Here are two ads for similar products. One of them is lying, can you tell which it is?
Tag Archive for 'ipad'
Samsung cited the viewscreen used in a scene in Kubrick’s 1968 masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey as prior art in the lawsuit filed against them by Apple over the likeness of the Galaxy Tab vs. the iPad, claiming that:
In a clip from that film lasting about one minute, two astronauts are eating and at the same time using personal tablet computers. The clip can be downloaded (sic) online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ8pQVDyaLo. As with the design claimed by the D’889 Patent, the tablet disclosed in the clip has an overall rectangular shape with a dominant display screen, narrow borders, a predominately flat front surface, a flat back surface (which is evident because the tablets are lying flat on the table’s surface), and a thin form factor. (Source)
Setting aside the fact that there can’t be any question in the minds of rationally thinking people, that the Galaxy Tabs treads in the footsteps of the iPad, albeit drunkenly and without much conviction, there’s the small issue that despite Samsung’s claims, the iPad shares almost no properties with the viewscreens in 2001.
- It is about twice the size of the iPad.
- It’s edges are flush with the screen, except at the bottom.
- It has ten physical push-buttons, numbered 1 through 10 at the bottom.
- There is no interaction with the device, aside from Bowman turning it on to view a video signal.
Samsung’s claim misleads by using the term ‘personal tablet computers’, when in fact there is nothing to indicate them as such. The claim also links to a YouTube video which specifically uses the words “Apple iPad” in its title.
There’s only one problem; the viewscreen in 2001 are not computers, they are, flat, battery-powered TVs. They look and and operate exactly how you would extrapolate a TV if you were looking to make a film taking place some 30 years in the future. Smaller and portable. And vertical, for the same reasons that hallways in science fiction films are never simply square. And they display no interactive properties beyond that, nor do they share such crucial properties with the iPad as its grapping bezel, or compact size. Not to mention the ability to function as something other than a TV.
It is no more prior art to the design of the iPad, than a TV set is prior art to the design of the Mac.
Read also: Joen and I follow up.
Update: Justice is served in Germany.
Even when I close any notifiers and twitter-/chat clients, I’m just too easily distracted to get writing done in proper on my Mac. I blame Command–TAB, however I guess I’ll have to take full responsibility myself…
Continue reading ‘Writing on the iPad: A Story of Love, Heartache & Infuriating Bugs’
dConstruct 2010 was above and beyond expectations, and it was, as always, pleasant putting real-world faces and mannerisms to Twitter streams. Others will do much better play-by-plays than I could hope for (the talks will be podcast, and I’ll be sure to curate my favorites then). For now, a couple of the highlights that stuck with me:
Yesterday I sent Rikke off to a party and hunkered down in front of my MBP to get some work done. Not content to let Gozer, my newly acquired iPad sit unused next to Vinz Glortho, my iPhone, I ran a couple of video podcasts on it, since most days I can’t seem to find time or in more practical terms actual screen real estate, 27 inches regardless, to do so.
I ended up watching The Big Web show at around the time my internals started sending signals up through the system along the lines of: “Hey moron, you know food? Have some, why don’t you…”
So I walked the iPad into the kitchen, docked on the kitchen counter, nearly flush against the wall, listening to sage usability testing advice while I got out and prepared a particularly scrumptious left-over burrito, of which I should have tweeted a photo, because after all that’s why we — we being someone else — built the internet.
Once I had finished messing up the kitchen counter, being a man’s man and all, I moved burrito and iPad in tandem to the table and proceeded to reenact a less trance-like and considerably less well-designed version of Dave Bowman chowing down.
Then I threw myself on the couch like the slob I also am, finishing The Big Web Show. Then I may have nodded off for a short while. But when I woke, I checked some feeds, answered an e-mail and bought Invincible #60 and read that.
Then I updated my Things todo list for the project I was working on, wrote a draft e-mail to the client and went back to… ehm.. continued working at the MBP.
The assholes were right, this thing is worthless. Especially without the camera.
I should’ve bought a netbook.
NOT!
So Alessandrini put out a challenge on Twitter:
All those who think no flash on ipad is A-OK please uninstall flash from your current browser, use that for a month then get back to me.
So I’ve gone halfsies and installed FlashBlock for Chrome, which forces me to click whenever I need to see something Flash-based, and I’ll use this entry to report, as the month goes by, what things I would have been unable to do or see due to the lack of Flash. This isn’t meant to prove that everyone will do fine without Flash, nor even that I will. Rather, it will highlight issues to overcome in the near future as well as tell me and you something about my internet habits in relation to Flash.
Or in other words: I walk the walk, but do I talk the talk?
The irony of me lauding how a closed proprietary device is helping oust a proprietary technology is thick, but honestly I couldn’t be happier that Flash seemingly isn’t supported by the iPad. Gruber has written much about Flash and Apple, and he’s a clever guy, so if you haven’t read his stuff yet, you should do yourself a favor and consume his site start to finish, but here’s my take.
Maybe he’ll shed some light on it himself at some point, though he’s probably under some crazy NDA. But before people start slinging mud at Apple for ‘ripping off’ the ‘wooden shelves’ look for the new iBooks app from Delicious Library, consider that Mike Matas who designed that interface for Delicious Monster worked for Apple for a couple of years (leaving in july of last year).
Update: “[Delcious Monster co-founder] Mike Matas was a UI designer on the iPad, [former employee] Lucas Newman is an iPhone / iPad engineer, and [former employee] Tim Omernick was an iPhone / iPad engineer but left a while ago to work on games independently.” #