Apple posts revised Samsung website statement, clever use of responsive design?
Having been told that the original version wasn’t compliant, Apple has now posted a revised statement on its website regarding a design rights dispute with Samsung. The new statement is much shorter, and doesn’t make any reference to comments made by the judge, or other cases that had ruled in Apple’s favour.
Like the previous statement, the new version is accessed via a link at the bottom of apple.com/uk, but not only is the link bigger, there’s also a short paragraph noting that the original version didn’t comply with the order of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales.
However, while you might think that the increased link size and the additional text would make the statement more likely to be accessed, thanks to responsive design I suspect the vast majority of visitors will never see it.
If you haven’t heard of responsive design before, it’s a technique which allows the layout of a web page to change in accordance with a users screen and/or browser window size.
In the case of apple.com/uk, responsive design means that regardless of whether you visit the page on an 11-inch MacBook Air, or a 27-inch iMac, all you will initially see is the main site navigation, a large promotion for the iPad mini, and four smaller blocks featuring other Apple products. If you try resizing your browser window, you will notice that the image of the iPad mini resizes and changes position.
As a result, the link to the Samsung statement is always off-screen when the page loads – unless you scroll down the page, which I can’t see the majority of users doing.
Sceenshot of www.apple.com/uk full screen on a 27-inch iMac – the statement is off screen – under the four blocks
Although the page behaved in a similar way before the statement was added, am I alone in thinking Apple has been a little sneaky with this particular use of responsive design?
Onto the statement itself, here’s a couple of screenshots comparing the original version posted on the 25th of October, and the latest version:
Original non-compliant version
New (presumably) compliant version
The statement was also published in yesterday’s Guardian newspaper.
