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> At this point a tablet is as generic a shape as a laptop is.

Yes it is. Yet countless laptops models throughout the year have shown quite a possibility of variation. Countless touch smartphones from the advent of the iPhone have shown the same for phones too. An Xperia Arc, a Nexus S or a Lumia 800 are very distinct from an iPhone. Even in the tablet space, look at the Xoom, or the Sony S, or the Asus EeePad and EeeSlate, they all are looking significantly different from the iPad. They have an identity of their own. Now you can't honestly tell me that the two tablets shot in the article are not looking strikingly similar (barring for the aspect ratio and the home button position). Even a (theoretically thinned) HP Slate whose exterior design is very close to an iPad has at least rounded corners with a markedly different radius and a slightly wider metal band circling around from full-front, giving it a more robust appearance and a distinct identity.

I concur, there are indeed some constraints that impose a number of choices to the design of a tablet, but there is still some variability available.

> If you're so /innovative/ then show us.

Will this suffice?

http://cultofmac.cultofmaccom.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uplo...

What is that photo supposed to show? All I see is that the iPad's physical design is as much a derivative of all those that came before as the rest are derivative of the iPad's.

Do you really not see the flaw in your argument or are you just being willfully dissonant?

> All I see is that the iPad's physical design is as much a derivative of all those that came before as the rest are derivative of the iPad's.

I thought comedic posting was frowned upon around here. That's a pretty good one, though.

edit: Oh, come on! He gets to make funnies but not me? Well, fine, the absurdist humor is generally funnier than irony, that's true.

"""All I see is that the iPad's physical design is as much a derivative of all those that came before as the rest are derivative of the iPad's."""

The only thing in common the devices previous to the iPad have with it is that they all have a rectangular screen. I'll give you that. Apart from that though, they are totally different.

And that's from the external design aspect.

From a UI aspect it's night and day.

The devices after the iPad, now, copied both from it.

Samsung showed a scene from "2001 A Space Odyssee" with a better looking tablet. You can always select some ugly tablets for such a picture.

An argument which would have held water were Samsung producing such tablets prior to the iPad selling millions of units. People know the iPad industrial design as the iPad, not "that thing that looked like the thing from 2001."

The issue was strictly about looks, and Samsung showed prior art. It is not required to have created said art yourself.

As for the picture with the pre-iPad tablets, I bet some of them are made for special use cases, like rough environments.

I'd have loved to see prior art on the USB connector. That's the most shameless part of all.

It's completely needless – the dock connector only makes sense in light of Apple's larger ecosystem. Why not use micro or mini USB, like everything else on earth?

http://www.oled-display.net/files/u3/samsung-galaxy-tab-usb-...

"""Why are people stuck in this mindset that Apple invented the tablet?"""

No, people believe something different. That Apple invented the first tablet that ever sold in numbers, worked well and millions of people actually wanted to buy (and did so).

"""All of these are roughly the shape and size of an iPad. Apple just applied their standard solid-colored plastic design to it."""

Yeah, that must be it. That's how one of the most, if not the most, decorated and awarded industrial designer in the world (Jonathan Ives) works. You're taking armchair criticism to a whole other level.

"""Even the iPhone. Palm had something that looked exactly like an iPhone in early 2000s. I remember my dad having one and giving it to me when it "broke". In fact, I think it only had one button on it."""

Yeah. And a stylus. And a totally different UI.

And for some mysterious reason, all the smartphones available on 2006 from other vendors were totally different that those made after the iPhone's introduction.

"""Apple: get over yourselves. If you're so /innovative/ then show us."""

Yeah Apple, show us. You think just

(a) putting a UNIX OS, with a terminal, bash et al, in the desktops of tens of millions of people,

(b) changing the mp3 player industry

(c) creating the top music store in the US and ruling digital music sales

(d) entering a totally unknown market to you, capturing 70% of smartphone profits, changing the smartphone industry, and changing the basic design and UI of smartphones afterwards

(e) making a huge tablet market from a tiny niche it was, with competitors after 3 years still selling 1/10 of the devices you do

(f) creating a huge marketplace for 300,000+ extremely powerful online smartphone apps, and being again copied by Google, MS and Nokia in that too, while also getting like 2 billion app sales...

will convince anyone that you are innovating? Come on...