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Comment by brudgers | Hacker News Reader

Faking images for a product rollout appears to be common mobile-electronics industry practice. Apple faked a video still from Star Trek and made a fake video of the New York Times for their iPad introduction.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Apple-Exposed-As-Liars-in-Fak...

http://www.macrumors.com/2010/02/22/apples-ipad-nytimes-prom...

I wonder if Nokia cross-licensed Apple's patent.

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Id argue that there is a difference of intent in these two cases. Nokia is deceiving customers about a specific function or capability (camera) while Apple is just showing a promotional video of the device as a whole. Both cases are reprehensible, no doubt, but maybe I'm the only one who think that Nokia has gone a little too far.

Lets think of these in terms of food. Its not the same to show a "perfect Big Mac" in and ad than it is to show a Big Mac thats made with completely different ingredients of the ones you'll find when you order one.

I'd give Nokia a pass if they took pictures in a very optimal conditions to show their products in the best possible light. Heck, I'd be probably ok if they didn't even use a real phone but some sort of prototype that was very, very similar. But using a completely different camera to show "this is what it could look like, maybe" seems like just outright lying.

The unfortunate thing for Nokia is that unless their product actually can perform like this they are going to have many disappointed customers.

For all we know, the new Nokia phone is actually a potato.

Apple showed the iPad displaying Flash content as a way of showcasing the browsing experience consumers could expect. In addition they manipulated a still image to sell the iPad as a device for watching movies. The choice of a still image was based upon an intent to deceive potential customers about the shortcomings of the 4:3 format of the iPad.

In the case of the iPad watching feature films is probably about equivalent to using the camera on a smartphone. On the other hand, browsing the web is a primary function of the device, and there was no way the iPad was getting Flash.

That's not faking device capabilities. It's just faking what a particular movie looks like. Nokia's doing something on an entirely different level.

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