iriver says iPhone-like interface just proof of concept

We hit the show floor excitedly looking for iriver's GSM phone which they showed off earlier in the week, but when we got to their booth, the little guy was nowhere to be found. We managed to wrangle a chat out of some of the company's product designers and marketing people, and they explained their hesitation at continuing to show the W7-cum-GSM-phone due to the similarities of the phones UI to an all-too-familiar device. According to the iriver people, the iPhone-like interface which was showcased originally was only meant to demonstrate what the phone was capable of, not a finalized version of the OS. Of course, it's little consolation to us, having seen a brief snippet of the phone, though we're assured that some new hotness -- or hot newness -- is on the way from the cats in Korea.

[Phisherman81 @ Jan 11th 2008 10:15AM]

Isn't the iPhone the proof of concept? All this proves is that they can rip off the UI (something that has been proven more than once already). Cool hardware though.

[Bender Bending Rodriguez @ Jan 11th 2008 10:39AM]

haha
I thought the same thing.

[holycow @ Jan 11th 2008 10:54AM]

"W7-cum-GSM-phone"

LOL... W7 is a bit sexually active now isnt it! :P

[Alan Partridge @ Jan 11th 2008 11:01AM]

"cats in Korea"

...Nah, Ill leave it.

[bob @ Jan 11th 2008 11:21AM]

most of these rip off iphones just look or work a bit like the iphone, they are not scalable, so come iphone 2, they just start again, they dont have osx and the desktop work done on that, all this trickles down from mac osx to mobile osx.

[riggs @ Jan 11th 2008 11:45AM]

that sure does look like the prada phone UI....what? iphone came first? since when?

[andy @ Jan 11th 2008 12:33PM]

also there UI for there unit 2 was bearing a striking resembelnce to apple's dashboard.. very dissapointing considering the product is very tasty..

[Ipaq3115 @ Jan 11th 2008 12:34PM]

Riiiiiiiight...

[Ipaq3115 @ Jan 11th 2008 12:36PM]

Riiiiiiiight...

[Matt @ Jan 12th 2008 1:23AM]

Woo! I should work for iriver because that's exactly what i said i thought it was. They were using a familiar interface for early builds of the OS... Eat that, apple fantards..

[3rdsun @ Jan 11th 2008 5:56PM]

Who they hell cares about iphone icons. next you'll be saying it got fonts from the iphone as well, or it plays the same files. God damn it I hate to hear everything is like iphone.

[Warren @ Jan 11th 2008 6:39PM]

god damn are you blind or just ignorant? its pretty obvious they tried to (copy) base their design off the success of the Iphone.

why are you saying your tired of hearing "Everything is like the Iphone?" its the truth, whether you want to believe it or not. Shit, all these other companies are doing it too. they think that if it has the same interface/look and function as the Iphone (or any apple product) that they will get the same success (meaning $$$) as apple, when in actuality its totally the opposite. i mean when will these companies learn? i mean would you want to buy a Xbox360 (or PS3) from Microsoft (or Sony)? or just get another Korean (example, japan, china ect...) Xbox360 knock-off?

and yes, the truth hurts doesn't it........

[sean @ Jan 13th 2008 3:17AM]

hey guys, criticising iriver for copying iphone-ish UI - even if they claim it was only a testing prototype - is good. I think it was foolish of them to do that. and a lot of you guys would probably be thinking iriver is just like one of those chinese cheap a** copy-cat brands such as Meizu. But I think a litle different. Knowing the effort they put into when creating and designing each products, I think what they did with the GSM phone's UI was a mistake.

visit their global website iriver.com or korean page for CES
http://www.iriver.co.kr/event/2008/ces2008/event.asp?mode=1

the korean website is ofcourse in korean but just take a look at some of their products and concepts and see if "copycat" still describes this company.
:)