{"id":4479,"date":"2012-07-29T15:03:46","date_gmt":"2012-07-29T19:03:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=4479"},"modified":"2014-03-10T06:55:00","modified_gmt":"2014-03-10T10:55:00","slug":"the-smartphone-wars-the-iphone-design-was-inspired-by-sony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=4479","title":{"rendered":"The Smartphone Wars: The iPhone Design Was Inspired by Sony"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><cite>Wired<\/cite> magazine brings us a fascinating revelation from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/gadgetlab\/2012\/07\/apple-reveals-for-monday-trial\/\">Apple-vs.-Samsung brouhaha<\/a>.  <\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nThink Apple\u2019s iconic iPhone design was born deep within the catacombs of Apple\u2019s Cupertino campus? Think again.<\/p>\n<p>According to Samsung\u2019s unredacted trial brief (.pdf), the inspiration for the look of Apple\u2019s original iPhone actually came from an idea for a Sony smartphone.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn February 2006, before the claimed iPhone design was conceived, Apple executive Tony Fadell circulated a news article to Steve Jobs, Jonathan Ive and others. In the article, a Sony designer discussed Sony designs for portable electronic devices that lacked buttons and other \u2018excessive ornamentation,\u2019 fit in the hand, were \u2018square with a screen\u2019 and had \u2018corners [which] have been rounded out,\u2019\u201d the document explains. An Apple industrial designer, Shin Nishibori, then mocked up the design, even using Sony\u2019s logo on the back of the CAD drawing.<\/p>\n<p>According to Nishibori\u2019s testimony, his design changed the course of the iPhone project, and pointed it toward the iPhone of today.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This isn&#8217;t speculation &#8211; an Apple employee copied Sony&#8217;s design, circulated it to his bosses, and <em>testified to these facts in court<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>From now on, when anyone heaps phrase on Apple&#8217;s design excellence and superlative innovation, just point and laugh.  Some of us have been saying for years that what Apple is really good at is ripping off other peoples&#8217; ideas and stealing the credit for them with slick marketing.  This, right here, is the proof.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wired magazine brings us a fascinating revelation from the Apple-vs.-Samsung brouhaha.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[34],"class_list":["post-4479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-smartphone-wars","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4479"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5370,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4479\/revisions\/5370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}