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Comment by viraptor | Hacker News Reader

Considering the pictures start with 1) app icons 2) app menu which well... just makes sense the way it's done - wall of icons design was around forever (win ce phones at least) 3) comparing google maps to google maps - it's not a great way to prove anything.

(the other pictures of external design are pretty similar though, no disagreement there)

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  > wall of icons design was around forever

The problem is not the wall of icons. The problem are two icons which are for Apple App Store and for Apple Safari on that wall.

Well and imgur album is hardly a credible source. Is there any context for that?

Edit: there is. That was not a Samsung store but a Euronics one in Italy. Samsung had nothing to do with decorating the store.

http://appleinsider.com/articles/11/09/23/samsung_shop_featu...

> Considering the pictures start with 1) app icons

Not normal icons. Look at the red arrows: They point to the icons of Safari and the Apple Store. Which makes no sense in a Samsung store.

This mistake was done by a store called Euronics in Italy. Samsung had no part in the design of this wall and it is the store's lack of understanding that should be in question, not Samsung's.[http://bit.ly/PP9V3M]

There are many ways in which you can implement a grid of icons without exactly copying Apple's style. So why are there exactly 4x4 icons you can move left and right, above a bar with 4 fixed icons?

Same for Google Maps: why is the search field above the maps gray, rounded, and has a light gray x inside a circle to clear? This is not an arbitrary search field. This is not a typical "Google Maps" search field. There are millions of different styles of search fields, why take exactly the same search field as on the iPhone?

> So why are there exactly 4x4 icons you can move left and right, above a bar with 4 fixed icons?

Because the screen is a certain size and icons need to be big enough and small enough, up-down scrolling would be less ergonomic (longer swipes to switch pages), and there are a few features you always want access to, respectively.

How else would you do it?

As for the maps picture, I have a feeling that's faked, or that it's Google's mapping app, in which case consistent interface would be downright expected.

From what I remember of that image, it was a Photoshop job where the exact same screen was found in Apple's marketing materials, but it was posted on Samsung's official website for the device for a period of time.

As far as I know, maps come from the google apps package which is not customised by Samsung (it gets updated from the market). Is that not right? Also it looks very different from the version I have now, so it's strange in general. I've never seen rounded corners on a text field.

(see this for example: http://www.gadgetnutz.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/map.jpg - not similar to what's in the posted gallery)

The point of the 1. picture is that there are iOS App Store and Safari icons which you obviously won't find on Samsung device.

That was not a Samsung store but a Euronics one in Italy. Samsung had nothing to do with decorating the store.

http://appleinsider.com/articles/11/09/23/samsung_shop_featu...

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