Even if you keep out of the firing range you are sure to have heard the “copy” shots between the passionate Android and iOS camps. With each OS release, features are borrowed from one another in a bid to one-up the competition…
“Good artists copy, but great artists steal” one Pablo Picasso said, a quote more recently repeated by Apple founder Steve Jobs. Despite this, Jobs declared “thermonuclear war” on Android due to seeing the platform as a direct replica of iOS.
New documents shown during the ongoing Apple vs. Samsung trial this week seem to give this thought some credence. Before and after versions of Google’s “software functional requirements” for Android appears to show a fair amount of inspiration from the iPhone launch…
There are those who would argue as Google’s own process went on, they also decided a grid approach to UI as the best course of action. After all, this was found on Symbian handsets and Palm PDA devices well before iOS. The big question hangs over a radical physical hardware change to a touchscreen – which few will debate Apple pioneered through bringing (multi-touch) to the mass consumer market.
In fact, the Google document noted: “touch screens will not be supported. The product was designed with the presence of discrete physical buttons as an assumption. However, there is nothing fundamental in the Product’s architecture that prevents the support of touchscreens in the future.”
As a side point, Microsoft’s Windows Mobile (pre-Windows Phone) also insisted on physical keypad buttons. A full QWERTY keyboard was traditionally seen as a faster method of input, but with the likes of Swiftkey now available on Android, this is an opinion which is dying out.
Apple fans will rejoice in this added evidence on how the iPhone shook up the entire mobile industry and changed the way both consumers and manufacturers looked at what the smartphone should be; and defining the mobile powerhouses they are today.
But Google’s Vice President of Android, Hiroshi Lockheimer, argued that Google invented many of the “key features” found in iOS before Apple patented them. In a report by CNET, the publication wrote:
He noted that there are “thousands” of features in Android, and all aim for ease of use. He also testified as to the timeframe that Google engineers developed features like quick links and background syncing for Android. Many of the features were created in 2005 or 2006 ahead of the first Android phone launch from HTC in October 2008, Lockheimer said.
If proven correct, it is this which will be vital to Samsung’s argument that Google created Apple’s patented features first. DeveloperTech will be sure to keep you updated with further significant developments on the case.
Do you think Google or Apple is the biggest copycat? Is it just the nature of the industry? Let us know in the comments.
