Hacker News Reader

Comment by rickmb | Hacker News Reader

Funny enough this suggest that the judge understands the subtleties of design better than the tech-heads at Engadget, who like so many others regularly claim competing products match the design quality of Apple products.

It always irks me when people, especially professional critics and reviewers, call it a matter of taste just because they can't spot the difference. It isn't. Personal preference is a matter of taste, but the difference in design quality between Samsung (or HTC, or Dell, etc) and Apple is objectively observable. Just like there is a clear difference between a TV set designed by Samsung and one by Bang & Olufsen or Loewe.

(Which is exactly why I believe Apple should stop suing second rate look-alikes. If people want to buy Samsung they were never potential Apple clients in the first place, and if Apple wants that market too they should just build products for it.)

View on HN

I won't dive in to argue with you, because clearly that's been done before. I'll just point out that you made that "objectively observable" point without any actual, y'know, evidence. That, by definition, makes your argument one of taste, not facts. Please (please!) stop.

I don't understand, what would that evidence even be? What exactly are you looking for here?

I'm looking for precisely your admission: the evidence can't possibly exist. Ergo, it's not "objectively observable". It's a taste thing. So rickmb's sanctimony is just plain wrong. (And, IMHO, deeply hurtful to the community and the market. But that's a flame war I don't think anyone wants to get into.)

As an objective fact Apples rate of tablet defects is well below Samsung's.

That could well be so (though I'd encourage you to include citations for stuff like that -- some quick googling turned up nothing for me, and as stated I'm very much not interested in yet another Apple vs. the world flame war). But it's a needless digression; rickmb was clearly talking about the "design values" considered by the UK judge, not physical build quality which is obviously not an IP issue.

Asus' rate of laptop defects is well below apple. Does that mean they're objectively better designed? This is just more apple fanboyism masquerading as an appeal to rationality, rebuke was perfectly justified.

IMO, Asus laptops are better designed than Apple's laptop's so I don't disagree with that line of thinking. However, when you take an iPad apart they are much better designed internally than most of their competitors. Probably because most of those laptops where rushed imitations. The Nexus 7 could be the tipping point, but it's also 200$ which makes direct comparisons harder.

Anyway, prior to the iPhone Samsung was my faverate cellphone manufacture and they made some great monitors, so IMO just give them time and they will start making great tablets.

> objectively observable

Design is never objective. Even from a usability testing perspective, different people have different results.

2/10 - Too obvious.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com