It this really true? I hope this doesn't count as a useless contribution, but paying 21 million dollars for a clock design on your mobile OS seems to me like complete insanity. For this price, you could literally hire multiple competent workers to do whatever you wanted for the rest of their working lives, and still have money left over.
It would be a lot more rational to just switch to a different clock design and pocket the money. 21 million is almost just a rounding error in Apple's accounting department, but it's still a ridiculous amount of money. I can't possibly believe that giving your users this specific design and not losing face due to backpedaling is worth this much.
Yeah, obviously, but why not just backpedal by pushing an update that uses a different watch design? Surely the damages from showing their users a copyrighted watch design for a month or so would be less than 21 million.
Given that willful copyright infringement can carry a fine up to $150k per instance, a mere 140 copies of the offending OS could attract a $21 million fine. Given that ~3 million iPads with the clock shipped in the first weekend it was available, the fine for those devices alone would approach half a trillion dollars. With an entire month's worth of sales out the door, the Swiss Railway could end up owning Apple several times over - if Apple suffered the maximum fine.
Of course, all of this is completely insane. And it's not like Apple's legal folks would take an existential threat lying down. Even so, it still reflects the lunatic reality of copyright law, which is something that any sane legal team will go out of its way to avoid. That being the case, $21 million represents an extraordinarily good settlement.
Apple makes $21 million (in profit, not revenue) every 3 hours. It makes sense for them to make this go away to avoid damage to their brand more than anything. Also, considering how litigious Apple has been lately as an opportunity cost of the use of their legal team fighting this sort of thing in court is probably not a good idea.
More so, the money they would pay to the Swiss Federal Railway will come out of a heaped up mound of money that Apple would have trouble bringing back to the US anyway (due to tax implications). Overall this is a fairly sane move on Apple's part. Get it out of the way, and move on.
This is what I thought too. Isn't $21M a bargain to pay for a 70 years split test or proof of concept done by Swiss, who incidentally were the best clock designers and makers for centuries? Whatever you call it I feel like Apple is well off for this certainly intentional reference to the top notch product.
...but they've already distributed the copied design to X people, so 21 million / X is probably a reasonable cost.
I don't know if Apple using that design is great advertising for Mondain (who make a range of nice watches) or if it has trashed the value of those watches.
I think that if I'd spent £500[1] on a watch that I wouldn't want it to be on everyone's iPads.
[1] most of the watches are much cheaper than that.
I've got a Mondaine Big Date, which was about $160. Personally, I'm quite pleased that Apple adopted the design, for the same reason I bought the watch last year: it's a beautiful, very readable design.
The Mondaine design is powerful, timeless, and most importantly popular. By using it rather than designing their own clock, Apple taps into an aesthetic of affluent European influence. This subliminal association is what Apple is paying for, not pixels.
European cities are built around public transport. Thus main railroad and bus stations are usually stationed downtown.
And you should note that railways in Europe are often fast and comfortable, thus using rail can get you to your inner city destination a full hour faster (only measuring from the city boundary) than going by car (degree of luxury really plays no part in city traffic speed).
Do not forget that European cities have not been built around its majesty The Car.
The majority of luxury models of European cars are made for export. Not to say they don't drive there (of course they do), but it's often quicker to travel by train so a lot of people do so, even though they own a car.
Every tram stop in Zurich has a clock with that drawing on it.
More surprisingly, that clock is exact to the second. As in, take your mobile phone (time coming from the network), see when the time changes and see the hand moving at the exact moment.
Sure, it's probably reading a radio signal or something, still impressive.
It's not just affluent aesthetic of 'public transport', it's the whole structure of it.
Very few tram stops in Zurich have any kind of analog clock. And I'd bet that most of those clocks don't have the red second hand, which is the most distinctive feature of the railway clock.
What most people don't know about this clock design is, that the Swiss Railways are licensing it to a watch manufacturer who sells them in retail. The watch with the exact same design is available commercially. Therefore suing Apple and making Apple pay is something the actually have to do without risking their other licensing deals.
They didn't create the clock with the notion that it would cost this much. They used a design, whether it was copied or not from the Swiss design, and subsequently the Swiss Rail claimed infringement.
I'm curious about your insertion of "whether it was copied or not from the Swiss design" - any suggestion that this was designed independently by someone who had never seen the Swiss design is either fantasy or absurdity.
That's how Apple feels about Samsung, too. Hence, it's better for them to pay $21M to the Swiss than to support the notion that such design similarities happen by coincidence.
"it has... included among examples of outstanding 20th-century design by both the Design Museum in London and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City"
Although to be honest that display at MoMA is a bunch of big glass cases with products in them. A lot of products. And I don't remember seeing the railway clock there, although the iPod definitely is.
Is it not possible that two designs can exist of a simple structure such as a clock without any interaction between the two people? Look I'm not defending Apple, I actually think it's deplorable. I'm not the jury or judge though. I haven't heard a statement from Apple as to whether or not they're sorry or have otherwise made an excuse.
This particular clock face is a fetish object within design circles. The idea that several layers of Apple design people were unfamiliar with it is absurd. To get any more absurd, you'd have to postulate the existence of a tenured English professor at Yale who has never heard of Shakespeare.
_This_ particular clock? Very very unlikely. Especially in a company such as Apple where design is so important. It's impossible that Apple were unaware of this design.
You know Apple only makes excuses once they have a court order telling them to do so. And even then, they try to get away with it by making the excuse non-sincere.
Boss: We should include a clock face that looks like that Swiss one.
Minion: Aye aye.
Doesn't mean the boss intended for it to be an exact copy, or that anybody even realized it was protected. Swiss clocks are like 900 years old, surely it's public domain by now, right?
Public domain? I swear, I feel like I'm living in some kind of bizzaro world where everything copyrighted, trademarked, patented, cursed & sanctified... How is this even a dicussion?! We debating whether shaped are worth suing over & crying designs are worth this much. Am I the only one that sees how hilariously messed up this situation is?
I've spent about 8 weeks in Switzerland in my entire life, I'm not a design maven by any stretch (being both color blind to red and dyslexic) and even I said to myself, "hey, that looks like the clocks in train stations in Switzerland."
Sorry to pile on you in particular. No harm meant (so no down-vote from me or anything).
The point is that Apple is a company of designers. They know this stuff. The fact that they have been on a ruthless campaign of patent thuggery over elements of design much more subtle than this and cry continuously and loudly about how everyone is stealing their "intellectual property" makes this incident stand out in sharp relief. Sharp, hypocritical, relief.
Yeah I understand. I wasn't aware of the ubiquity of the design. My original comment was just clearing something up that wasn't related to this at all. I wish I could delete my comment as 5 different people have told me now.
As to the issue at hand I totally agree with your position.
Agree. Still pretty upsetting news for an average stockholder. If those are Apple decisions as to how spend money, no wonder 30% stock downslide. Truly no better usage of this money?? Replacing icon with $99 design and give it out to charity, especially for a company so deattached from such actions, would bring new or sustain existing clientbase much better than this "cool" icon of a clock staying on your device's dashboard.
Replacing it wouldn't protect them from infringement lawsuits, and a 30% stock downslide because of a 0.021% outlay on their $100B cash hoard is a little too insane even for a conspiracy theory.
Because the infringement has already happened. You don't just get to say "oops - I'll stop now" and get away free and clear. You still have to deal with the fact that you did infringe, and compensate for the damages that infringement did to the company and licencees involved.
So the choices are:
* Have a long and involved court case that you will almost certainly lose, where the press will continually poke you about the obvious and direct comparisons to the Samsung/Apple suits.
* Pay compensation/licencing fees, have the story become a non-story in a day or two, carry on using great piece of iconic design.
I'm sure the average share holder cares more about a rounding error of a settlement than the departure of a major executive, iPhone 5 stock levels, or the uncertainty of legal battle fought on many fronts.
$99 design! I think the major reason Apple became the Apple is because they stayed as far as possible from $99/design concept. Reading the following about the original design will give more clarity why Apple copied it one to one:
"...Since then [1944] it has become a Swiss national icon,[2] included among examples of outstanding 20th-century design by both the Design Museum in London and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City". I hope Apple will pay to MOMA too, who else will support the Art:)?
Apple's average stockholder is not who you think it is.
Besides, the company holds >$100B in cash and has managed it's finances exceptionally well in the last decade. I don't think any serious shareholder will bat an eyelash at this.
Watching the motion of the real Swiss railway clocks [1] with its smoothness is quite soothing.
"It requires only about 58.5 seconds to circle the face, then the hand pauses briefly at the top of the clock. It starts a new rotation as soon as it receives the next minute impulse from the master clock." [2]
I imagine that the part you find soothing is the first 58.5 seconds of each minute, where the second hand just rotates continuously rather than ticking.
But I find it really jarring that the clock stops every minute and then starts up again with a jerk.
Interesting fact. I wonder why they could not make it go round in 60 seconds exactly. Did you they have to play with some motor limitations for the seconds hand, or was it purely by design ?
It's to keep all the railway clocks in sync. You could have one that's running up to 1.5s slow and it will still be able to keep up with all the rest, and they're all resynchronised with each other every minute. This is important when it could be the difference between catching a train or not.
History and culture, it's a symbolic touchstone for the Swiss railway. It could of course be ripped out and replaced with a digital one, but would it be as well loved? Possibly, possibly not.
Because this is a mechanical clock. It has to catch 60 seconds independent of environmental conditions (weather, snow, cold etc.) which adversely affect the performance of the clock.
While this is obviously a copy, I'm not sure why everyone loves this design. The only thing that looks different from every other watch in the world is the ball on the end of the second hand, and I find it disturbing.
An identical clock is used at most of the swimming pools I've competed/trained in for lap times and synchronization. I remember it distinctly, since I spent so much time looking at it. It even has the "smooth motion, with a pause at the minute mark" feature that others in the thread are discussing. I suppose that also has practical advantages for swim meets.
I sure hope my high school won't also have to pay $21,000,000; I don't think they'll be able to afford it.
I think Apple should actually pay another $21M to your high school as well:). I am pretty sure some of their designers go swimming in between researching for "inspiration" for the most iconic designs of human civilization:)
Will someone please stand up, gets some balls, and say that the world needs to stick its litigiousness where the sun don't shine? I'm not defending Apple. They screwed the pooch recently suing Samsung. This is karma. But, we need to speak out against people just suing because they can. And, while we're at it, enact laws that restrict the power of unions.
It would be a lot more rational to just switch to a different clock design and pocket the money. 21 million is almost just a rounding error in Apple's accounting department, but it's still a ridiculous amount of money. I can't possibly believe that giving your users this specific design and not losing face due to backpedaling is worth this much.