Analysts assure investors that Apple is in good hands without Scott Forstall

By Ed Sutherland on Oct 30, 2012

The departure of Scott Forstall, long-time aide to the late Steve Jobs, leaves Apple “in good hands,” analysts are assuring investors. Additionally, Jonathan Ive, the design guru, will likely gain even more power, overseeing both hardware and software. Forstall, head of iOS until Monday, was in charge of the company’s move toward Apple Maps. He reportedly was forced out after refusing to sign a public apology letter following the mapping debacle. But friction was building between Forstall and a cadre of executives now surrounding Apple CEO Tim Cook… Read More

 

Apple wins important patent for the original iPad design

By Christian Zibreg on Oct 17, 2012

We know Apple often patents stuff just so rivals couldn’t patent the same invention. That’s what other companies are doing as well. But Apple, more than any other company, depends on being able to protect its ideas and leverage patents to prevent copycat products from eating into its sales. The iPhone maker has been on somewhat of a patent spree lately and today has been granted a key patent for design of the original iPad tablet computer… Read More

 

Apple may have changed the iPad mini’s round shape design

By Christian Zibreg on Oct 9, 2012

Apple tomorrow is allegedly expected to invite select members of the press to an iPad mini-focused media event, likely to be held at some point next week. With part leaks, dummies, schematics, mockups, gorgeous renders and news of manufacturing ramp up all leaking on a daily basis, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the iPad mini design has been set in stone weeks ago.

A new report by a reliable Japanese blog now claims Apple’s changed the iPad mini design and one “large OEM mobile accessory maker” had to throw cases it already made, likely based on same leaks and rumors we’ve been hearing about… Read More

 

Why Square buying design shop 80/20 matters

By Christian Zibreg on Oct 1, 2012

News made rounds earlier today that Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s another startup, Square, just snapped up design shop 80/20. Square makes an awesome iPhone and Android payment solution based on a credit card dongle and it recently teamed up with Starbucks on micro-payments.

Headquartered in New York, 80/20 is renowned for its design work on user interfaces. They did a dashboard for the electric vehicle company Better Place and a sexy fitness-tracking watch for Google’s subsidiary Motorola.

Here’s why Square and 80/20 are a natural fit, why the deal makes in a greater scheme of things and why you should care… Read More

 

Apple is the best brand and design studio of the last 50 years

By Christian Zibreg on Sep 19, 2012

Apple’s design team lead by SVP of Industrial Design Jonathan Ive was summoned at the 50th anniversary celebration of Design and Art Direction (D&AD), one of the world’s most prestigious prizes for advertising and design. Apple was named both the best brand and best design studio of the last 50 years. In order to mark the occasion, Apple did something it’s never done before.

The Cupertino company flew its entire 16-member industrial design team to London and made them available for a unique photo-op. These are the people that made your iPhones, iPods, iPads, Macs and numerous other products that ooze with style and sexyness… Read More

 

Apple’s Ive commissioned to design limited-edition Leica M camera?

By Christian Zibreg on Sep 18, 2012

A new report asserts that Apple’s SVP of Industrial Design Jonathan Ive will help design a one-of-a-kind Leica M camera for charity. The new Leicas were announced at the Photokina event in Germany yesterday. the Leica M model features a 24-megapixel CMOS sensor, Live View and 1080p HD video recording, a Gorilla Glass three-inch LCD screen with 920K pixels and more.

It will set you back a cool $6,950, or $5,450 if you go for the more affordable Leica E model. Ive, who won numerous industry awards for his work at Apple, will reportedly design a limited-edition Leica M camera which will be auctioned off for charity. Only one unit of the camera will be produced… Read More

 

Poll: which iPhone 5 are you?

By Christian Zibreg on Sep 12, 2012

Isn’t it funny how no one is bitching about the two-tone iPhone 5 design now? Prior to the announcement, you were pretty divided over the controversial design, with 53 percent upvoting the two-tone thing and the remaining 47 percent saying it looks hideous.

It’s here now, it is two-tone and boy does it look great, thanks to Apple’s production polish and some top-notch Photoshop work. If there’s one thing we can all learn from this, it’s not to take blurry shots of engineering samples and leaked shells for granted: the final production units always feel and look substantially smoother and sexier compared to the samples leaking out of Asia.

The two-tone design entails some interesting design solutions: the handset is no longer purely black or white. Instead, Jonny Ive and his team took advantage of two similar colors to subtly accent the phone’s trim, not just the glass stripes on the back.

If you’ll be getting yourself an iPhone 5, we’d love to hear which one it’s gonna be: the white & silver combo or the black & slate one… Read More

 

Crisp shots of the two-tone iPhone 5 design surface

By Christian Zibreg on Sep 11, 2012

The most visible design change concerning the next iPhone, which is due for the official announcement tomorrow, is its metallic backplate with two glass stripes at the top and bottom for cellular and WiFi antenna. It’s perhaps the most controversial feature of the next iPhone. Matter of fact, our own little poll tells us you guys are pretty torn over the two-tone thing.

Making matter even more interesting is a last-minute leak by the increasingly reliable Rene Ritchie, who obtained a pair of high-quality photos of the iPhone 5 dummy depicting the two-tone thing in detail greater than ever before. In addition, the photos show a nice closeup of the handset’s bottom with its smaller dock connector and relocated headphone jack… Read More

 

Shocker: iPhone 5 almost identical in design to your iPhone 4/4S

By Christian Zibreg on Sep 5, 2012

There’s been a lot of hoopla in the weeks building up to the next Wednesday’s massive event that Apple’s next iPhone won’t be radically different to the existing iPhone 4/4S form factor, much to the delight of fans the world over (or horror, depending on where you’re standing).

Our own little poll suggested that people continue to be torn over the issue of the iPhone 5 design. Nearly 55 percent of respondents voted for the leaked design featuring an all-metal backplate with plastic bands at the top and bottom for wireless and cellular antenna, in addition to the relocated headphone jack and a miniaturized dock connector. The remaining 45 percent said the design looked fugly as hell.

If you’ve been keeping your fingers crossed for a last-minute surprise from Apple, here comes a shocker: a new credible report reaffirms claims that the next iPhone won’t look a whole lot different to the iPhone 4/4S form factor, sans a couple cosmetic changes and the two-tone thing on the back… Read More

 

Check out this interactive 3D model of iPad mini

By Christian Zibreg on Sep 5, 2012

Ahead of the next week’s iPhone 5 presser and a rumored mini iPad introduction in October, an interesting three-dimensional interactive model of Apple’s rumored inexpensive, smaller iPad has hit the web this morning, based on leaked parts and several notable pieces of information that have been floating around the blogosphere.

All the rumors appear to point to a relocated headphone jack located next to the dock connector which, as you know, should be much smaller to allow for thinner designs, just like on the next iPhone. Based on this information, 3D artists created a highly-detailed 3D interactive model of the rumored mini iPad… Read More

 

Samsung has 20 times as many designers as Apple

By Christian Zibreg on Sep 4, 2012

Yet the Korean company is unable to come up with distinct enough designs to avoid being accused of purposefully creating products that look like knockoffs, per the ruling in the Apple v. Samsung trial. While Apple’s products are created by a “kitchen” design team comprised of no more than twenty people and led by SVP of Industrial Design Jonathan Ive, Samsung has 20 times as many designers as Apple, Bloomberg reports… Read More

 

Samsung designer: work on Galaxy Tab 10.1 preceded iPad unveiling

By Christian Zibreg on Aug 16, 2012

Today, Samsung’s new 10-inch Galaxy Note tablet goes on sale in the United States, priced at $499/$549 for the 16/32GB version. The device comes with a stylus and has some interesting multitasking functionality. Samsung also has another 10.1-inch tablet, the Galaxy Tab. The device sports more traditional design akin to iPad and as such has caused contention between Samsung and Apple, resulting in Apple’s copycat accusations.

Samsung industrial designer Jin Soo Kim took the stand yesterday to testify that his work on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 began in October 2009, insinuating that Samsung designed, engineered and manufactured its tablet before Apple unveiled the original iPad in January of 2010… Read More

 

Samsung says Apple lifted the iPad’s design from a 1981 tablet, other prior art claims

By Christian Zibreg on Aug 15, 2012

It’s the third week of the Apple v. Samsung mega-suit and Samsung is on the offensive with some interesting assertions meant to invalidate some of Apple’s key patents. For example, the Galaxy maker, whom Apple accuses of ripping off its iPad and iPhone wholesale, now counterclaims that Apple stole its patents related to things like e-mail, photo albums and playing music in the background.

Furthermore, Samsung brought a number of experts who testified that Apple’s patents should be invalidated due to a bunch of prior art. Heck, the company even wheeled in a monstrous Surface-like tablet computer into the courtroom in an attempt to invalidate Apple’s pinch-zoom feature and establish that everyone, even Apple, takes inspiration from someone else’s work… Read More

 

Samsung designer: we didn’t copy Apple’s icons

By Christian Zibreg on Aug 14, 2012

Attorneys for Apple embarrassed Samsung last week by showing the jurors half a dozen images meant to prove that the Galaxy maker shamelessly ripped off the look of the iPhone’s icons. Though Apple believes that Samsung’s TouchWiz interface makes it a copycat, that’s ultimately up for the jury to decide.

Today, a Samsung designer took the stand to testify that she didn’t copy Apple when creating the icons for the Galaxy line of products. Call me stupid, but how the heck then she’d managed to come up with icon design that strikingly resembles Apple’s? Read More

 

Surprise, a lot of folks get confused between Apple and Samsung products

By Christian Zibreg on Aug 10, 2012

Seriously, do you know anyone who in their right mind would mistaken a Samsung phone for an iPhone? Anyone? If your answer is a resounding ‘no’, congrats – you’re officially a geek, just like yours truly.

Now, Apple’s been arguing from the onset that the extent of alleged copying of its industrial design exhibited in Samsung’s work introduces a strong likelihood of customer confusion between the two brands.

While gadget lovers whose morning routine includes skimming through tech news cannot grasp how anyone could possibly mistaken a gadget with the Samsung logo for one with a bitten apple on it, to those outside the tech circles – you know, the general public, average consumers and Joes Schmucks of this world - the similarities are painfully obvious.

Specifically, one in two thought they saw an iPhone when presented with an image depicting a Samsung phone… Read More

 

Samsung now copies Apple’s Mac mini?

By Christian Zibreg on Aug 10, 2012

Amid the epic Apple v. Samsung legal fight over mobile devices, it’s easy to overlook other cases where an argument could be made that Samsung looked to Apple’s design language perhaps too closely in order to make its gear more pleasing to the eye. Enter Samsung’s Chromebox Series 3, a $300 computer running Google’s Chrome OS.

The computer comes packaged in an enclosure which bears uncanny resemblance to Apple’s Mac mini, down to the exact 7.6-inch-square footprint, rounded corners and silver rim, which in Samsung’s case is made of painted plastic instead of aluminum. Of course, you’re free to argue I’m stretching it, but first take a look at the comparison images right after the break… Read More

 

Apple and Samsung now bickering over stickers on court exhibits

By Christian Zibreg on Aug 10, 2012

We were expecting all sorts of clever maneuvering and cunning legal tactics in the Apple v. Samsung case, but in all honesty nothing could have prepared us for this.

Seemingly out of the blue, Samsunf on Friday filed a motion that asks the court to take a closer look at the stickers Apple plastered on the back of Samsung devices which are part of court exhibits pertaining to the case.

The Galaxy maker argues that Apple just recently attached large exhibit labels to the backside of its devices in a manner that purposefully obscures Samsung’s trade dress (the visual appearance of a product or its packaging).

Samsung names three devices in its motion, among them the Galaxy S Captivate (pictured above) which Samsung argues could deceive the jurors with its large sticker that intentionally obscures “a distinct checkered back panel”. No, really… Read More

 

Industrial design expert on why Samsung is the copyist

By Christian Zibreg on Aug 6, 2012

Samsung has been called the copyist by Apple many times over, the first time in court documents the iPhone maker filed as part of patent infringement claims brought against its frenemy in April of 2011.

But evidence is mounting that Samsung slavishly copied some areas of the iPhone experience, like the iPhone’s gorgeous icons.

On Monday, Apple brought in an expert to testify before a northern California court where the iPhone and Galaxy makers locked horns in the patent trial of the century… Read More

 

Apple worked on curved-glass iPhone, but production was prohibitively expensive

By Christian Zibreg on Aug 2, 2012

This Apple vs. Samsung litigation may be the patent trial of the century, but to fans it’s also a treasure trove of valuable information concerning the company’s industrial design and craftsmanship, something Apple never detailed voluntarily.

One of the more interesting nuggets from yesterday’s deposition by Apple’s designer Christopher Stringer highlighted two interesting prototypes that Apple eventually passed on: one sporting a shaped glass and the other featuring all-aluminum enclosure akin to the iPod… Read More

 

Poll: is Samsung’s F700 an iPhone copy?

By Christian Zibreg on Aug 1, 2012

An interesting argument arose in the Apple-Samsung litigation related to Samsung’s F700 handset. As you know, Samsung sought to present this and other handsets – but the F700 in particular – as trial evidence of prior art that they were designing handsets akin to the iPhone before Apple got to announce its phone in January of 2007.

Judge Lucy Koh excluded that device and a bunch of other Samsung phones from the hearings, but Samsung defiantly publicized the slides yesterday, angering the Judge.

Apple had originally included the F700 as patent infringing in its suit, but later dropped it as it realized Samsung was working on this before the iPhone was released and especially after learning that Samsung applied for a South Korean design registration application in December of 2006, a month before the iPhone’s public unveiling.

Kill me but I just don’t see any similarities between the F700 and the iPhone, especially not ones that could establish prior art for either party.

Maybe you do? Read More

 
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