Design

Why Square buying design shop 80/20 matters

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 6, 2018

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...

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

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 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...

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

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 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...

Poll: which iPhone 5 are you?

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 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...

Crisp shots of the two-tone iPhone 5 design surface

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated April 10, 2018

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...

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

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 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...

Check out this interactive 3D model of iPad mini

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated December 26, 2016

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...

Samsung has 20 times as many designers as Apple

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 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...

Samsung designer: work on Galaxy Tab 10.1 preceded iPad unveiling

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 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...

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

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated March 12, 2018

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...

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

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 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?

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

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 25, 2016

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...