When I look at this phone, what do I see? I see icons on a background (I made my background black, but it often has a picture in the background). There are names below the icons. There is some sort of a task bar at the top of the screen. Then I looked at the desktop of my computer: There are icons on a background, with names below them. There is also a taskbar, albeit it is not at the top of the screen but at the bottom, it certainly is similar. Windows has had this design since years ago when the iPhone didn't even exist yet! Who is Apple to say someone copied 'their' design?
Ok, so Windows doesn't scroll icons left and right like the smartphones do when you swipe them, but how else would you do that? That would be a childish thing to whine about. Also both phones have a hardware button at the bottom (Samsung actually has 3) but this can't be all about just that, can it?! No, I don't think this bickering between companies is about what they say it is about. I think it is about fighting their rivalry with every possible means, I think it is childish and I despise it.
Programming on the Samsung Galaxy S2
Enough about that. Let's talk a bit domotics. The Samsung Galaxy S2 runs the Android operating system which seems to be very good with Java. So I tried programming for this Samsung phone and that worked out well. It is relatively easy to write something up in Java, install it on the phone and it runs. It really is that simple. No need to have a special platform, no need to buy an SDK or compiler. This means that when my new home computer software is finished, I will be writing some 'apps' for this phone that interface with my home computer! Talk about remote controls :)
Later I will talk a bit more about my work on the new home computer software (and also some about the hardware). But I also have to cook up a release build for another project (Doom Builder) so I won't be writing blogs every other day, sorry.
Also have a look at this guy's website: bwired.nl. He did an amazing job monitoring pretty much everything in and around his house! Although I really don't need to know when he flushed a large amount and when small amount through the toilet, I really liked most of it so I just wanted to plug that here.
What Samsung has been doing is similar to "mockbusters" in the movie buisness... in other markets it's simply called "knockoffs". Example ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmorphers vs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformers_(film) )
ReplyDeleteThere are thousands of ways to design the hardware and software layout of a smartphone. Samsung have repeatedly made design choices that create the least difference from the iPhone (with early versions of touchwiz) and iPad. http://gadgetsdna.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/samsung_Galaxy_S_iphone.jpg
Here are more (even worse) examples of knockoff products - http://www.buzzfeed.com/hgrant/23-hilariously-bad-knockoff-brands
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Other example of this is S Voice which borrows heavily modeled after SIRI down to color choices, ui metaphores and interaction model. It's like they have given up on doing their own R&D and simply go with whatever Apple come up with: http://www.ijailbreak.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/S-Voice-Comparison.jpg