HP’s lying bullshit

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HP Vice President of Industrial Design Stacy Wolff talking about how they didn’t copy Apple:

I think if you look at the new Spectre XT, there are similarities in a way, not due to Apple but due to the way technologies developed. Apple may like to think that they own silver, but they don’t. In no way did HP try to mimic Apple. In life there are a lot of similarities.”

Yeah Stacy, because this looks nothing like a MacBook Air, nothing at all.



  • http://twitter.com/vasily_m Vasily Myazin

    It looks like it’s half-way between a traditional Wintel laptop PC and a Macbook Air.

    • JohnDoey

      A traditional Windows laptop PC is a copy of an Apple PowerBook from 1991, which is now the MacBook Pro. So what you are saying is this HP is a cross between a MacBook Air and Pro.

  • ungeheier

    Still an HP, which means it’s still crap.

  • http://www.thegraphicmac.com/ JimD

    I hate to see people rip-off Apple, but this story is really stretching it. Laptops were silver long before Apple switched to them. And the tapered front is simply a product of evolution. Rounded corners? Laptops have had them for quite a while.

    You can make the argument that Apple made the look & feel of the Air popular, but then you have to make the same argument that every home ever built is a rip-off of the first home ever built that had four walls and a roof.

    • JohnDoey

      BS. There are infinite ways to design a notebook. That we have seen from the generic PC market over the past 20 years. The most popular line of notebooks for the past 5 years have all had silver bodies, black bezels, uncovered side ports, chiclet keyboards, giant no-button trackpads — and it is just a coincidence that HP also has all those features now?

      Stop making excuses for counterfeiting. HP is supposed to design their own products, not copy Apple’s products.

      The f’ing thing is called an “Envy” — as in you envy a Mac. The Envy line specifically copies Apple’s cosmetics. That is what the whole line does for years now, and you are saying it is not a copy of a Mac. Outrageously low standards!

  • http://twitter.com/joshwyatt Joshua Wyatt

    Reading Stacy Wolff’s comments reminded me of Jonathan Ive’s section in the excellent industrial design documentary Objectified. He explains that good design solutions feel obvious and leave you believing “how could they be any other way”. 

    I wrote a short blog post comparing the two:

    http://accidentaldesign.co.nz/post/22736771081/why-wouldnt-it-be-any-other-way

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=7954568 Andy O’Neal

    I honestly don’t see it. the old envys were direct copies of a macbook pro, but this has ugly hinges, and ugly bevel around the trackpad, and an ugly speaker grill along the top.

  • JohnDoey

    The era of clones is over. Apple is too good, too cheap, too fast, too famous, and too Windows-compatible for there to be any significant clone demand going forward. Same as there were no successful iPod clones or iPhone clones or iPad clones. The originals are 5-10 years ahead of everything else and are the cheapest devices in their class. The Mac has 90% of high-end PC’s and iPad will soon have the majority of low-end PC’s. HP is selling antiques. The majority of HP users run Windows XP from 2001. No future at all.

  • http://twitter.com/Moeskido Moeskido

    Too many design cues lifted literally from the Air without much more modification than carelessness could account for. And there are way too many companies like HP that have done the same. Shameless.

  • lucascott

    it’s a huge stretch to call this a copy. It’s HP’s design from the last few years just thinner. That’s the same thing that Apple did when they went from Pro to Air. Heck when Steve introduced the Air he make a comment to the effect that one day all laptops would look like what was in his hand. It wasn’t ‘all Apple laptops’ but all in a general sense. It was as if he knew even then that everyone was going to copy the basic design and Steve wasn’t all that worried about it. 

    The real BS in the whole thing is that this VP brought up Apple and the implication that Apple would call out for copying it would be over the color. IF Apple was going to call them out it would be over something much bigger than just using silver. Like if they copied how Apple machines their cases (which as I recall Apple has a patent on). Making such a ‘Apple is petty’ comment just makes Wolff look like an ass. Add to it the whole “in no way” when it is clear that yes you did take some cues from Apple and Wolff looks like a dumb ass. Even if the only cue was ‘make it thinner’ you can’t claim that wasn’t because of the success of the Macbook Air. It’s a common game in the tech world right now. Folks perhaps thinking about something but deciding it’s so risky they won’t do it. But then Apple does and it’s a hit so then they break out that idea, perhaps add an inspired tweak or two and then try to beat Apple in the game (and fail).