No, no, no you guys don't understand. This is not a cheap rip-off. It's an homage and the Swiss will be honoured that their famous clock has been elevated to the high-art status of Apple design and innovation. The critical eye of an average iPhone user will appreciate the fine craftsmanship & precision of the painstaking work that went into translating the iconic clock into an exact digital replica.
Sorry, I don't understand the satire here. It sounds like you're mimicking the response to claims that Apple stole designs from Braun? But the two situations are nothing alike -- cribbing industrial design elements from defunct products is a far cry from duplicating a trademarked image more or less exactly.
It seems more likely you're trying to dig on Apple for going thermonuclear on trade dress while at the same time stealing somebody else's intellectual property. In which case you have it backwards, and the satire here should be something about how Apple has no right copying someone else's hard work just to make a quick buck, and that a numberless clock face with highly contrasting colors seems obvious now only because they went to so much effort to work it out.
Except that's not very funny, because it's exactly right. I doubt if even the most hardcore Apple fanatics would argue SBB doesn't at least have a case. So they'll sue, and Apple might pay a license fee, or change the clock, or argue that the clock has some reason for not being a valid trademark or infringing.
And my only question is, if that case goes to trial and SBB wins and Apple has to stop shipping that clock face and pay some compensation, will HN fill up with satirical posts ranting about how you can't copyright a minimal clock face in white, black and red, how this judgment is anticompetitive, stifling to innovation and will surely be thrown out in a higher court very soon now, how much an indictment it is of the copyright system in general?
Because that would be a funny joke. Seriously, this community has been weird about Apple of late.
People probably feel that it is hypocritical to sue one company for copying your designs, and then turn around and copy designs off someone else, especially when they happen right a few months apart.
Personally, my moral compass immediately feels that this is worse than just plain copying, and I assume that is why people are reacting with a stronger anti-Apple sentiment here.
This is a digression, but I have trouble with the idea of hypocrisy in general. It's difficult for me to conceive that, morally, espousing wrong beliefs and adhering to them in one's personal life is better than espousing wrong beliefs while at least doing the right thing oneself.
(Assuming the people who made these decisions have any interaction with each other:) If intellectual property is well grounded, Apple is right to defend their own, but wrong to copy others'. If it is not, they are wrong to defend their own, but justified in using others'. Yes, they are wrong in either case, but tu quoque is the sorry refuge taken to avoid having to admit that they are also right in either.
Hypocrisy is the antithesis of the golden rule, which is why I tend to have a problem with it.
It's not anything that automatically refutes someones arguments, it just tells me that when it comes to that subject, they're an asshole. And when someone is being an asshole, I just don't care about their arguments.
The problem with hypocrisy in general is that when combined with the human propensity for pattern matching and abstract generalization, if you think hard enough everyone becomes a hypocrite.
>And when someone is being an asshole, I just don't care about their arguments.
But that's too bad. Better to do what a hypocrite proposes if it's the right thing, than to ignore it because of what he does.
Here's a nice article on the topic:
There are many reasons a charge of hypocrisy might be reactionary and counter-productive. First of all, the hypocrisy mindset pays too much attention to people's personal lives and too little to their programmatic or ideological outlook. If someone is a visionary, or is trying to solve a widespread problem, it's likely that his personal life will reflect the problem whereas his policies will reflect the solution. It would then be pretty stupid to accuse him of saying one thing and doing another -- especially if everyone were pretty much in the same boat, at least until an alternative infrastructure is set up. A charge of hypocrisy might well be a pre-emptive strike designed to stymie future solutions to universal problems.
Consistency is the hobgoblin of petty minds. Wanting things to be less complex, and wanting people and societies to be without internal contradictions is understandable, but small-minded. It ignores the fact that it is often only by sinning ourselves that we can learn exactly why sinning is bad. At a certain point we are all saying one thing and doing another. This is, apart from anything else, a sure sign of our complexity, and of our capacity to rise above our current way of living and search for alternatives, no matter how deeply we're mired. Allow it, brothers!
We often strike down people with a spotted reputation only to replace them with people who are unapologetically evil. We hate to be preached at so much that we ignore the sermons we need to hear and prefer unalloyed corruption. At least it's consistent, right? At least there's no hypocrisy there! At least change is taken off the agenda! Thank Christ "hypocrisy" has absolved us of the need to feel wrong, and to make a painful change!
There are 100 people in a room, all doing A Bad Thing. They know it's a bad thing, a thing that will damage the room and everyone in it, but they can't stop. Suddenly a Visionary makes a powerful and moving speech. "We must stop doing The Bad Thing!" he says. His speech is effective: everyone stops. Except the Visionary himself, who keeps doing it. This, however, is a minor detail: the room is a better, safer place. Instead of 100 people doing The Bad Thing, only one is doing it. Suddenly a Commentator gets up. "Suckers!" he shouts. "You've stopped doing The Bad Thing, but the man who made you stop still does it! You've been had... by a hypocrite!" Soon everyone in the room is doing The Bad Thing again.
But tell me, please, who has damaged the room more, the Visionary or the Commentator? Who has the best chance of helping the room?
An assessment of the morality of hypocrisy, as with lying, cannot ignore the motivation of the hypocrite (or liar). It's one thing if a fat person shares diet secrets with you. That is along the lines of someone who is a great coach but can't play. I wouldn't throw the label of hypocite at that person.
But it's quite another thing if someone tries to convince you to behave one way while s/he secretly behaves differently- and it is to his/her personal benefit and (perhaps) to your detriment to do so.
For example, if somebody makes a 'moral' claim that all feezos should be in the public domain in order to convince others to donate their efforts, but that person makes a best-in-class feezo based on all the others' work and doesn't release it into the public domain, that person is a hypocrite with bad motivation. I don't like those people. I don't excuse those people. Any public good that comes of it is likely accidental, although I am sure they will try to convince you otherwise.
So I agree with sbov with the following addition: I don't care about the hypocrite's arguments of persuasion. I won't throw out a good idea just because it comes from a hypocrite. But I won't believe it's a good idea just because the hypocrite says so even if the hypocrite is an expert in the area being discussed. I will seek other ways to validate his claim. And yes, I know, we should always do this, so I can state this a different way: I won't use the hypocrite to validate a claim.
This is a great post. I've been listening to the podcast "Back To Work" and Merlin has a similar view:
>"I think the concern of hypocrisy keeps us small. It keeps our world small, it keeps our horizons limited, and it keeps our self-worth as low as it can conceivably go. Because we’re defining ourselves in large part by what other people claim that we are. When the truth is, we’re all a goddamn mess. [...] The people who obsess most about hypocrisy are the people who are least willing to change. They have the least room to change. If you set yourself up as this paragon of perfection, then you have a lot to lose by being shown as anything but 100%. But, like, once you allow yourself to be imperfect in this weird wabi-sabi way, your world gets a lot bigger."
Yes, and it also could have been avoided if everybody paid more attention to what is beneficial for them (i.e what the visionary said) than to what the visionary does or does not.
You just gave a perfect example of the narrow minded logic explained in the article, that cares not what is good for them to do, but if the guy that advocates it is "consistent".
Not to mention the other three paragraphs I quoted, that explain why "avoiding being hypocritical" is not always possible.
To put it in very crude way, if you see a beaten-down meth addict telling you "just say no to meth", I'd say DO listen to him, even if he's doing it.
You're meth example is not the same thing. The meth user's meth usage does not effect the person he tells not to use meth. Well, maybe there's something to be said about the societal issues.
In the room example it is stated the bad thing affects everyone in the room to some detriment. Even though the visionary got everyone to stop, the eventual outcome is the detrimental one since the visionary keeps doing the bad thing. Therefore, in the end it doesn't matter if one of them or all of them does the bad thing. So, the fact that the visionary was a hypocrite has doomed them all. Only when the visionary is not a hypocrite can they all be saved. I believe the bad thing in a room is not a good example of the point to be made. This is more about the potential stupidity of groups of people following leaders (visionary and commentator both) without thinking for themselves. The best thing for the self-interest of the people involved was to individually decide to leave the room.
>In the room example it is stated the bad thing affects everyone in the room to some detriment. Even though the visionary got everyone to stop, the eventual outcome is the detrimental one since the visionary keeps doing the bad thing.
No, it's not the detrimental one at all. 1 person doing a bad thing (e.g farting in a room) is not at all the same as 100 persons doing a bad thing (e.g farting in a room).
>Therefore, in the end it doesn't matter if one of them or all of them does the bad thing. So, the fact that the visionary was a hypocrite has doomed them all.
No, it's their giving importance not to the idea of doing the good thing but to the consistency of the visionary that doomed them all. That's the whole point of the article.
>Only when the visionary is not a hypocrite can they all be saved.
No, they can also be saved if they STOP being obsessed with consistency in the visionary, and instead evaluate the visionary's ideas _in themselves_ and in how they benefit them all.
>The best thing for the self-interest of the people involved was to individually decide to leave the room.
In that thought experiment, as in lots of situations in life, there is no "leaving the room". Say, the room is earth, and the visionary is some early ecologist. If someone finds out that he doesn't recycle it shouldn't translate to "oh, hypocrisy, we shouldn't recycle either".
It would much better translate to: "Hmm, the guy doesn't do what he preaches, but we will continue doing it because it does good. He is a hypocrite, but, hey, at least the guy told us about the necessity of doing this thing in the first place, something we haven't figured at the time.".
But that's not a knee-jerk reaction, so it is too much to ask from some people.
Well, now you're changing things around with the thought experiment to support your point.
It was stated that the bad thing damages the room and the people in it as well; I took this to mean physical damage possibly leading to death because otherwise it doesn't make any sense. Therefore, with the two options that we are apparently forced into, the group is doomed regardless. It's only a matter of time. I say forced into two options because of the artificial restriction that the people cannot leave the room, which was not stated in the original explanation. Another out would be for the group to kill the visionary once he started back to doing the bad thing, remember that this damages them, which showed he could not be trusted and did not care for the well-being of the other people in the room. Is that not an option as well? In the end, the only choice the people had to fit their best interests was to leave the room, unless you can justify the murder of the visionary. But you took that away and I'm led to believe that they have no other options, so in the end they are all doomed regardless of either choice they go with.
Changing the rules, or adding new rules as I respond, to change the thought experiment is not a good way to invalidate my conclusion. For instance, equating a room with the Earth doesn't work for me, that's different situations with different potential outcomes with different options. The bad thing in a room thought experiment, as presented, is simply a bad example if there are only two options allowed.
Now, if we're talking about a situation you are describing, where the outcome is not damaging to the people involved, except for maybe their sanity, then I can somewhat agree with what you're saying.
>To put it in very crude way, if you see a beaten-down meth addict telling you "just say no to meth", I'd say DO listen to him, even if he's doing it. //
Practically the problem with this is that unless you know the right thing to do before hand then you can't determine the right thing to do. The hypocrite does one thing and instructs you not to do that thing (or to do another instead) - but by their actions they're showing, rightly or wrongly, that the thing they're counselling against is something they've chosen [to some extent] for themselves.
In the case of the meth addict you assume that they're being helpful because you assume (barring personal wisdom on the matter) that meth is bad, m'kay. But perhaps they just want to keep all the lovely, lovely meth for themselves??
If a person espouses a universal good - avoiding meth is good for everyone. Or if that person espouses a personal good without explaining why it doesn't apply to them - avoiding meth is good for you. But still that person acts opposite to that they espouse - eg take meth. Then they're acting contrary to what they state will be to their benefit.
You can't trust such a person. Either they act in ways that they know are detrimental or they are lying to you about the benefits available by following their actions.
So you can't trust a hypocrites testimony nor can you - without outside knowledge - learn what actions are best to take solely from their testimony.
Coming back to the case in hand. Is it wrong to copy someone's design? We can't tell if Apple Corp consider it wrong or right. All we know is that they're untrustworthy. Then they use legal process to punish someone for allegedly copying a design whilst on the other hand copying a design and show that they're willing to act to the detriment of others who follow their lead. It's kinda hypocrisy+plus: not only do we say not to do that which we do but we'll punish you for doing that which we do.
>narrow minded logic explained in the article, that cares not what is good for them to do, but if the guy that advocates it is "consistent" //
Whatever a hypocrite advocates is basically irrelevant. One should discard their testimony about the good of an action and use outside sources/testimony to establish independently the nature of any good that can be derived by following their instruction. A hypocrite though, as you appear to contend, would be a valid source of ideas just not a sound source of wisdom (ie take their idea but don't follow it without independently examining it).
>Practically the problem with this is that unless you know the right thing to do before hand then you can't determine the right thing to do. The hypocrite does one thing and instructs you not to do that thing (or to do another instead) - but by their actions they're showing, rightly or wrongly, that the thing they're counselling against is something they've chosen [to some extent] for themselves.
Yes, this is where THINKING comes in.
First step, stop caring about anything specific about the person that gave you the advice, and only consider the advice.
Second step, try to think if it's good advice, in itself. If it is, follow it.
The guy being a hypocrite or not should not come into play at all. Neither should trust.
You should not follow some advice because you trust the guy who suggested it to you. You should follow it because you evaluated it.
Part of the process of evaluating advice is evaluating the credibility of the one who gave the advice.
In particular, if a person's behavior or circumstances conflict with the advice, it becomes important to evaluate why that conflict exists. Is the advice fundamentally sound and there's something wrong with the advice-giver, or is the problem with the advice itself? There may be some subtle implementation detail that you overlook in your theoretical "ignore the person" evaluation, which is actually a fatal flaw with the advice (for example, it may require an unrealistic amount of discipline to undertake.)
Likewise, if a person's advice and their behavior/circumstances match up, it's important to evaluate whether the advice is actually effective. Did this person see this result because of the advice, or because of something else? It's possible the advice is fundamentally sound; likewise, it's possible the advice is a mistaken conclusion based on coincidence. If the person giving the advice is known to be insightful, self-examining, etc. that suggests a greater likelihood of the advice being valuable.
>You should not follow some advice because you trust the guy who suggested it to you. //
Ish.
If the person is a domain expert (or probably just 'more likely than you to know about it') and you are not and you have other reasons, past experience perhaps, then trusting their advice with little analysis (beyond eg 'was it a joke') is pragmatic. One can't analyse everything there is simply not enough time.
At some point you must trust others or suffer. It's about balance n'est ce pas?
It's not hypocrisy if you try to live up to your ideals and fail. It's hypocrisy when you tell others to live up to your ideals, but you don't bother yourself.
Also, you're assuming that a charge of hypocrisy automatically means the idea is voided. It's not - a charge of hypocrisy is an accusation of a serious character flaw.
>Also, you're assuming that a charge of hypocrisy automatically means the idea is voided. It's not - a charge of hypocrisy is an accusation of a serious character flaw.
I'm not assuming it's some general law. I know that it happens in lots of real life situations.
E.g people throwing the baby (idea) along with the bathwater (hypocrite).
Your example is a pretty artificial one when considering hypocrisy in the real world. Sure, it could theoretically happen, but it's not a particularly common situation when talking about hypocrisy.
I think hypocrisy is used most often when there's no consensus whether some beliefs are bad, and supporters of one view use hypocrisy of supporters of the other to make an argument.
When someone says "murdering people is OK" and then doesn't murder - nobody is going to accuse him of hypocrisy ;)
It's not. Saying that everyone should murder (all the time), and not doing it, would be hypocrisy.
But yeah, you're right. People would probably be distracted by the whole "murder" thing.
Even if there's no consensus on whether some beliefs are good or bad, such as in politics, doesn't hypocrisy show some sort of "character flaw" in the perpetrator? It's dishonest to push views you don't hold yourself, or rules you don't even try to live by.
>Better to use hypocrisy to show "even supporters of X don't really believe their view is right, so it probably isn't".
Still, not a good argument.
Their view could be right, whether they do really believe it or not.
E.g a politician could say "don't steal", and he could be stealing himself. That he is hypocritical about it, doesn't mean stealing is "probably" right.
Many people accused Hitler in hypocrisy. Then he killed itself.
Sorry, it's a horrible and non-factual joke. But your theory is still wrong. There is consensus in society that racism is bad and racist with friends of other race is a classical example of hypocrisy. And if by lack of consensus you mean existence of other view then murdering example is wrong because it suppose lack of consensus and your theory is tautology.
>But is racist with with friends of other races really classical example of hypocrisy? I hadn't encountered it
He probably means the classic "I'm not racist, I have black friends and all, but blacks in general do [this and that]".
Which is often considered a classic example of hypocrisy but I don't think it is. In a lot of cases it's not even racism.
E.g a guy could have Mexican friends (in the US or Mexico) but be against mexican illegal immigrants.
This is often taken to mean he is racist, but in actuality he is against illegal immigration, not against a race in general (he might consider that low end jobs are numbered, or that wages in those jobs are getting lower due to increased competition from illegal immigrants, or that lots of hungry, unemployed opportunity seekers from Mexico could resort to crime to feed themselves etc).
The morality of an individual or organization is determined by:
1. What they do
2. What they say
And in that order. For politicians and celebrities with a large audience, it's possible that what they say matters more than what they do for the global good. However, the actions an individual takes can wipe out a legacy of saying the right thing.
The big distinction that seems to be getting missed is that Apple isn't selling wall clocks with this design. So they aren't remotely competing with the designs that they 'copy' from.
Samsung is copying Apple, arguably intentionally, to create directly competing products.
I'm not saying Apple is right. I'm saying the contexts are wildly different. They probably ought to cough up some sort of fee, or change if the designers don't want them to use it.
But one face on one app of a multifunction device is simply not the same as aping a plurality of features and designs of a competing device.
Personally, I don't really care about people making knockoff Mondaine watches, I just find this funny and feel it is that peculiar form of justice that is generally known as "live by the sword, die by the sword".
Is like cannibals being left to their own devices till they get bored and eat each other.
I'd go so far as to say that phones compete with watches and physical clocks. I personally can't stand to wear a watch, and I almost always have an electronic device on my person. I don't even own a traditional clock anymore.
I think it's interesting to note (as the article does), that Apple has attacked other parties for "paying homage" to the looks of the Apple clocks. I personally think these two clocks are different enough, but if I'm the owner of that Swiss trademark, you can bet I'm suing, before Apple comes after me for using their design!
Do you not see a difference between a concerted effort to copy by multiple parties, with meetings and documents circulating which basically say "This is what we should copy," vs potentially one or two designers alone copying something which is not recognized as a trademark to anyone but an expert in European clock design?
I'm both a Swiss Modern design nut and lover of clocks. I not only didn't recognize the clock as specifically Swiss, although it has that look, I had no idea it was a copyrighted design.
Chances are very low that a manager at Apple would notice what I didn't.
>People probably feel that it is hypocritical to sue one company for copying your designs, and then turn around and copy designs off someone else, especially when they happen right a few months apart.
Only those two are in totally unrelated fields, namely some railway clock and a mobile phone.
the satire here should be something about how Apple has no right copying someone else's hard work just to make a quick buck, and that a numberless clock face with highly contrasting colors seems obvious now only because they went to so much effort to work it out.
There's nothing satirical about that. It's pretty obvious this is about perceived hypocrisy on Apple's part. Apple sues for trade dress violations and has now been caught for reproducing someone else's design. It acted against what it perceived as a crime against itself and yet committed the same crime. Simple hypocrisy, aka moral inconsistency in actions - nothing weird about it.
If SBB wins, the natural response will be to nod and say Apple got its just deserts. Some people will argue these designs shouldn't be copyrightable in the first place, but that's a separate criticism and does not invalidate the point of hypocrisy in the first place.
(Does it really surprise you that some in the community aren't happy about Apple's win over the patents?)
> There's nothing satirical about that. It's pretty obvious this is about perceived hypocrisy on Apple's part.
That's what I'm saying. This is pretty clear-cut. There's going to be a lawsuit. It's definitely ironic, and maybe a bit hypocritical, but when does it get actually funny?
Aside from the fact that it's IP infringement, this doesn't have a lot to do with the Samsung suit, and it doesn't even have that to do with Braun, which is whence the concept of "homage" enters the Apple lexicon. So where be the satire here?
Hypocrisy and irony are funny. It's pretty much standard practice to ridicule hypocrites (see pretty much every issue of The Onion). If someone criticizes an action and then does that very thing or worse, people lampoon him. I don't know what you find so perplexing about that.
The grandparent poster was satirizing Apple's hypocrisy, not the state of design patent/trade dress laws. The satire was not about those laws being too strong. It was about how Apple says one thing but does another.
I'm not sure the SBB will sue Apple. Their relationship is a little bit more complex than mere two unrelated companies:
Some context: The iPhone has a huge penetration rate in Switzerland (2.9 million devices sold for a population of 8 million people). Switzerland also has very good public transportation, held together by the train system of the SBB. And therefore, almost every iPhone user has the SBB Mobile App installed (http://itunes.apple.com/ch/app/sbb-mobile/id294855237?mt=8), 60-80% from what I heard. Which would put the install base to 1.5 to 2 million installations.
The elephant in the room is now this: Within this app, you are able to buy tickets. Train tickets, bus tickets, boat tickets. Not via in-app purchases, everything goes through the SBB ticketing system.
This has been working for three years now. Apple never blocked the app, despite it being in violation of some of the more prominent rules of the App Store.
My sources within SBB claim that there is no special agreement in place, mere toleration by Apple. I don't know if that's true, but one thing is for certain: The SBB has little interest of fighting with Apple on this front.
And Apple might not want to alienate such a huge user base, who would probably feel more loyalty to the SBB than to Apple, but that's pure speculation on my part.
On the other hand is the SBB fiercly proud of their design achievments, the clock in particular. Maybe that part of the SBB company (30 000 employees) doesn't care about electronic ticketing and will pursue Apple anyway.
In-App purchases are for digital goods only (Content, Functionality, Services, Subscriptions). You are completely free to sell real/physical goods (ie. a train ticket) via your own payment system.
It amazes me how many people continue to misunderstand App Store rules and quote bullshit on a daily basis.
In-App Purchasing rules apply to purchasing books in an e-reader, levels in a video game, or music in a player, etc.
It doesn't apply at all to real-world items. (This includes something like train tickets via Passbook because they are not consumed in the app, they are consumed by the train conductor scanning your phone.)
Has Apple ever cracked down on apps that allow the purchase of physical things for not using in-App purchases?
IIRC the only time this has gotten sticky, is when it comes to apps that allow users to buy access to more content that is accessed by that app. (e.g. buying new issues of digital magazines, buying access to new in-game content, buying new ebooks, buying new digital music, etc)
> cribbing industrial design elements from defunct products
Here in Switzerland you see clocks like these in pretty much every train station. I wouldn't call it exactly a "defunct" product. Mondaine sells this same design in a variety of products: just do a google image search and you will see some of those.
...and it's not that SBB is suing apple over the concept of a "numberless clock face with highly contrasting colors". They just look exactly the same. And when that's the case, I guess there's not much one can say.
So people here are trying to compare this with Apple vs Samsung, but that's apples to oranges.
SBB does not claim copyright or a design patent (although to increase their chances they might claim that too). Instead SBB claims that the clock design is their trademark.
This would be similar to Samsung putting the famous bitten apple on Galaxy phones.
And the problem with trademarks is that if you don't defend it, you lose it. It's not like with patents or copyrights were you can ignore infringement or selectively sue companies, depending on how much money you can milk.
Hey, Apple went after a freaking groceries store for using the Apl name in some other country. If they can do that, I think the watch company can and should go after Apple for doing this. And yes, this is shameless hypocrisy.
This sounds like it would likely be a Trademark infringement suit, which would be expected. Trademarks, if unprotected can lose their value. Having showing it on 100+ million of your devices should meet that requirement.
I can't downvote you. But I think that this is a prime example of the snarky comments that people are complaining about that are hurting HN's comment quality.
I absolutely agree. And I let myself sink to a bit of a troll here; but I don't expect much meaningful discussion can be had on this particular topic so I allowed myself (perhaps undeservedly) to express my indignation in a rather toxic way.
Perhaps we should all start assuming that any blunt, snarky comment is really meant as a piss-take. E.g., if you read "Apple is a bunch of blatant design thieves", assume that no one could intend that at face value, so it's really facetious joking meant to express the opposite.
We'll all feel a lot better, and the blunt and snarky will realize that their posts are having the reverse effect expected.
Because most people don't have the ability to write clearly enough to express their intent, and also because there are so many literal minded people out there. Labels and smileys serve the same purpose as laugh tracks on TV programmes, they tell the stupid how to react.
The way that snarky comments can hurt the community is by hurting people's feelings and making people feel reluctant to show off what they're up to. "Show HN" posts in particular are one of the coolest things about HN, and if people feel like they're going to get torn open just for putting themselves out there, they are unlikely to do so.
So there's nothing intrinsically wrong about snarky comments. It's when the snarky comments are targeted at individuals undeserving of such harshness that there's a problem.
If someone makes a "Show HN" post, and you think their work is incompetent, or that the problem they're solving isn't important, that doesn't excuse being snarky at them.
If, on the other hand, they have blatantly ripped off someone else's work, snarkiness would be fine (assuming you have damned good reason to believe that they did so intentionally, and that they did not ask permission).
We should be happy to make people worry about unethical behavior here before posting, because the ethics of your behavior can usually be assessed by introspection. We should not make people think twice about their work being incompetent before posting, because competence cannot easily be judged through introspection. Only by actually posting and seeing constructive feedback will someone be able to know how they can improve.
Of course, this applies to more than Show HN posts; people who read HN can also have their work posted by other people. The point is that we don't really need to worry about hurting Apple's feelings over blatantly ripping off someone else's work.
Please let the Swiss speak for themselves as to whether they are honored or offended by this. There's nothing more annoying than having somebody else tell you how to feel about something.
For my part (and I'm Swiss, for what it's worth) I appreciate the homage; though I fully understand SBB/CFF's need to protect the trademark. These clocks in Switzerland are iconic and immediately associated with the SBB/CFF. Much like Apple needs to protect its trademark & trade dress in order to remain full owner, SBB/CFF must protect its design.
There is an explanation in the Wikipedia article about the clock (written yesterday). The reason is to give some extra time to close the doors, and to also give the clocks a bit of more room to synchronize with the central clock.
Not really. The second hand takes 58.5 second to move the entire circle at constant speed if I recall correctly. Then it stops for 1.5 seconds before it starts moving again. During that 1.5 second pause you close the doors of the trains. So it is more a method of synching the closing of the doors with the clock rather than actually gaining any time.
Serious question, if the Railway company was a government institution when the design was released, is the design not in the public domain?
Nowadays, it seems they're quasi-governmental, but back then I think they were strictly a national org. It'd be like DARPA trying to get royalties on the internet or something similar. I could be wrong in this line of thinking, of course.
While this is true, there are bounds of I (heart) something_somethings and AFAIK, NYC does not go after them for infringement (I feel as though Apple's rendition is sufficiently different that it's not the same as the orig (hand lengths, motion, etc).
Moreover, in the NYC case, I (heart) NY is trademarked and part of an advert campaign, so I can understand their defence of their TM. Did The Swiss RR get a design patent for the timepiece?
So, while you are right about the ability of a gov to register and/or patent things, I'm surprised they'd be willing to follow through. It's not as though Apple is trying to make money off of them by selling a knock off product or piggybacking on an advert campaign.
Good point none the less and thanks for the explanation.
Yes, actually NYC (well, NY State Dept. of Economic Development) constantly goes after people for infringement of the "I heart NY" logo. They definitely do follow through.
It's not about money being made, it's a legal necessity that a trademark owner needs to actively defend the mark in order to keep it.
Right, of course. I meant you could have a "J' (heart) Bruxelles" in the same design and not get sued, so long as Brussells hadn't had that TMed. At least I'd hope not.
You could probably expect to get a C&D letter from NY State for designing a logo like that. At least, plenty of other people have. Google for "i heart nyc trademark infringement" and read the top few links. Apparently they have sent out over 3000 such requests since registering the mark.
Sometimes the claims of infringement are upheld, sometimes not. The more important thing, legally, is that NY needs to show that they are actively defending the mark to prevent trademark dilution.
> In the USA, the government cannot have copyright and everything is in the public domain. This is not the case in many other countries.
This is an overly broad statement. Federal government agencies in the USA can hold copyright in certain situations, and the rule doesn't apply to state or local government.
This is a really interesting page that lists ways that the government can own copyrighted works.
If this was in the US, you could well be correct. In Switzerland, the law is quite likely to be different. It's not uncommon for Governments to have specific copyright rules in non-US jurisdictions (See e.g. Crown copyright[1] used in the UK, Canada, etc.)
hahaha, I'm sure every company loves to have a good double-edged sword. Honestly, I think it's different enough, but in the same way I think Samsung products are different enough. Take you pick which way you want it Apple...
4) It's a common "click of the eye" gesture to design-savvy public, like their basing their podcast app to classic 60's design, etc.
Or it is just another case of Skeuomorphism gone wild. Not everybody who pays attention to design likes that kind of thing and appreciating it isn't making someone "design-savvy" either.
It seems to me that a lot of people on HN are assuming that this design is an intentional rip-off. It's entirely possible that whoever did the icon didn't realize that they had seen a clock like that before and thus didn't realize they might infringe on someone else's trademark.
Indeed. I don't know much about the designer subculture, but there are a bunch of "iconic" industrial designs that they (should) know about. Another famous one is the IBM wall clock: http://vimeo.com/40953003 (one of the Windows clock gadgets is obviously inspired by it).
(Disclaimer: I am not an Apple fan.)
As for the design itself, there is the blatant copying of the seconds hand, but otherwise it seems whoever did it took some care to differentiate the apple clock from the original. E.g. how the lengths of the hour and minute hands relate to the radius of the clock and the size of the hour and minute tick marks. Then of course there are obvious implications of being viewed on a tiny 4" screen. Whether that is enough to build a legal defense on, I have no idea.
They should just license it. I think all the people who are saying it's analogous to the Apple/Samsung debacle are reaching though. No one is going to walk into a store with the intent of buying a Mondaine watch and leave with an iPhone instead.
I'm certain I've seen clocks which pause on the minute like the stop-to-go ones sold in rail enthusiast magazines, railway museum gift shops etc. many years ago. Obviously, they don't include an actual stop-to-go master/slave system, they just fake it.
They used to make stoptogo versions back in 2001 but discontinued them because it loose or gain 20s a day.
The real ones get a pulse over the power line from a master clock every minute setting the time. The rotation of the seconds is just a motor using the electric grid's 50 Hz.
I meant a physical wall clock, not an app. I suppose I could mount and iPad on my wall and run the app, but I don't want to spend several hundred dollars on a clock that will sue me.
You can get master clocks and slave clocks on eBay, antique or not, with lots of character or not. But they're a pain, since you need to connect the slave to the master with a cable.
Actually - you can get a little circuit board to drive the slave clock without needing a master clock. It mounts to the back of the clock. See here (in German):
The Swiss had the right idea, but they made a crucial mistake in their implementation: they completely missed that people might want to look at the watch while on the move, and opted for a stationary, heavy and immobile implementation.
By putting it onto a small, portable device, Apple arguably added the crucial ingredient to make it a mass success (billions of users instead of a few Swiss citizens, who even have to be forced by their government to use it).
So I think Apple added the most important aspect to the mix and should therefore be considered the inventors of the clock design.
1. Swiss people are not forced to use the railway, the literally love it. Also the design was licensed by other European railway companies e.g. Deutsche Bahn
Hey everybody, it's legally ok. Here's why: The software on the Apple side could not be placed into the processor on the clock, and vice versa, and that means they're not interchangeable.
It was an argument in the recent Apple vs Samsung court battle. Samsung's prior art was dismissed, one of the jurors explained that it didn't count because the software of the prior art phone would not run on a modern phone.
It wasn't an argument made in the courtroom, it was an argument made by one of the jurors during their deliberations. Obviously it's completely false: which processor a the program runs on ought to make no difference whatsoever to whether a system including that program infringes a patent.
In a just world, this would constitute grounds for an appeal by Samsung all by itself, but I've no idea what the legal position is.
It seems that a lot of people argue that this is entirely different from the Samsung v. Apple case, because this is just an "homage" and SBB/Mondaine don't directly compete with Apple.
Hewever, SBB stands to loose a symbolic icon: What is now the Swiss railway clock may well become "that iOS clock". Mondaine will probably also not be happy when their
watches will be recognized as "that iPad clock".
It seems like a significant dilution of trade dress/a trademark to me.
Did Apple think they would get away with copying one of the most iconic clock designs ever without anyone noticing? I am speechless. Are cracks starting to show in a post-Jobs Apple too big to fix? I don't want to bash them, but this is blatant and unlicensed copying at its best. Kind of ironic given the recent events with Samsung.
Actually, that's exactly right, according to Bud Tribble, the person who coined it, inside Apple:
"Bud, that's crazy!", I told him. "We've hardly even
started yet. There's no way we can get it done by then."
"I know," he responded, in a low voice, almost a whisper.
"You know? If you know the schedule is off-base, why don't
you correct it?"
"Well, it's Steve. Steve insists that we're shipping in early
1982, and won't accept answers to the contrary. The best way to
describe the situation is a term from Star Trek. Steve has a
reality distortion field."
"A what?"
"A reality distortion field. In his presence, reality is
malleable. He can convince anyone of practically anything.
It wears off when he's not around, but it makes it hard to
have realistic schedules. And there's a couple of other
things you should know about working with Steve."
"What else?"
"Well, just because he tells you that something is awful or
great, it doesn't necessarily mean he'll feel that way tomorrow.
You have to low-pass filter his input. And then, he's really
funny about ideas. If you tell him a new idea, he'll usually
tell you that he thinks it's stupid. But then, if he actually
likes it, exactly one week later, he'll come back to you and
propose your idea to you, as if he thought of it."
I thought Bud was surely exaggerating, until I observed Steve
in action over the next few weeks. The reality distortion field
was a confounding melange of a charismatic rhetorical style, an
indomitable will, and an eagerness to bend any fact to fit the
purpose at hand. If one line of argument failed to persuade, he
would deftly switch to another. Sometimes, he would throw you
off balance by suddenly adopting your position as his own,
without acknowledging that he ever thought differently.
Amazingly, the reality distortion field seemed to be effective
even if you were acutely aware of it, although the effects would
fade after Steve departed. We would often discuss potential
techniques for grounding it (see Are You Gonna Do It?), but
after a while most of us gave up, accepting it as a force of
nature.
I like how most people remember the bit about the reality distortion field but don't remember the part about Jobs stealing people's ideas and presenting them as his own.
The fact that there was a 1984-esque commercial from Apple and Steve Jobs had the characteristics of Big Brother and the Ministry of Truth is intriguing.
Apple is doing great service by redesigning the Swiss clock design.
In fact the watch manufacturer is to blame for badly designing the watch before its time.
Apple is doing great service to humanity by redesigning this clock to its right position in the world they must be rewarded for it. Swiss clock maker must be punished for badly designing this watch which is rightly fully Apple's, stolen by this maker before its time.
> In 2009, Apple sent a letter of rejection to popular app developer Tapbots -- the makers of Tweetbot and other iOS apps -- saying the clock icon the company used in its pocket converter application looked too much like the icon used in Apple's own telephone app.
Yes the appropriate response to Apple's ridiculous actions is to act in the same manor. /s
Rather than pointing out hypocrisy, how about pointing out how EVERYTHING is a copy of everything before it in design. That is a constructive position, this is just inflammatory.
To be fair, that wasn't a case of plagiarism. The app wasn't rejected because it "copied" their icon, but because it used a familiar icon with a different meaning, potentially confusing users. They are just following good UI guidelines, although overzealously.
The small second markers seem to collide with the neighboring bigger 5-second markers. While the original design keeps an equal white-space between the markers, which leads to differing angles between the markers centers. Apple has all the same angles, not differentiating between the big and small markers which lead to this crammed looking version.
[EDIT, got curious and started measuring] Apparently I was wrong, the angles are also all the same (6 degrees) in the original. But still, optically the space between the hour and adjacent minute markers looks way better in the original.
Well before Apple adapted it, it was used only by a very tiny fraction of the worlds population. Apple made it a mass market success. Therefore I think it is fair to say that Apple actually invented the design. The Swiss tried but failed to make it popular. Apple did it right.
And I would love to see anyone defend that position in court. "Your honor, it was patented but was it a 'real patent?', I mean look at the offices of the company that owns it. It's a small company, not very famous and their coffee tastes bland"..
The Swiss railway has contacted Apple, who have yet to respond. At that point, when Apple respond, we'll know whether they're hypocrites or not. If they refuse to change the design or licence it, they are.
Should they have copied it in the first place? No. They were wrong to do it and they need to make amends.
Is this similar to the Samsung case? Let's see, we have 400 page Samsung documents explaining in minute detail exactly how they intended to duplicate the iPhone user interface, and when asked to stop doing it they refused. Hopefully Apple will show more grace and honesty. Maybe they won't. But right now that's all up in the air.
Edit: I see this case as a litmus test for the anti-apple crowd the way the Aliyun case was a litmus test for Apple supporters. In the Aliyun case, it would be easy to accuse Google of hypocrisy and make jokes about openness when in fact it was just about Acer meeting their contractual obligations as members of the open handset alliance. In this case it would be easy to paint Apple a plagiarist and hypocrite, when they still clearly have an opportunity to come clean and make right. IMHO both are good ways to tell if someone is actually capable of being fair minded or not.
Apple's the one trying to claim the high ground here and Apple's the one going on the offensive with their design patent suits so it's only right that we hold them to a higher standard.
This is the same reason that the iPhone 5 and iOS 6 are receiving so much criticism. When you strut around in public trumpeting your deep cultural devotion to innovation and use shaky patents to get competitors products yanked off shelves you damn well better walk the walk.
There is a difference here (although I admit I'm experiencing some lovely schadenfreude glow over here). Samsung built camouflaged products that were designed to confuse buyers into thinking they were buying an iPad. Here, Apple has ripped off an iconic design, but there's little doubt that what they are selling is still an iPhone and not a Swiss watch.
Still, trade dress (and accusations of douchebaggery) still apply -- and, in a broader sense, Apple are still hypocrits for decrying "copying" while still doing it themselves. The exact nature of the copying is simply different.
Given that all of Samsung's phones have the word "Samsung" stamped on them in fairly large letters, I don't think they were doing anything to intentionally confuse buyers.
Copying yes, but with the intention of confusing buyers, I don't think so.
Samsung has invested a ton of money in developing the Galaxy brand through billboards, TV ads and so on. While you can definitely argue that many of their UI elements bear a striking resemblance to Apple's, they take every opportunity to reinforce their brand name.
you make an accusation that I have seen no evidence of in the press. Are you possessed of information demonstrating intent on Samsung's part to confuse buyers?
The jury did find Samsung guilty of diluting the trade dress, but their reasoning was this: If the phone has space between the edge of the screen and the edge of the phone, then a consumer could be confused into thinking it is an iphone.
Thats it. That was the test. If you have some space at the bottom of the phone thats not part of the screen, go to jail and dont pass go.
Samsungs argument is that the space is functional, ie, serve a functional purpose, and thus make the bazel invalid as a trade dress for the iphone. Requirement for being granted trade dress is that it does not serve a utility or function outside of creating recognition in the consumer’s mind.
Take a stop sign and its color red. Can the color red become trade dress for signs? The answer is no, as the color serves a second purpose, which is that red is associated with danger/attention required information. Since the color now has a function, it can not be trade dress.
Apple's diluting and commoditizing SBB'a brand. It's not about iPhone being confused with Swiss train station clocks. It's about Swiss train station clocks being confused with iPhone's clock app.
I don’t understand why Apple made such blatant mistake.
Originally the clock app wasn’t included on the iPad.
This version of clock is well made, simple to use as this kind of app should be. Not rocket science but alternatives version are clearly missing on the Appstore.
(I looked for one of them that could replicate the one I have on my Android 4 Galaxy S2).
(Re)introducing the Clock app is great, but borrowing the design of very well known clock is a even better.
It fit the trend of Apple reunding well known texture and design. If that trend is good or bad is another question fueled by love and hate feelings.
I noticed the similarity right away. I had assumed apple had licensed the design if it were still protected.
I would like to expect better from them. It's a beautiful design and a smart addition, but doing this at all, regardless of the Samsung case, is shameful.
It's a ripoff, and strange that Apple didn't license the design, assuming they did their homework and find the IP belonged to someone.
It's not going to confuse anyone. Zero iPads will be returned because the customers thought this was the famous Swiss wall clock they'd heard so much about.
So it doesn't have much to do with Apple v. Samsung. Let's not try so hard to make everything about that; high-resolution thinking should allow for similar but separate conflicts to exist.
are there any numbers on how many people have returned their samsung/iPhone because they thought it was the other one? I've heard this argument time and time again but have yet to see any numbers on it.
Late reply, sorry. There's some among the data provided to the court. IIRC Apple submitted an internal report done by Samsung, which indicated Galaxy Tabs are often returned because users thought they were buying iPads.
'Accused'? Well innocent until proven guilty and all but it's a 100% accurate port of the entire design. Hardly even a question. I think they should have to pay at least what they are asking Samsung for in the latest lawsuit.
I don’t understand why Apple made such blatant mistake. The clock app wasn’t included on the iPad and an alternative version clearly missing on the Appstore.
This version of click is well made, simple to use as this kind of app should be..
Borrowing the design of very well known clock is a good idea too.
There are too many sarcastic comments in this thread. Seriously. There are 10 comments which are essentially the same. I hate to use the cliche comparison to Reddit, but it's hard not to.
When I first opened the iOS6 timer and the stopwatch, and saw the neon style button, I was a bit confused.
It looks very nice but I thought it broke with design patterns of iOS in terms of color scheme, ambiance, typography (all cap text label), or even button size. It felt more like an Android interface than an iOS one. Anyone feeling the same way?
This, and inevitable references to Braun, have no place in comparison with the Samsung trial. Samsung made competing products so similar to the effect, and indeed with the purpose, of confusing consumers.
The recent rise in Apple bashing and calls of hypocrisy is even stranger in historical context[1]. Perhaps more of us should try and empathize with Apple's situation and history before passing fashionable judgement.
The core idea of one company egregiously violating another's marks/trade dress is nearly identical to the Samsung situation.
The difference I suspect is that Apple will pay up the same way they did when they just went ahead and named products identically to other companies' products (iPhone belonged to Cisco, etc.).
Mountain out of mole-hill: the Apple haters get some fuel. Apple is a big company, one designer stole an icon (with or without realizing it was trademarked), and nobody caught it. Big deal. Not.
If Apple refuses to acknowledge its error, and refuses to fix (however it's required to), then it'll be a big f'ing deal, for anyone other than the anti-Apple zealots.
Sure, it looks quite like the railway clock. I'd prefer Apple to pay for the rights and do an exact copy. As it is now there are several details that look not alike and in a sense not aesthetically pleasing.
I'm as hopeful that Apple gets served its own medicine like the next guy, but this seems more like a common sense design rather than a copy.
In fact, I once made a mechanical clock that looks virtually identical to the iOS example and this was years before iOS was unleashed on the world. It's just thick lines and thin lines thrown together. The hands aren't even tapered like the Mondaine's.
This seems like a desperate grasp from Apple critics, why don't they go after more obvious examples, like the pull-down menus they borrowed from Android?
Heck, I don't even see all this "stealing" to and fro as a bad thing, but rather paradigms moving forward.
Edit: some people pointed out the red line, which this color-deficient, sleep-deprived person failed to notice. But still, doesn't this fall more under homage than rip off?
I'm afraid this is as "obvious" a clock design as the iPhone trade dress is an "obvious" smartphone design. The Swiss clock is not without a number of highly identifiable idiosyncrasies, such as the circle on the second hand or the unusually thick, rectilinear minute markers.
That said, this isn't quite like-for-like. Apple isn't producing a clock for your home to compete with licensed replicas; it's producing an app that mimics the look of a famous (within a niche) clock; it's more like Samsung producing a kitchen appliance that looks like an iPhone than producing a smartphone that looks like an iPhone.
I disagree. Why would it be "common sense design" to have the seconds handle in red with a thin line and a big circle at the end? Seems waaay too much of a coincidence to say "not a copy".
I'm as pro-Apple as they come but, to me, it does seem hard to distinguish this instance of Apple-Mondaine similarity from the recent Samsung-Apple similarity...
I've had three Mondain watches in the last 15 years (I really like them) and I had to compare side by side to see the differences. They're there, but they're subtle, and even to someone who is very familiar with the design, they're not immediately apparent.
So yeah, blatant rip. For folks pointing out the Braun parallels, it's important to remember that Braun never made an iPod. Apple transposed design cues from one long-since discontinued product to a different product in a different time. It was an inspired move and I applaud them for it.
With this clock, they're transposing nothing, they're adding nothing, they're improving nothing. This is just unlicensed copying. It's a credit to their good taste, perhaps, but not their sense of ethics.
>That said, how many way are there already to design a clock?
I've seen a lot of clocks in my life, but never one with a big red dot at the end of the second hand. So I would say enough not to blatantly copy what appears to be a non-standard/unique design.
There are a lot of ways. You could have numbers with different fonts and font sizes, for examples. Digital clocks. Just check into your next warehouse, lots of different clocks available.
The design is clearly inspired on Mondaine's one: the seconds handle is exactly the same.
I see it more of a homage than plagiarism, though. It would be plagiarism if it were a physical clock with the same design and they were selling it. It's not like Apple makes money selling this app.
Mondaine has the right to ask for change or compensation if they feel they got ripped off, though.
Is there a clock, different than the clock app, that I'm not aware of? I'm using the iOS 6 Gold Master and the icon my clock app does not look like that at all.
Why should they be allowed to use it? Apple's clock obviously dilute the value of the trademark owned by SBB. If this is not a trademark violation then what is?
Honestly, I'm expecting these things to happen more and more as people look at Apple with a finer-tooth'd comb, what with the general view of Apple gradually diminishing.
if we're being generous, maybe apple just thought that it was a Swiss train station clock nobody cares about (which, in a way, is what the clock actually was), which their team kind of just came across (maybe in switzerland!) and thought they liked it despite its being unremarkable and uncelebrated, like "found art". oops.
this just goes to show that good art really is timeless. it's not about bs marketing hyping up art that isn't art without the hype. as apple just found out, it's still art without the hype.
So, in any case, they sell more clocks, or if they litigate and win, they get a license fee out of Apple. So getting copied by Apple has a downside where?
This clock is a "slavish copy" of the Swiss clock, down to the weight of each element and the presence of the red hand. You can't possibly say it's an 'homage' any more than running the Mona Lisa through a color Xerox would be.
Edit: It appears to be merely "almost" identical to the Swiss clock and instead is a slavish copy of the Austrian clock, given the weight of the minute hash marks.
The point is, Apple makes no bones about it being a carbon copy. If you asked them, they would throw their hands up in frustration and say, that is the entire point.
They absolutely intended for anyone who see's this clock to immediately recognize they were paying tribute to the original.
Traditionally, designers have appreciated these little nods of respect.
I'm not sure what happened with SBB, but I'm sure it will play out to their benefit.
In the case of Samsung, Apple _wanted_ Samsung to pull their product from the market. In the case of SBB, it would be slap to their face if Apple just decided to yank their clock off the iPad.
Hopefully it will all work out for the best - Apple will license the likeness for some moderate fee, and everyone walks away happy.
>immediately recognize they were paying tribute to the original //
s/were paying tribute to/copied.
Surely the point is that an ethical business seeks license from those they choose to copy before doing so. It is not at all respectful to copy verbatim without seeking any form of warrant or approval.
But one question is, does Apple's copy do any damage to the original designer? It is obvious that Samsung is hoping to "steal" iPhone sales; it is obvious that Apple did not do Braun's defunct products any harm. But how about this case? I'm undecided, but I still think Apple should have licensed the design.
Depending on his trademark and copyright holdings, Dieter was well within his right to take Apple to court; that he chose not to is his own prerogative, but it doesn't turn theft into "homage".
Not sure if you're trolling but, obviously, Apple is not paying any license fees for this: “An SBB spokesman told Tages-Anzeiger that he was pleased Apple was using the design, but noted that the company was not authorized to do so.” I don't think anyone would claim there are any downsides, as long as Apple pays SBB what SBB feels is reasonable to authorize Apple to use SBB's design.
