Even if this is a true story, it isn't the lawsuit that made people think this. What makes people think that Apple products and Samsung products are the same is the fact that Samsung intentionally ripped them off to get exactly that. Apple did not do this. Samsung did and the lawsuit was so they could stop it. If this story is true, which it kind of sounds like it isn't, then the only reason people are being vocal about it is because of the news. They're now comparing the two side by side and saying "hey, they look the same so they must be like the same thing". Up until about two months ago I was dirt poor (as in I only ate once a day, if that) and my experience with Apple products has been then you definitely get what you pay for in a good way which is why I have bought so many despite my door poor-ness. Samsung making their products look like Apple's was meant so people like me (minus the tech savviness) would buy them thinking they'll get the same thing. You really don't.
But I digress. This post has it wrong. What he supposedly overheard in a Starbucks wasn't caused by the Apple v. Samsung ruling but was a direct result of what Samsung had been trying to do all along.
Not true. 'Regular' people probably didn't think anything about this before the lawsuit. Now they think something.
Cars and computers all look pretty similar, but people manage to distinguish them. The only difference between cars, computers and mobile devices is that mobile devices were only just invented in our lifetime. We have had the experience of seeing none of them, then only one brand, then finally more brands. Cars and computers? We were born (most of us) into the reality of them already existing. With all of the different brands and models.
Trust me, once mobile devices have been around for a person's entire lifetime, that person would laugh at this lawsuit just as much as we today would laugh at a lawsuit based on 'damages' incurred from mistaking a Ford for a Honda, or for mistaking a 50" LG Plasma for a 48" Sony LCD. Mobile devices seem different because they are new. That's not Samgsung's fault..
I always wonder if this is what they call the reality distortion effect. You get what you pay for?
Long time ago I had an ibook g4. Supposedly it was very nice back then, and very pricey too. However, after playing with it sometime, it just looked cute. Overpriced and cute. Apple products are a jail that looks very nice, but its a jail anyway.
Now I have an IPad (don't remember the generation) because my job. It is still overly priced and cute. Oh, and a jail. Is this what you are supposed to get for paying a high price?
Guess I'll never "get it". For me, it's just stylish and pricey stuff, that locks you in. Paying to give up your freedom... go figure.
I'm not afraid to say that on iOS, the "jail" makes the experience better for me. The entire iOS is amazing for what I need it for and for what many people need it for. I'm happy to pay the higher price because there's no other product that can substitute for the experience. I don't care about the "jail". If this is a jail then lock me up for life because it's a damn nice jail.
OSX on the other hand isn't a jail. You can install whatever you want. It's a computer. In fact I prefer Apple's jail to Microsoft's jail and pay more because I get a better experience and have found no substitute. Can I customize the OS? Fuck no! But if I wanted to then I wouldn't buy Apple because I know what I'm getting into before I buy. As a developer there isn't anything I can do on another platform that I can't on OS X. In fact, because its based on BSD I get the best of the Unix world and Apple's world. And Apple's world, or jail as you call it, is beautiful, well designed, has better font rendering, it's fast, it makes the right assumptions about my use, and so one. So I can't hack the kernel. So what? I don't need or want to. That's kind of why I bought an Apple to begin with.
Philosophies about freedom, free software, or really any philosophies or beliefs do not apply here. That argument is just a red herring. The value of the machine is in its substitutes. My Macs don't have any substitutes. There's not a single PC out there that can match the quality, beauty, and experience of my Macs. But not everyone uses them like I do so I can understand if others don't believe they're valuable. But as far as Samsung goes, what they did was basically try to trick people into thinking that they'll get the Apple experience on a Samsung just because they look alike.
And just so everyone knows, at my job I work 8+ hours a day on a Windows7 PC. I've had an Android phone. I also have a Linux laptop. I love my Linux box but it still doesn't hold a candle to my MacBook Air. This isn't about fashion. It's about people finding a product so impressive that they truly love it. I own a lot of stuff but very few of my possessions are as valuable to me as my Macs. Call me a fanboy. I don't give a shit. That argument is a lame copout. People see people like me being truly impressed with something, they don't get it, then they write it off as fanboyism. It's just a meaningless argument meant to explain something people don't understand. A lot like how people ascribe religious significants to events they don't understand. No, that's not hyperbole. It's just like that.
OSX on the other hand isn't a jail. You can install whatever you want. It's a computer.
As long as your credit card is on file with apple.
You might be surprised what happens to 'your' computer after an attempted purchase fails for any reason. You won't be able to update or install any software from the app-store anymore. This includes updates for and re-downloads of apps that you have 'bought'.
Totally false. The app store is for people who want simplicity. It's for the consumer market. Those people who infect their computers with viruses constantly because they think that sketchy looking banner telling them they've won todays lottery isn't sketchy at all and click it.
There's nothing stopping me from downloading and installing any app I want from whatever source I want on my Mac. Everyone all of the sudden thinks that the Mac App Store is the final nail in the iOSification coffin but it isn't. It's just a good idea for people totally unlike us and those people actually get a far better experience than any "free" system because of it. But again, no one is forced to go through the app store to download applications.
Honestly, I haven't even set Mountain Lion to let me download anything unrestricted. I set it to the medium setting where it'll give me a warning before installing non-app store apps and I like it that way. I like being reminded that what I'm about to install hasn't been vetted by Apple. That's fine with me. I just control+click it and run it the first time and I'm never bothered again. Sure, I could set it so I get no hassles but I like the feature.
When it comes down to it, I know what I'm getting into. I'm not so completely risk averse that I refuse to use something because some worst case scenario or edge case might happen at some point down the road to me.
I don't understand. He already bought it. Why should he have to have a valid credit card again? Aren't purchases locked to an account with a password and such?
The comment was made about an iOS device, which it is more applicable too. Apple has a monopoly on legit iOS App distribution, where Android tablets and phones can install apps from the wild.
It may sound like a small point, but the feeling that I didn't own my iPhone is a big reason I prefer Android.
I can agree with it in the case of an iOS-device, but in this case he said "Long time ago I had an ibook g4".
I am starting to get pretty tired of hearing that the products I use every day for professional work are toys, that I gave up my freedom to use them and worship Apple etc etc.
Long time ago I had an ibook g4. Supposedly it was very nice back then, and very pricey too. However, after playing with it sometime, it just looked cute. Overpriced and cute. Apple products are a jail that looks very nice, but its a jail anyway.
He comments first about the laptops. About laptops before the Mac App Store even...
> Apple has a monopoly on legit iOS App distribution,
I know why you think that, but you're missing that there is a completely legitimate app distribution mechanism outside the AppStore.
You can install (and distribute) whatever apps you want for iOS devices, and users can download them from the web and install them on the device. And I'm not talking about jailbreaking.
Since the first day the iPhone has shipped, you've been able to download and install apps built with javascript from anywhere on the web.
These are full apps, written in Javascript and running on the machine. They have access to the iOS design components such as the navigation controller and tab bar UI, etc, can read touches and orientation and even your current location.
You can turn off the network- put the device in airport mode- and they still run. These aren't links to web apps running on the web, they are full apps.
Apple only curates what goes on in the App Store. Apps distributed outside the App Store are not curated. Apple built this platform for apps specifically so it wouldn't have to curate them.
Its just that once the App Store came out, everyone switched to writing native apps (And at the time, writing native apps are what people were clamoring for) that that native app distirbution model won out.
But the javascript app platform is still there on the device and completely un-regulated by apple.
It's also still supported by Apple, and each year at WWDC they have a couple sessions talking about it.
I know it fits some people's ideology better to believe that Apple will only let you run apps approved by Apple on your device, but it simply isn't true.
Further, if you want native apps of arbitrary origin, you can join the developer program and run whatever native apps you want.
But Apple has always allowed this other distribution mechanism. These apps can't spread malware and so there is no need to regulate them. Since native apps can, they need to be curated, hence the AppStore.
It is disingenuous for people to pretend like Apple only wants you to buy apps from the AppStore-- because the javascript app platform has existed since a year before the AppStore and they continue to maintain it.
I've done some mobile javascript development and do commend Apple for pushing the limits of what can be done in-browser. The accelerometer support comes to mind, which came sooner and better than the same support on Android.
That said, I wasn't aware that the two environments could be considered equivalent. Can you call the camera API from javascript? Write a music player?
It would be one thing (though still unfortunate) if the App store monopoly were used only for quality control, but instances where politics were at play really left a bad taste in my mouth. Grooveshark, Google Voice, and Opera mobile come to mind as projects that if I am remembering correctly were blocked or delayed for political reasons. They all require a native environment that's richer than HTML apps can provide, to my knowledge.
Do you have any reference material or documentation for developing the javascript way? As a fairly new dev I would be interested in seeing that process as most of my "distribute outside of app store on ios" queries to the web say without jailbreaking, its impossible.
Here's a list of keywords. Just feed them to a generic Markov random sentence generator and you'll get your response: Gatekeeper, walled-garden App Store, iOSification, hardware obsolescence in 4-5 years, closed-source, GPL, soldered RAM and SSD and battery, overpriced, eye-candy, skeuomorphism, big brother, reality-distortion-field.
I don't want to be a jerk or offend "alberich", but I strongly disagree with him.
I just couldn't install any other usable operating system on the hardware other then Apple's OS. The specifications were closed, you couldn't get much anything useful installed on it because it depended on proprietary software that, of course, only worked on OS X.
edit: besides, things don't look much better nowdays, eh?
> you couldn't get much anything useful installed on it
I have node, redis, mysql, couchdb, mongodb, autoconf/automake/cmake, ffmpeg, erlang, git, hg, gnuplot, groovy, memchaced, lua, lynx, lib* (a million of them), nmap, rabbitmq, phantomjs, postgresql, siege, httpd, squid, spidermonkey, coffee-script, mit-scheme,pcre, lkgconfig, mosh, HTTPie, python, ruby, cairo, pango, x11 installed on my OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion (among other tools that I've forgot or don't use regularly). And I'm not even a "pro" user - just a regular developer.
But your requirements clearly differs from mine. Because you don't find them "useful". It's okay, not all of us use the same tools. But I'm sure the majority of developers use the aforementioned tools, and care less about kernel programming or other things that can't be done on a MacBook as efficiently as on ThinkPads (although Torvalds uses an Air).
Why on Earth did you buy it if that isn't what you wanted?
It's like buying a hardcover book and complaining that you couldn't get it to be any other book. They're not selling iOS devices as hobbyist machines for tinkerers. You buy an iPhone to be an iPhone, an iPad to be an iPad. That's not a bad thing, it's an attribute of the product you bought as much as its price and processor.
"besides, things don't look much better nowdays, eh?"
Sure they do. I can run both Linux and Windows without virtualization, and Apple even supports the latter officially through the Boot Camp-application.
I can't reply to Zirro's and pooriaazimi's posts, so I'll answear here.
Zirro: that is good to know. I wish it was the same with the IPad. Owning your hardware, in the sense that you can install alternative stuff on it, is very important for me.
pooriaazimi: the point was about the power to install anything, including a different OS. If it is like Zirro said, it is sure a big improvement on the desktop/laptop category. Sadly the IPad doesn't offer you the freedom for using anything that is not from Apple. I don't care much about it, because the IPad isn't mine anyways. I just wouldn't buy it if I had to choose (Android's devices look much more open).
ps. I'm sorry if I offended some people, it was not my intention. cheers :)
I would be curious for some example of non-proprietary software you could install on Linux that would not work in one of the many options available to OS X users: homebrew/macports/fink, dual-boot (or replace the OS), virtualization, or just build from source.
The 'jail' is beneficial in that it allows high-quality apps to be made. If iOS users could just install apps from anywhere, piracy would mean a reduction in the quality and quantity of apps that developers are willing to make for it.
Even tech-savvy people buy iOS devices knowing that they are restricted in this way, and reap the benefits.
No. But considering that I paid almost nothing for it makes a big difference. It's not like paying U$ 1k and being locked in.
with my Ibook I couldn't install other OS on working conditions because Apple wouldn't just open the specs, so there wasn't really other OSs to install. It is also not really an option to install other OSs on the IPad. And it costs a lot of money, that makes a big diference. You pay to be locked in to Apple.
Then when Samsung comes around and offers almost the same features, people start to worry that their overly priced stuff will not be so special anymore, and act like Samsung's products are just a poorly made ripoff.
Maybe there was something funky about the hardware in the iBook G4 but I remember installing Yellow Dog Linux on my old PowerBook G4 without too much trouble.
It was years ago so I don't recall the details but it was definitely possible and not terribly difficult.
You've been able to run Unix on Macs going back to the 1980s. In the 1990s there were several variations of Linux that ran on Macs, and Apple hired the mklinux guy to make sure that linux kernels ran ok on Macs.
The only time in the Mac's history that Apple wasn't working to make sure it could run Unix was 1984-1987ish before they released their flavor of Unix.
Even if the appearance of say... an iPad and a Galaxy tablet are very similar, I don't think it's fair to call the Galaxy a ripoff. That basic design is just where the industry was headed. Case in point: the Crunchpad was announced nearly two years before the iPad and has a nearly identical design.
Samsung didn't rip Apple off to trick people into thinking they had Apple products. What's the point of that? They want their products returned and customers angered? Apple had put more effort into designing their products so Samsung aped much of that in an attempt to replicate the aesthetics and appeal of Apple products.
Part of what's happening here is that people who don't deal with this stuff frequently (and don't have the background that we do) don't understand tech products. People go to WalMart and pick out the cheapest tablet and then will return it a few days later when they discover it is not an iPad.
Look at articles about the Surface tablet. When they talk about possible pricing it's always "Do they dare price it more expensive than an iPad or do they undercut the iPad and lose money?"
Clearly the iPad price isn't inflated.
Look at the on-contract and off-contract prices of iPhones. Compare to say, Galaxy S3. Or the new Droid. Or the new Evo.
Clearly the iPhone price isn't inflated.
Want a consumer-line notebook? Apples consumer notebooks are the Air line. Find a good competitor, say the ASUS Zenbook UX31E. It's about $950, vs $1200 for the Air. That is a big price difference. And the machines look an awful lot alike.
But the Air has a faster processer, faster RAM, faster SSD and faster graphics (3000 series vs 4000 series Intel). The Asus has 1600x900 vs the Air's 1440x900.
The Air also comes bundled with software that's all written by Apple as first-class companions to OSX. The bundled software on PCs is almost universally mocked and either ignored or uninstalled.
Their Pro line is more expensive, yes. But the products I listed above make a large majority of Apple's sales and profits. And the people that actually have bought a Pro line seldom complain. They seldom think they didn't get value, that they didn't get their monies worth.
I get it, there are certain people who see a Mercedes as a car, like any other. They see, well, the Mercedes has a 2.5L engine, a Kia has a 2.5L engine. The Mercedes has 8 air bags, so does a Ford Focus. The Mercedes has.... you get my point. For those people, certainly, a Mercedes doesn't sound right for you.
But you're ignorant if you don't see the value others see in it, and it's not just vanity or shallow brand obsession. You may not weigh that value as heavily in your life as they do, but any honest person has to at least acknowledge it.
What is fanboyism? Really, I'm serious. I don't think such a thing exists. I think it's all people who don't get why other people value product X explaining it away with the fanboyism argument. I don't mean to detract or disagree because that was my first reaction but when I got to thinking about it I realized that I could easily be labelled a fanboy. I don't want that argument used against me so I won't use it against someone else anymore. There's some kind of weird jealousy or something going on there but its also much more. I haven't quite nailed it yet but I think saying someone or some view is a "fanboy" is a lazy argument now.
But I secretly agree. But please ignore that last sentence.
Also, he shows off a "OS/X" [sic] virtual machine to convince laymen that Apple's overcharging because you can run OSX in a VM. This is clearly a guy fabricating a story.
Anyone who's ever virtualized OSX outside of VMWare Fusion will tell you this line is bullshit and would never offer that as a legitimate substitute for the real OSX desktop experience. Even legit OSX VMs on Fusion perform worse than their natively installed counterparts (GPU drivers just aren't very robust).
I have virtualized OS/X with the specific naughty versions of VMWare in question on windows boxes as part of UI testing setups. While I would not play games on it, it'll run Safari just fine.
That's not something noticeable during basic desktop use. I've used VMWare Fusion a fair amount and I was very impressed. I imagine someone non-technical would not be able to tell the difference.
This in reply to the 'essentially piracy' comment below, which for some reason I cannot reply to (too much nesting?)
What's next? Am I stealing music if I put it in a CD player and it makes a 25ms buffer copy while I'm playing?
Fair Use is an important principle. We can't structure our laws to work against Fair Use, or dig ourselves into the absolutely braindead position that exercising your fair use rights of software, music, etc - should be regarded as piracy.
Regarding your first line, the link only appears after a delay, that increases based on how nested the thread already is. It's a feature that is supposed to prevent flamewars by forcing people to "cool off" before replying.
In practice it seems to lead to this, which is worse since it breaks the flow without solving the issue.
I would personally disagree, anything that's GPU accelerated is noticeably laggy inside Fusion and worse in Workstation. Notification Center, Launchpad, Mission Control, entering Time Machine, they all stutter. I applaud VMWare's efforts so far, but it's not the same desktop experience like Windows inside a VM can be. Further, Apple's trackpad and the gestures they integrate adds quite a bit to the OSX experience. No PC vendor comes close to replicating that and it's something you'd have to just resign yourself to never replicating fully.
But ignoring the trackpad, pitting a full screen OSX VM under optimal but real-world conditions against native OSX, I would still bet anyone could tell the difference.
It's fragile hack, and it is against their EULA when the host OS is not OSX, but AFAIK|IANAL, violating a EULA has no broad legal precedent set in the US yet in limiting copyright terms against consumers, e.g. violating a EULA term alone does not make it piracy.
I successfully installed OS X on virtual box.
You cannot update it. It is therefore useless for developing iPhone Applications since XCode cannot be updated unless OS is updated.
Agreed that it's not the same experience. Very slow/laggy.
I am already considering to drop OS X after the lawsuit, but I only read 2 paragraphs before I decided to look for this comment in HN before reading further.
This man is clearly lying. So awkward and artificial that is clearly fabricated, like a geek joke prepared and rationalized but void and dead of humor.
Imagine a teenage that could not differentiate between and iPod and some other thing "that is the same".
Yeah, because normal people know how to install a VM, do a grep and an ssh....but they could not differentiate from a computer witch battery last 3 hours instead of 8, or weights double, or is made in real aluminum(and not plastic with metallic paint) or it is actually cheaper than the competence.
Here's what's going to happen. These people will buy a Samsung device. And they will hate it. And then they will learn to never buy anything but Apple. Apple has, for a short bump in near term revenue, earned themselves a lot of lifetime customers.
Some people do hate Samsung products, and some people just hate Android in general. It may come as a shock to you, but in spite of this fact, there are actually tens of millions of people out there who prefer Android, Windows, and reasonably priced laptops.
I bought a retina iPad because at the time I was in the market, it was the best tablet available. If I were going to get one today, it would be a close call between the iPad and the galaxy note 10.1. As far as phones go, Apple has neglected the trend towards larger screens. For a power user, the Iphone's tiny screen is unacceptable. I recently purchased a Galaxy Nexus, and it's easily the best phone I've ever used, at a better price than an off contract iPhone.
What is a power user of a mobile phone, and what makes a 3.5" screen unacceptable?
edit: Ah, I see. Reading a lot. I actually read all of Guns, Germs, and Steel on my iPhone 4S earlier this year, and probably do an hour or two of reading on it a day in total.
It's not necessarily an ideal experience, but it certainly isn't terrible. I'm looking forward to the rumored 4" screen on the upcoming The New iPhone, but I think that 4.5" and 5" are both way too big.
The impression I get is that most larger screens out there today don't pack in larger pixels, but instead just use bigger pixels. Ultimately, I'm more interested in the quality of the text than I am the total number of lines I can see at one time. For instance, before I got the retina screen-equipped iPad this year, I actually preferred reading on the iPhone to the iPad by a wide margin.
A power user is a user who regularly browses the web. Browsing the web on a 4.65-inch 1280x720 screen is significantly better than browsing the web on a 3.5-inch 960x640 screen.
Reply to your edit: The fact that Android phones have low pixel density is absolutely wrong. That used to be the case. But now they have both larger screens and more pixels. Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy S3, HTC One X, Xperia S all have 1280x720 screens and are all 300+ ppi.
That all depends on what's running on the screen. I find browsing on my iPhone much faster and more responsive on my iPhone vs my friends Android devices.
I browse the web on my phone constantly. I still wouldn't rather a bigger screen at the expense of all the other benefits of a compact phone like one handed usage.
I resent the implication that I'm not a power user or I don't really browse the web just because I prefer a smaller screen on my phone.
If you had the option of buying an iPhone with a 4.65 inch, high resolution screen that still managed to be comfortable to use with 1 hand, would you still prefer the smaller version?
If so, your choice would be a personal preference that has nothing to do with functionality, unless for some reasons your hands are too small to use a larger device with ease. From an objective standpoint, a phone with a larger screen is easier to type on, better suited to displaying videos, and more capable of displaying a variety of text-based documents (powerpoint, technical manuals, web pages.) The only drawbacks of having a larger phone are that: A) some users have smaller hands than others, and B) it takes up more space.
> If you had the option of buying an iPhone with a 4.65 inch, high resolution screen that still managed to be comfortable to use with 1 hand, would you still prefer the smaller version?
> If so, your choice would be a personal preference that has nothing to do with functionality...
Really? Would you say the same thing to someone buying a small car over an SUV? That the SUV is always a better ride, the only reason you would ever want something smaller is "personal preference"?
I doubt it. We can all see the benefits in a small sleek car over a clunky SUV but even though the benefits of a smaller phone are basically the same, they're lost on us. More efficient on fuel, more compact and easy to wield, speedier, sportier, overall a much nicer product.
Bigger wheels and a bigger car don't make a better drive. Likewise a bigger frame and bigger screen don't necessarily make for a better phone experience, unless that's what you're looking for.
The comparison between a smartphone and an automobile doesn't make much sense. On one hand you compare a smaller car with an SUV. Large vehicles are were developed to fill a very specific need, and were never intended to eliminate the need for a normal sized car. To the majority of the population, which doesn't often need to haul around large amounts of stuff, trucks and SUV's don't enhance functionality in a significant way, yet they are often far more expensive to operate and maintain.
Large smartphones provide numerous enhancements in certain use cases, which can't really be debated. All else being equal, a large screen is better at displaying videos, documents, photos, books, and websites. Provided the phone remains reasonably small (the Galaxy Note is pushing it, but it's an extreme example), most people won't experience any significant drawbacks to having a larger phone. Most of the large screen phones are about an inch and a quarter larger than the iPhone's at most, so it's not like we are talking about a jump from a 5 ounce device to one that weighs two pounds. As I stated before, the only reason other than personal preference that one might have to stick with a smaller screen, would be if that particular user's hands were too small to use the phone comfortably.
No, I definitely wasn't trying to imply anything like that about any iPhone user. I'm sure you are a power user and you regularly browse the web with your iPhone. But this doesn't mean you wouldn't have a better browsing experience with a 1280x720 resolution and a larger screen.
I don't want this to turn into a typical iPhone vs Android forum dicussion, so I'm not really going to say anything else. But browsing on a high-end Android phone (like Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy S3, One X, Xperia S) will be significantly faster than iPhone 4S. Your friend's Android device was probably pre-ICS and/or a low-end device.
From what I understand, most iPhone users here have not tried the recent high-end Android phones and are still thinking about the old days of Android, when it had choppy scrolling and a UI which kept stuttering.
> I don't want this to turn into a typical iPhone vs Android forum dicussion, so I'm not really going to say anything else.
I agree, but I can't let this stand as implied fact.
> But browsing on a high-end Android phone (like Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy S3, One X, Xperia S) will be significantly faster than iPhone 4S.
My comparison was to a Galaxy Nexus running Chrome. Is it fast? Yes. I personally don't find it as fast and responsive as a 4S though. Just throwing power at Android doesn't solve the responsiveness issues it still has in ICS.
jellybean solved those problems. latency was definitely one area where iOS was ahead. if you look at general features, you'll find iOS has been playing catchup for about a year.
Audio latency is better but still not very good, compared to iOS/CoreAudio. I suspect it will never catch up simply because of the underlying design, Google simply does not have the knowledge necessary to implement low-latency audio.
I agree with this and don't think Google has the desire/skill to do anything about it. This is the biggest issue for Android from day one because the portable device is now considered a musical instrument and Android can't compete. Things are going to get shaken up again once Windows 8 tablets start running Ableton Live/Cubase so at this point Google should just wait and see what happens.
The 3.5" screen is better for me because it easily fits in any pocket, so I always have it with me, and the battery easily lasts all day even with heavy web browsing.
I am yet to see a male claiming Galaxy Note (5.3-inch screen) does not fit in his pocket. By the way, I am assuming you're a man because women don't carry their phones in their pocket.
Definitely, everyone who has bothered to say this to me about their Android phone actually does little to nothing with the phone. Certainly nothing that takes advantage of the screen.
I do constantly see people using those Galaxy Notes with the S Pen and two hands at all times. Seems like a big step backwards to me. Not only can I do everything a phone with a bigger screen can do, but I can do it with one hand.
The Galaxy Note is a great device, but I admit it's not for everyone. It's supposed to be a hybrid between a tablet and a phone, like the Dell Streak or the Nokia N900.
I'll admit I have slightly large hands, but I can use a Galaxy Nexus just fine 1-handed.
That is exactly what I'm talking about. People will buy it, because on paper it has even more checkboxes than the iPad, but then it just isn't going to work.
I'm not sure if you're trolling, or just don't like the Samsung devices, but either way... no they won't. At least not all of them. I'm sure there's going to be a group not satisfied with Samsung. There are also groups not satisfied with Apple. Some of those people will say - hey, this was always annoying me in i$DEVICE, but here's it's better.
Why would you think everyone will hate it? (or even that they will have the same opinion, whatever it may be)
I think the set of people who prefer Samsung devices and the set of people who are now going to buy a Samsung because it's "the same" as an Apple device are disjoint sets.
I'm still on Apple but I've heard no complaints from friends who have switched. Instead I hear, check out how much better than the iPhone this is and the battery lasts days.
Many mass market consumers will be more than happy to get a slightly poorer experience if they can save half their money. But, if these people just switched from an iPhone or iPad, its likely that they were a year or two in and the performance started degrading. Applications build for the latest hardware crash, the battery has been abused enough that it lasts less than a day. The stark contrast at the switch will tell them Samsung is better.
That's actually what kind of happened to me with MP3-Players. "Mhm, I could buy an iPod Nano for ~150 or this whatever-brand with more space for ~100. Two months later I got the iPod Classic, best decision ever."
heh, that's exactly my mp3 player story. I bought a small samsung device (dude, look, it plays ogg files! it must be the best!). Less than a month later I bought an ipod nano.
funny, i've never hated any of the Samsung products I've owned, including the ones they made before apple required that all phones become smudgescreens. I have hated using every iphone, ipod, ipad, and mac I've laid my hands on, having found the interfaces for all offensively restrictive.
Because it's not the same. There's a dozen comments here enumerating all the ways Samsung devices are different, even superior to Apple. That's different, not the same. Lots of people prefer Samsung devices. But not the people who prefer Apple devices and buy a Samsung expecting the "same thing".
This is a perfect example of judging a book by the cover. So these folks look at the device and think that the hardware is what makes it. Problem is, either you realize that it's about the software and you care what iOS and the Apple ecosystem gives you, or you're just an average Joe PC user who can't tell the difference between a good coffee and Starbucks, I mean between Windows and Mac. Regular people, with very little ability to discern the average from the good, the half finished from the polished, won't care. But maybe they do. Maybe once they experience a iPad or iPhone and then switch to Android, maybe they will realized there is a difference. I think this is what Apple is betting on. But then again, some wont. And some Samsung/Android fanatics are going to revel in these cases, just like the PC fanatics revel in talking about how amazing Windows is, and how much software they have access to. I still can't understand how these people think, and how they judge quality, I think for some people, mediocre is good enough. Obviously, I have my own particular way of judging things, and I wouldn't confuse an iPad with a Samsung device.
> just like the PC fanatics revel in talking about how amazing Windows is,
Hm, let's see. You could probably say I am a PC fanatic. "Personal Computer". I don't really care if the PC is from Samsung, Dell, Lenovo or Apple. I don't think Windows is amazing. It's ok as long as it is supported by much 3rd party software. I personally would chose linux anytime I am not forced by some proprietary (quasi-) monopoly software to use a specific operating system.
> I still can't understand how these people think, and how they judge quality, I think for some people, mediocre is good enough.
I happen to use an android phone. It has some annoying bugs:
A touchscreen that is activated in a pocket while receiving a call will sometimes behave very erratically. Sometimes (once every few months I get kernel panics [1], I think caused by the proprietary graphics drivers. But still the inconveniences are not that big that I would use some completely proprietary and locked down smartphone. If you think android phones are "mediocre" then maybe you are looking for the wrong qualities. Try comparing them with software freedom in mind and tell me how again the devices running android lose vs apple devices.
> Try comparing them with software freedom in mind and tell me how again the devices running android lose vs apple devices.
OK. Every app worth getting for an Android device, I can get via the iOS App Store. Everything that requires a rooted or unlocked Android device, I can get via jailbreaking.
I'm not an OS developer so I'm not going to be contributing patches back to AOSP. The vast majority of Android devices are bootloader-locked so they aren't free or open at all, no more than a jailbroken iOS device.
In practice, it seems about the same. You need to root, unlock or jailbreak the device to install things that the manufacturer doesn't want you to. Before that, you're locked in. After that, you have total software freedom.
Unless you're actively contributing patches back to AOSP, I don't see how the difference in "software freedom" actually matters in practice.
Except that the vast majority of Android devices are not bootloader locked (Almost all samsung phones are sold unlocked, HTC provides an after-market unlock tool for most phones, Motorola recently started doing so). Besides, even if an Android phone is bootloader locked, you can actually do more on it than on an iphone.
And also, you dont have to contribute patches back to aosp to appreciate software freedom. How about building and running your own kernel on your phone. Is that something you would be interested in? Most Android phones can do that.
* How about building and running your own kernel on your phone. Is that something you would be interested in? Most Android phones can do that.*
No, I'm interested in browsing the web, reading and sometimes replying to my email, checking my calendar, doing online banking, finding restaurants via Yelp, reading my Instapaper queue, checking my RSS feeds, reading and replying on Twitter, listening to and downloading new podcasts I subscribe to, occasionally reading ebooks, listening to my own music and Internet radio, getting turn by turn navigation and sometimes walking or transit directions, and checking in on Foursquare.
In other words, I want a smartphone. Ideally, I want one that works without dorking around with a damn kernel recompile. Android phones can absolutely do all of those things (without damn kernel recompiles). And, darned if iPhones can't just as easily.
In practice, applications aren't lock-in. Data is lock-in. What Apple can do to piss me off is locking in my data, which is a potentially grave concern with iCloud. But just about everything I mentioned above is stuff that would take me about a day to migrate from iOS to Android or vice-versa, because nearly all of it involves open data formats.
Being able to put a new kernel on your phone? Sure, it could be fun. But when push comes to shove, the best thing a smartphone can do for me is to make its inner workings as invisible as possible. When I want to spend time cursing at a Unix shell prompt, that's why I have Arch Linux. Not on my phone.
> Except that the vast majority of Android devices are not bootloader locked (Almost all samsung phones are sold unlocked, HTC provides an after-market unlock tool for most phones, Motorola recently started doing so).
You named three companies, all listed only started doing it recently and only with high profile devices. The vast, VAST majority of Android devices are bootloader locked, because there are so many of them. Most of them aren't the high end Android phones that get all the attention.
> Besides, even if an Android phone is bootloader locked, you can actually do more on it than on an iphone.
Depending on the device you can enable installation of non-market APKs. Non-market APKs worth installing almost always require a root unless you're just pirating applications. That's about it.
> How about building and running your own kernel on your phone. Is that something you would be interested in? Most Android phones can do that.
I would personally throw that in the category of having an interest in OS development. Less of a niche than those who can contribute back to AOSP, still quite a small group. Also, not "most". Just those select high end devices with unlocked boot loaders.
I'm aware of the FSF. That happens to be one extremely narrow-minded definition software freedom. It's not everyone's. If your point is "I only buy devices that are open in the eyes of the FSF" then say that.
You didn't though, you said "software freedom" and in practice iOS provides plenty of software freedom. It just doesn't reach the unrealistic standard of the FSF.
Neither does Android frankly, but at least with AOSP it's closer.
I do not only buy devices that are open in the eyes of the FSF. But I really do prefer devices that go in the right direction rather than others. And while apple uses and even develops some open source software I still can get the complete android source code.
Would you not like the idea "it means that much wasteful duplication of system programming effort will be avoided. This effort can go instead into advancing the state of the art"?
It's good that you have some internal determination of what quality is, but to apply that to others and try to make them sound inferior because they don't share the same values and judgements just paints you as a member of the same sort of "fanatic" group you define. Having no clue what objectivity is doesn't put someone above others, it just produces judgemental rants like the one you posted. That sort of position contributes zero to the discussion and "the little people" attitude is just disgusting really.
There are some things that are better about PCs and some things that are better about Macs. Same with Android and iOS. To put it bluntly if you think otherwise you are an uninformed, brainwashed idiot.
While I agree that mediocre can be "good enough" (e.g. I don't see any reason to buy high end headphones, when I am perfectly happy with ~150 Euro ones), I think this should always be a decision made consciously, not one born out of stupidity or ignorance.
If those people don't require any of the things that make a "Samsung iPad" different than the Apple one, then fine, go save a few bucks, but don't chose it because you just assume that it's all the same.
I'm no audiophile, yet I've been using a ~50€ Sennheiser for some time, and ever since I tried my girlfriend's ~250€ Beyerdynamics ("really, there can't be such a difference?") I can attest there's actually a world of difference between them, so much so that I consider ~100€ entry level now (the Sennheiser really sounds like crap).
A Pro-Google Android Zealot writes a story on Google Plus about people switching from Apple to Samsung due to a patent lawsuit and you all believe it? I guess there really is a sucker born every minute.
Check Apple's earnings later to see who was right.
In addition, I am at Starbucks once a day, at least. Never seen people so damn eager to talk with strangers, which makes this story even more.... "amazing"? :)
I am extremely skeptical that a lawsuit that few people are even aware of will have any effect on either company's brand image. A lot of Apple's products could be called "iconic" - people with little interest in technology differentiate between an iPhone 3GS and an iPhone 4. I'd be surprised if anyone could tell a Samsung from an HTC. A lawsuit isn't going to change that.
I agree that most people haven't heard much about the lawsuit, but saying "I'd be surprised if anyone could tell a Samsung from an HTC" surely only applies to your acquaintaces.
Here in Uruguay they definitely will - and it is Samsung phones which sell the most, by far (we're very price sensitive which is a nicer word for poor :P ).
Totally anecdotal (but then again, so's the post we're all talking about here), but from talking to various non-technical people around the office a lot of people seem to think Samsung 'had it coming'. And let's not forget the jury found Samsung guilty, a jury that supposedly represents the common person.
So while we're all aghast at what's going on here it could be quite likely that a lot of people have sympathy with Apple...rightly or wrongly.
A few commenters here are not sure if this is real or not. I thought it was quite plainly put out as a tongue-in-cheek commentary in the form of an anecdote on the ridiculousness (according to the author) of this whole patent situation. "If Samsung copied Apple, why would we buy Apple? Just buy the cheap knock-off" is what he's angling at.
"... Samsung's iPad is the same as Apple's iPad, and I paid how much for the Apple one?" pretty much clinches this as fiction. Samsung's tablets are not "a lot cheaper" than the iPad. Not to mention all of the Starbucks patrons chatting with strangers.
So a while ago, I had this thought: "It's pretty obvious that the casual user will buy iPhones and not Galaxies. After all, Apple works very hard to make iPhones perfect for the casual user, and all of the goodiness that comes from having a more open phone is meaningless for the casual user".
A little later, as more and more people I knew gravitated towards the Galaxies, I realized the flaw in this thinking - the average user doesn't know that the iPhone is geared towards him/her, and is a much better fit for someone who doesn't want to tinker with their phone. Only techies know this.
The average user wants to buy a phone that they can put apps on. As far as they're concerned, the iPhone and the Galaxy is the same product, only with a vastly different price structure.
Just anecdotal (in the same way as the OP), but I ran into plenty of young, non-tech people who are aware of the difference and still choose Android. For them, Android is the OS with slightly worse apps but you can get them all for free, without ever using a credit card. E.g. WhatsApp couldn't afford to be paid-only on Android because it just wouldn't work with the audience.
I also have anecdotal evidence of this, where Android is perceived as the better option because there are supposedly more free apps and paid apps are easily pirated.
Even the local carrier's sales representatives try to move customers away from iPhones and iPads towards Android devices because 'most apps are free and they're just the same as the ones on the iPad/iPhone'.
Lots of non-tech users have no clue about the difference between an ipad and a galaxy tablet -- the only thing they know to differentiate is the price. Samsung makes their stores identical to Apple (they even have an equivalent genius bar -- they're called smart tutors in the samsung store), so when the average joe walks into a Samsung store, they think they're just buying a cheaper Apple product.
Even my 85 year old mother knows that there is Apple and then there are others. She doesn't know what the difference is, but she knows that there is one.
What perfect PR for Samsung. It reminds me of the story where a company hired actors for a PR stunt where they used pre-launch devices in public to create buzz for the product. Who was that?
A more probable headline - Apple consumers are wondering what they are paying for.
Not really news, and I doubt its going to affect sales for now. Eventually they'll have to reinvent themselves if they want to stay cool, though. (Like Sony Walkman failed to do so as a brand)
I think a more probable headline is "Nothing happens." Except that won't be much of a story.
Seriously, who's going to read "Samsung owes Apple $1B for patent infringement" and come away thinking that Apple is the bad guy? There are perfectly valid answers to that -- people concerned about the terrible state of patent law in the US, open source advocates, Hacker News readers -- but "average consumers" is not in that set of valid answers.
In practice what this means is that by Christmas Samsung has a bunch of new phones out that don't violate Apple's trade dress patents and everyone who is not a nerd mostly forgets about this. Samsung may lose on appeal, they may not, but a year from now they'll still be the #1 phone maker in the world and they will have phones that are more distinctive than they have now.
Or they will have phones that all look like Nokia's.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 costs $100 less than the latest iPad, and the same as the iPad 2. May I assume that "Samsung's iPad" in this case was actually a seven inch model, and a blatantly unfair comparison?
edit: not to mention that the value of OS X is part of tw cost of MacBooks; running it in a VM on another OS is common, but unfair to portray to random people as a legitimate action as evidence that Apple is ripping peons off.
I think you are probably safe to assume that. Clearly the guy writing this is coming from one particular side of the argument. I really couldn't care one way or the other - I like my iPhone, but if a Galaxy is going to make you happier go buy it.
However, don't discount the other side of the price argument. For some people price will be an important factor - however, as the iPod showed, it's not necessarily the main consideration for all consumers.
I had a discussion about a year ago with someone from Samsung - "look", he said, "the problem is this: our phones cost basically the same to make as Apple's phones, but the average consumer thinks that the iPhone is worth more than a Galaxy". Samsung would probably quite like to charge as much for a Galaxy S3 as Apple do for an iPhone 4S. In some markets and territories this actually happens.
If it's non-technical people speaking about the differences between to technical things you can almost guarantee that they are trying to compare apples and oranges.
What Apple has done is essentially throw all the hard work of its own marketing department out the window. Marketing works hard so consumers will pay more for what they perceive is a better product. Even if it's not.
Now Apple has called attention to how similar Samsung products are and people ARE going to make this connection no matter what.
Even if Apple gets an injunction, do you think customers will still be willing to pay that premium over Apple products? They will at least start questioning their choices.
In this consumerist society we might as well see riots and protests so Apple lowers the prices or the govt cancels the injunctions.
apparently this is exactly what Gigaom was referring to earlier today. I didn't think people would care, but apparently they do, don't understand, and Apple is paying the price.
> Samsung's iPad is the same as Apple's iPad, and I paid how much for the Apple one? Honey, I told you they were a ripoff"
Maybe now, but if Samsung has to pay a billion-dollar fine, the prices will be more comparable -- assuming that Samsung isn't also ordered to stop building machines so much like Apple's.
The sense of the article is that the lawsuit outcome favors Samsung -- that Apple is outing Samsung's units as being similar to Apple's but less money. This only works if Samsung's business isn't crippled by fines and cease-and-desist orders.
Sounds like a case of assumed "difference regret", where people (esp those who don't know much about the products they are choosing from) think they didn't get the best deal.
I find this (apparently fake) story interesting for the reaction that it created. I found it surprising (disturbing?) that anyone (even a fictional character) would equate losing a lawsuit for patent infringement with having an identical product. I was even for surprised reading through to comments on g+ to see how many were simply along the lines of "haha stoopid iPeons". As if they are dumb for having purchased an iProduct in the first place instead of the obviously identical but cheaper product from Samsung. Wat? I don't doubt the authors conjecture that some customers may have this odd reaction to the lawsuit, but why do so many people seem to think that it is a natural reaction to have?
It's a bit annoying, and you shouldn't have to do this, but you can read it in privacy mode within your browser (in which case you won't be asked to login). I have a somewhat orthogonal issue that requires this. My Google Apps administrator has disabled Google+, so it asks me for a login when accessing Google+ pages despite the fact that I won't actually be able to read the article even after logging in.
Fortunately, Google+ pages still show up rarely on HN.
Tim Cook specifically stated the reason they took action is in alignment with Apple's values, with innovation being the big one. Looking at the products Apple cranks out I don't think anyone can deny they value innovation (even if it means stealing along the way). They used the existing system in the best way they could in alignment with their core values, despite the fact it might confuse the customer, they lose sales etc, etc. Good for Apple.
Why do I have a strong feeling that this is anti-Apple blogspam? If people confuse Apple products with Samsung products, it's because Samsung wants that confusion to exist. Apple's innovations weren't "obvious" until Apple put them into their products. Please consider the criticism iPhone received for not having a keyboard or buttons back in 2007.
If we accept the message behind this apparent parable (Samsung tablets have higher visibility now because of the lawsuit) is this not a great opportunity for WinRT based tablets?
Trusted brand, cheaper than iPad (I'm assuming for the WinRT ones) range of styles from different manufacturers, a (possibly limited) version of Office...
One more thing about the lawsuit: the battle startet long before it was taken to court, with all of Apple's ads suggesting that they invented stuff they did not really invent. And now a jury got to decide, that was of course also raised/brainwashed with Apple advertisements.
I hope you understand why you are going to be aggressively downmodded, and it's not because of any nationalism. It's because this sort of comment is beneath the basic standards of cordiality in any serious discussion, even in a forum as notoriously crass as this one. Not to mention it adds nothing to the discussion of substance, having even less impact than "Me too!"
What's more, it's not even fair. Indeed, the entire point of this trial was for Apple to make a case that consumers are confused in America. So you can't really accept the verdict of this case and then say this is implausible or "Americans are stupid." If Apple is right, then Samsung has engaged in deliberate deception. If Samsung is right, then it's not unreasonable to ask if Apple actually has been overcharging people off on phones dictated by basic design principles.
What I can't understand is what sort of message the media over there is sending about the whole trial that gets people to think that their hardware is the "same"... Even non tech fellows understand "oranges and apples", in most situations! Maybe we're better educated on this subject on my region but most people understand this stuff. People that don't understand this, don't give a crap for the actual brand and just buy some Huawei or carrier branded phone/tablet.
For Apple, it's all about controlling the minds of consumers. And controlling their access to information about the devices.
For Samsung, it's less about that and more about plain old lack of interoperability: proprietary plugs, crappy Windows proprietary "install" software that was written hastily, and other little annoyances, stuff that will only work with Samsung. Like every other Asian manufacturer for as long as I can remember. (But at least companies like Samsung make SSD's and other components that can be used in any device. They keep companies like Apple afloat. Can Apple make its own components? Not as cost-effectively as Samsung.)
The result is always the same: the consumer overpays for these cheap electronics and gets next to zero customer service. It's "take it or leave it".
Showing a random Starbucks customer OSX in a virtual machine? Priceless.
If they only knew what their iPhones, iPads, "iOS" and "OSX" were really made of. They might never care. But they do care about overpaying.
How can you claim to say what it's all about for Apple? You are very far out of bounds to claim it's about controlling something. From my perspective it's about making devices that offer a good experience, and from their current earnings I'd say that consumers believe it to be a fair price for that experience.
Starbucks has forced other coffee shops (assuming there were any- in many cities they wasn't anything comparable to Starbucks in recent times) out of the picture. Are Starbucks customers faced with an abundance of choice of which coffee shop to visit? Or is Starbucks front and center, the "default choice"?
Maybe things have changed but in the past there were no unsubsidised cellphones available to US customers. Are US consumers wanting a cellphone now having to decide whether to buy a subsidised (locked) or unsubsidised cellphone? Maybe things are changing.
In many other countries the phones are not locked.
Choice.
When someone in the US goes to buy a touchscreen tablet, how much choice of other alternatives will they have?
Yes, I know that. Samsung is one company among many. For example, in the first iPods (which kicked off this insane run Apple is having), they relied on Toshiba for the drives.
I also know that thinking Apple would be able to stay afloat if they did not use manufacturers in Asia, such as Samsung, is "utter delusion". Is that what you're suggesting?
But I digress. This post has it wrong. What he supposedly overheard in a Starbucks wasn't caused by the Apple v. Samsung ruling but was a direct result of what Samsung had been trying to do all along.