Wait, did a judge just say Samsung is 'not as cool' as Apple?
In his ruling for Samsung against Apple, a U.K. judge expressly declares that the Samsung Galaxy Tab isn't as drool-worthy as the iPad. Even judges know this?
I have a feeling the world's courts are getting a little fed up with Apple/Samsung lawsuits.
Or even just tech lawsuits in general.
However, today's verdict in Apple's attempt to prove that the Samsung Galaxy Tab is an iPad with a longer brand name takes judicial irritation into uncharted and rather lovely waters.
In finding that Samsung had not at all, in any way, well, not quite copied Apple's signature tablet, Judge Colin Birss used very contemporary, non-technical language to make his point.
I am grateful to Computerworld for helping me identify that the judge declared:
Samsung products are very thin, almost insubstantial members of that family with unusual details on the back. They do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design. They are not as cool.
They are not as cool?
Samsung is, no doubt, rejoicing at the judge's clear-headed analysis -- one that surely involved asking 13-year-old children on the streets of South Kensington.
But perhaps one element may disturb Samsung's champagne cocktail: if even a judge knows that iPads are hipper, what hope is there for the rest of purchasing society?
U.K. judges have traditionally been rather above that which excites most humans.
They have claimed not to know who famous footballers and pop stars are. Perhaps the apogee, though, came in 2007, when Judge Peter Openshaw told a terrorism trial: "The trouble is I don't understand the language. I don't really understand what a Web site is."
Now here we have Judge Birss declaring that it's even obvious to him that a Galaxy Tab isn't as desirable as an iPad.
"There is an overall simplicity about the Samsung devices albeit not as extreme as the simplicity of the Apple design," he said.
Cool ought to be in the eyes and imagination of the tablet holder. Yet it is surely like a needle in Samsung's buttock that a judge suggested its product may be a bit of a knockoff, but still not as alluring.
Personally, I cannot wait for Apple to retaliate. I cannot wait for it to, say, bring out a more stylish, simple knockoff of the rather sweet Samsung Galaxy Note.
Who knows, perhaps it will be called the iPad Mini.