Comment by philwelch | Hacker News Reader

Comment by philwelch | Hacker News Reader

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No, it really isn't. The UI itself is totally different, with the TNG consoles using a fairly static button-based UI. Most of the PADD's had extraneous hardware buttons, and most of the touchscreens on the ship were not mounted on brushed aluminum roundrects, but rather spread across walls or mounted on consoles that certainly did not resemble the iPad. There weren't any obvious bezels, and the UI was completely different.

Mr. Worf's tactical consoles were mounted on a curved, wooden surface: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_XNPD380IpBQ/S8aEN8erVEI/AAAAAAAAJo...

The conn and ops consoles were a solid piece of glass, and while the glass surface was a roundrect and there was a margin around the displayed interface, there wasn't any physical bezel, and the housing was triangular rather than iPad shaped: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_XNPD380IpBQ/S8aD98o3EII/AAAAAAAAJn... http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_XNPD380IpBQ/S8aD9MMAf3I/AAAAAAAAJn...

And the consoles in the back of the bridge were also dissimilar: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_XNPD380IpBQ/S8aDvkLoPSI/AAAAAAAAJm...

The transporter consoles had triangular housings similar to the conn and ops consoles: http://starsmedia.ign.com/stars/image/article/850/850252/chi...

The only real similarity is that the TNG consoles were touchscreens. Everything else, software and hardware, is different.

Well, the PADD designers there had little concern for function and a lot more interest in making the tech distinctive. I mean, you want Cardassian tech to look Cardassian. So minimalism wasn't what they were aiming for most of the time.

Even so, a few of the PADDs shown were more practical. In particular, take a look at these two PADDs:

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:Sarah_Sisko_reconstruct...

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:PADD_stylus_interface.j...

Between the two of them, they give you almost every design element except being black, depending on whether you think those things are buttons or that LCARS is clluttered or whatever.

On both of those, the screen is physically depressed from the bezel like an etch-a-sketch, not flush like an iPad. They also have other extraneous design elements.

The red one is clearly inset, but I don't agree with you about the silver one. That one appears flush to me.

Maybe you can find another image of it or something and prove me wrong, but I can't seen an inset there.

It looks maybe a millimeter inset if you look around the edges. Nonetheless, the plastic casing around the edges is pretty clearly extraneous.

so we have an Apple supporter argueing that millimeter is enough of a difference to maintain originality, while several comments below another Apple supporter

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3334437

suggests that the home button was copied even though " They changed white square into a white rectangle and that's about it." So change of shape isn't enough to maintain originality.

In Russian we have a saying for such cases - "one's desire to climb up the pine without getting the one's ass poked/scratched by the needles".

I don't know about Russians, but I don't function in a hive mind with others, even if we both like Apple products. So don't ask me to answer for another individual's arguments.

The difference between flush and inset is qualitative, and even conceding that point there are significant design differences.

I can't see any inset at all, though a better picture might be able to resolve that. I'm not sure what you mean by the casing being "extraneous" either. It seems to be quite plain, actually, at least on the one. That red one, though, is pretty ugly. Frankly, the stylus is the most obvious difference.

I guess, ultimately, I don't know what to say about all of this. Minimalism has been a trend for quite a while now, given how many products (including many of Apple's) that display it. Is Apple one of the trendsetters? Do they make beautiful products? Absolutely.

But all this patent silliness about getting each others' products banned has just got to stop. Every penny spent on it keeps them from hiring engineers to make something even better than what we have now. I don't like seeing Apple's products banned for using a Motorola standard any more than I like seeing the Galaxy Tab banned for being too minimalist. If they had any sense, they'd call off the lawyers and settle with each other before they waste any more money.

ST: Enterprise had a lot of iPad/iPhone-like devices.

I can't find any videos or pictures (the show predates easy sharing of video and images), but I remember some specific examples.

Thre first is the episode where the captain offends some very picky aliens who produce an essential component, so he has to perform a detailed ritual and uses an iPhone-like device for a reference.

The other was the episode where the crew became increasingly obsessed with minor activities due to some weird radiation, and the captain's obsession was a speech he was drafting on what looks like an iPad.

Generic Rectangle Device was also the standard thing for reports given to senior officers.

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