Let it slide, Steve
Here is the story: Apple sues Samsung over the Galaxy Phone and Pad and the Internet is going nuts about Apples stance to do so. How could a company like Apple actually complain about this? To foster that statement a recent blog post even shows how Apple or better Jonathan “Jony” Ive, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Industrial Design has been “inspired” by Dieter Rams and the Braun design.
Well, not that this is a new thing at all (Jonathan Ive actually wrote Dieter Rams a letter to appreciate the inspiration by Rams design), it is an interesting comparison. And Rams actually sees Apple as the company that continues his vision of design.
So is what Samsung is doing the same thing what Apple is doing in the end? Personally I don’t think so. Yes, Apple “copies” the impression of many Rams products in a way that Rams follows a Bauhaus style, but that is still not copying the product as such. Taking elements of a good design and forming new products based on that is part of designing things. It’s part of the evolution.
You can argue now that Samsung and actually Google are by far doing more than that by essentially copying a whole product and the functionality in the Chinese way. And as the Chinese do that to “honor” the original design as we all know :) Samsung, Google and all the other phone manufactures are basically trying to copy the business model of Apple 1 to 1.
Do I think this is ok? No. Should Apple care about it? The answer is no. The copy is worse than the genuine product and customers are considering that of course. Does any of those copycats be it Samsung, Microsoft, HTC, etc. do have the same success compared to Apple? Of course not.
I guess it would be a good move of Apple to actually let it slide and simply do what they can do best: innovate and create all new products. But then again, this is Steve Jobs and not a company …
