The Obvious Myth.

In the aftermath of the Apple vs Samsung patent infringement trial, the most common complaint isn’t that Samsung was innocent of copying Apple, but that they had no real choice, because Apple’s designs for iOS and the iPhone are so broad and generic as to force copying.

The argument is that Apple’s solutions and designs are unavoidable, because they are too obvious in addressing the problems in touchscreen computing.

There are two major flaws in this thinking:

First off, look at one of Palm’s old WebOS phones. Look at a Windows Phone 7 device, like the Nokia Lumia range. Do these hardware and software solutions look like direct descendants of the iPhone? No. Because they aren’t emulating it. They’re solving the same problem in a different way.

Second, Apple’s solutions ONLY SEEM OBVIOUS BECAUSE THEY ARE GOOD. Everyone seems to forget that the initial response to the iPhone was derisive laughter. If it was such an obvious product, I think reviews and industry chatter would have been pretty different at the time.

If you’ve only ever seen a philips-head screwdriver, it would seem like the only logical solution. Same deal with a thompson-head screwdriver.

The issue here is a common fallacy - that any solution we know of, without significant competition, seems like the only, obvious thing to do.

There is no such thing as a groundbreaking, game changing, industry reshaping, obvious idea.

This is the reality that just cost Samsung a billion dollars.

(I’m writing this in an airport lounge at 5:30am. Please take that into account if it doesn’t make sense.)

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