[Tfug] Ah, ahaha, aaaaaaaahahahaha!

[Bowie J. Poag]

Sorry, It's just the degree of brainless knock-offery that the Android community is known for..it would be deeply sad if it weren't so hilarious to watch play out. :)

What makes me laugh heartily is that an axis-constrained "slide-to-unlock" method is a terrible design to begin with! Its clumsy, and doesn't even follow the natural trajectory of a thumb sweep...and the deeper comedy is, Google doesn't think first. They just go ahead and rip it off! :)

It's classic Linux developer behavior--Rather than ask if something makes sense, a hundred boots hit the ground in a single-minded pursuit of imitating the competition without thinking twice about it, resources-be-damned.... "iTunes? Eeek! Quick! Somebody make Amarok!! Who cares if its dog slow on a dual quad-core box and eats an enormous amount of memory!  Make it so! Whew! All done! Now we can say that we...whaah--hold on, you're saying nobody likes iTunes? Oh wonderful.."

They haven't yet figured out that wars of imitation have no winners. They are, by their own actions, relegating themselves to a perpetual 2nd place finish. I've been saying this for going on 12 years now.. All efforts at imitation ultimately linger like a bad cold, and only to be shaken off when the owner gets sick and tired of being sick and tired, and by then, the race is already over. 
Although, I must admit, 2012 is surely going to be year of the Linux desktop. (*groan*)..

Anyway, the real shame of it is that Google could have avoided all of this if they simply sat down in a room for 5 minutes with a couple of GUI designers, and asked them, "Before we do this, is there a better way of doing a lock screen?"..that's all it would have taken. They could have done it better, and easily. But didn't. They could have sat down, and within 30 seconds realized that something like a curved unlock slider who's shape followed the natural sweep of the thumb would be better, patented that, and avoided the whole lawsuit issue to begin with. (hey, maybe I should patent it?)

Instead, it seems apparent they just told their Linux GUI designers, "make an unlock screen"...And their Linux GUI designers immediately went about doing what Linux GUI designers do. They don't think. Given a task, they immediately go and find out the latest and greatest of what the competition is doing, and copy it. This approach works well for code. It does NOT work for well for design.

I should really work on Halogen. :)

Cheers,
Bowie

PS..

Ask Microsoft to build something useful, and they'll spend a billion dollars on a state-of-the-art factory that makes apple pies for whales.

Ask the Linux community to build something useful, and they'll build a state-of-the-art factory staffed with volunteers that makes cherry AND apple pies for whales.

:)

Sent from my iPad

On Feb 20, 2012, at 9:05 AM, Paul Lemmons <paul.lemmons> wrote:

> Old news. And Really? "Slide to unlock" is trivial and easily avoided. 
> 
> -------- Original Message  --------
> Subject: Ah, ahaha, aaaaaaaahahahaha!
> From: Bowie J. Poag <bpoag at comcast.net>
> To: Paul Lemmons 
> Date: 02/18/2012 01:47 PM
>> 
>> 
>> Android now paying the price for blatantly copying iOS
>> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/android-now-paying-the-price-for-blatantly-copying-ios/18253
>> 
>> ---
>> Sent from Zite personalized magazine iPad app.
>> Available for free in the App Store.
>> www.zite.com
>> 
>> 
>> Sent from my iPad
> 
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