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Comment by onemoreact | Hacker News Reader

iPad have a single physical home button which those don't have and that's something that several manufactures coped. They could use 2 buttons on the same side or mirror the bottom button on the top or offset it from the center or add some lights or even simply change the edge color or add decorative divots in the outside corners etc. http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:PADD_2150s.jpg

But instead of picking one of the trillions of other designs they used the iPad design because it sold well.e

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Which manufacturer copied the home button?

Samsung. They changed white square into a white rectangle and that's about it. Design patents are a low hurtle but they they could have at least used a circle/house/drooped the icon or something other than a box for home. I mean outside of the iOS reference what does a box / rectangle even mean?

http://www.phonearena.com/news/U.S.-version-of-Samsung-Galax...

And again, if they had two buttons and use a square for one of them then that's also fine. Or if it's an arrow that stands for play that's cool. But a white rectangle?

The new Samsung phones have no buttons at all on the front. How's that for simplicity? Box means box. It's a rectangle. Apple can't patent the rectangle.

Squares are rectangles. However, you will note that they changed the button format which suggests that they are they where treading a little close to Apple's design / long standing trend of having a single button. I still hate the fact that they use a single physical button to simulate more than one button based on how long you hold it down so IMO it's not really a benefit just an aesthetic choice.

Apple does the same sort of thing, but even more so. Tapping, holding, double tapping, triple tapping, tap and hold, etc. The home button is ridiculously overused, a consequence of less hardware holding more and more uses.

>iPad have a single physical home button which those don't have and that's something that several manufactures coped. They could use 2 buttons on the same side or mirror the bottom button

sounds like why 1-click is patentable scheme of thinking.

Yes! Excellent point. We all have to admit that there's only so much you can do to differentiate a tablet but when the thing looks identical to the naked eye then you've got a case. The only problem is having to sell that in a court. There are tons of tablets out there that are very obviously not the iPad but this one from Samsung looks exactly the same on first glance especially to the average person.

The Galaxy Tab has two buttons on the side and no buttons on the front, just a tiny camera lens. One button is power, the other is a volume button (it's a single button that you can push on two different sides).

Maybe you're talking about a different product, but the Samsung tablet does not copy the iPad in that respect. I have one right in front of me right now.

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