Only if you assume features are the only thing of value to a phone. Entire economies are based on how pretty (jewels and jewellery, clothes, etc) or cheap (TVs, PCs, etc) something is, so either those models are deficient, or you don’t know them as well as you think.
The creators of Frutiger would like to have a word or two with MS Afga Monotype about influences.
Fixed that for you — and luckily, the font designer, Steve Matterson, has responded:
Taking your question literally — ‘Did you or someone at Monotype observe the Frutiger fonts and adapt any of the features of those fonts while developing any versions of Segoe?’ — the answer is no.
If you meant to ask — ‘Did I or anyone at Monotype modify the design of Segoe UI after the similarity with Frutiger was first spotted by a commentator on the Web?’ — the answer is the Segoe fonts continue to evolve prior to and following the first time someone pointed out similarities between the fonts on their Web site. In fact today I just finished redrawing the dagger. Changes were made based on testing and on-screen appearance issues. Although the effect of these changes may have been to move the design even further away from Frutiger that’s just a side-effect of continued improvement.
Microsoft also considers Segoe to be not derivitive of Frutiger. Considering that they actually has the rights to distribute Frutiger instead of Segoe if they so choose, I see no reason to doubt them.
As for Arial, it’s based on Monotype Grotesque with changes made so it fits the same width and height as Helvetica. Last time I checked that wasn’t plagiarism, and Robin Nicholas (the lead for Arial) has gone on record as saying he did not base it on Helvetica either.
You can in theory, but in practice I’ve never been able to get it to work. This meant that, despite having the CD for Portal 2, I could not play it for several months.
This is why I think the way EA did it in 2008 was best — online as well as CD-based verification.
@Abbott77 The question is, of course, whether the “vast majority of what has been coming out of people’s mouth” represents the vast majority of the people.
People who like and/or are content with something don’t usually say anything, but people with complaints will, well, complain.
