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iPhone and all that

17 01 07 - 17:42 It's amazing that there's such controversy about the iPhone. For a start, how little people know about the "real" iPhone - the Cisco one.

It's not like they had an actual product using the name - it was basically a sticker saying iPhone stuck onto a VoIP phone's box. Yes, seriously.



It's also amazing how stupid some people get with their logic.



This was a forum sig (hosted locally so they don't try and replace it with goatse or something). It's saying that the iPhone's design copies some other phone.

As a matter of fact, yes, I actually DO see the difference there. The icons are all round-corner rectangles on the iPhone. That phone has a bunch of non-shaped icons.

The iPhone has 4 large icons along the bottom. The other phone has some tiny icons there.

The iPhone has a bar up the top with network status info. The other phone has a Windows Mobile title bar, including a Windows logo. The iPhone sure as hell doesn't have that.

The iPhone having one button doesn't have the bar down the very bottom telling you what the two buttons below the screen are assigned to.

So what's similar?
Both of them have touchscreens... but so do many other devices. Then again, the iPhone has a multi-touch screen, which is kinda different.

Both of them have silver sides... but so do many, many other devices. Including the iPod, for a long time now. I think that that was where they got the idea from, not another product.

Both have volume buttons on the left, but so does every other phone I've owned...

Both have a black background on the back... except the other phone has a black to dark grey gradiant. Hey, I have a theme on my v3x with a dark background on the menu! Apple copied me!

Somebody please inform me why Apple "copied" this device, and why these two devices are suspiciously similar? Oh, I get it now, they're both mobile phones? They both have a speaker up the top? If you are reading this, and are the originator of the sig, can you tell me what you were thinking? I'm interested to know...

Oh, and that quote... it's slightly paraphrased.

My guess is you're annoyed at the fact that Apple's lawyers sent a threatening letter to the forum you use asking for all screenshots and files relating to the iPhone-lookalike themes to be removed. Whether that's fair or not is another matter.

I think it's justified though - every time you make an Apple theme for something else, more often then not, you use copyrighted Apple icons (which, naturally, is breaching copyright. Of course, you don't care about copyright, because you download music...).

As well as that, the message comes across that Apple's UI is only a bunch of themes, which is simply untrue. You can make it look like an iPhone, but it will not work like one, unless you do a lot of coding, and replace the hardware on your devices. It's the system behind the look that counts.

And yes, I've actually heard Windows users saying "I've tried (some mac os theme), and I don't like it, I don't see how you can use OS X.". Further inspection would reveal that (some mac os theme) is a very poor imitation of OS X, usually based on screenshots of 10.2 or a similarly old version. Oh, and usually very badly put together.

It's similar to sticking "V8" badges on your 4-cylinder car, and dashboard, and saying you don't want a V8 because it doesn't make your car any better.

Taking legal action against people that blog about the theme, including screenshots of it, is a little steep in my opinion though. However, they were not "sued" as some sources claimed. It was just a DMCA complaint. And anyone who just removed the files, nothing further will happen.

Apple has had a long history to try and stop lookalike themes though.

"Go get it as soon as possible (before Apple chimes in)"

Oh, so you weren't expecting this then eh?

Ok, this post is long enough. Feel free to flame me in the comments.