for quite sometime now. it just keeps going back and forth and its stupid. Nearly all new ideas are just built off of older ideas and while the shape of the S3 at its basic core is similar to the iphone the similarities stop there. its a different size and has different proportions and a different look and feel and materials. But maybe these lawsuits will end in new designs different from the norm, that'd be nice.
Although I am also a big fan of Apple on their simple, but attractive design, I don't think it is fair or reasonable to sue Samsung for its similarity in location of the button and a rectangular shape of phone, which is how every other phone looks like. I am pretty sure that without suing Samsung, Apple will be still #1 best-seller in cell phone and it is just sad how each company has to sue back and forth on the design. This article makes me think a lot especially because it talks about the limits on phone design. I can understand how designer will be stressful to design a phone because any slightly similarity in shape will be sued. I hope this patent lawsuit does not happen again and does not become a sensitive issue once more.
iPhone competitors are never going to be able to outsell or beat Apple by trying to replicate as much of the iPhone as possible. It's ridiculous to me that the designer said "it's impossible to come up with any other design that doesn't look like the iPhone". (not a direct quote) What boring design! What defeated feelings! Where's the future of the phone...what's the point of design.
I like the example he uses to describe the fashion industry. Imitation is everywhere and many starting artist use it to practice their skills, however, we are artist should respect each others work and try to move away from our inspirations away from the original product. Individuality is what keeps artist alive so when another person is ready to copy the artist should always be ready to move their ideas forward.
I feel like this article is indirectly bringing up a problem. A phone can only be so different from another. The iphone 5 is now slightly larger what if it has the same dimensions or weight as another phone? Is that a copyright violation as well? Like others have said just because it resembles a phone does not mean it is going to jump to the top spot. Several aspects must be better for a drastic change like that to occur.
In terms of looking at this theatrically, I really wonder what this concept of artistic ownership means.
We look at adaptation, different artistic movements, and design elements/concepts and how exactly can that be owned? Maybe someone pioneered that artistic exploration, but we are constantly evolving.
And to limit the way we interpret others art and in turn make our own, is really a constricting way of thinking.
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