Apple Executive Says Samsung Copied the iPhone and Simply 'Put a Bigger Screen Around It'

[jjudson]

I’d say Apple copied the Palm Treo idea, who expanded on the BlackBerry.

Everybody copies everybody — and makes it better.

 

[yakapo]

Competition is good for the consumer.

 

[ackmondual]

I’d say Apple copied the Palm Treo idea, who expanded on the BlackBerry.

Everybody copies everybody — and makes it better.

Good artists copy. Great artists steal

 

[v0lume4]

I do think Samsung just shamelessly copied Apple there early on, but in later years (and to this day) they far surpassed Apple in the design department.

Although Samsung still have a tiny bit of that in them, still. As another poster mentioned, they removed the headphone jack. Wrong move!

 

[The Phazer]

This was a deeply juvenile, inappropriate thing for Apple to claim at the time and it's aged even worse.

 

[The Game 161]

madness as all companies copy each other.

 

[_Spinn_]

He's not wrong. Apple really did reinvent the smartphone with the iPhone. That being said I'm glad Apple had competition.

 

[Mescagnus]

But the app icons on that Samsung phone don't have rounded corners... so where's the copying?

 

[DanVM]

How is the iPad a Surface clone? The original iPad could be used with a keyboard.

It's not just the keyboard. Apple also copied the Pen (Pencil), Windows Hello (Face ID), multitasking in the touch UI, a keyboard w/ trackpad, and UWP apps that run in the full desktop OS (Universal Apps). These features were available in the Surace Pro 4 in 2015.

 

[blairh]

What people think as a proper screen size is personal opinion, I like iPhone 12 Mini.

So do I. I'm using an iPhone 13 Mini. But we are talking about the days of the 4" iPhone screen.

 

[iDento]

Copying is good ? why do we need patents then ? everything should be open source so that any one can copy anything.

I’m not saying copying is good. I’m saying for me as a customer, competition is good.

 

[falkon-engine]

I mean it is true that Samsung appeared to literally rip off, Apple’s design but Apple also copied the concept of a ‘smartphone’ from blackberry and its competitors (like Microsoft).

I never had a blackberry or Microsoft smartphone, but I used to eye them with keen interest. And when the iPhone came out with apps and a great screen and then the next iteration added 3G, I was like take my money!

 

[necrosexy]

i remember i had a galaxy s3 and it aged poorly performance wise.
when i used my gf’s older iPhone, i was a bit taken aback how well it performed

 

[bassexpander]

When the IPhone was first introduced, Korean companies were in a total panic. They controlled a commanding share of the cell phone market, and knew they were going to lose everything if the government didn’t step in and save Samsung/LG/Etc. I have been living in Korea for 20 years. The Korean government did everything it could to keep the IPhone out of the country for as long as possible (at least a year or more). They claimed it emitted radiation. They claimed it didn’t meet certain legal specs, etc. All of this went on until Samsung had enough time to create their first Galaxy phone. Further comedy hit the headlines with the first iPad. Lawmakers were caught using them in speeches while people were being scolded for daring to import them. Korea still hobbles the Apple Store operations, and won’t allow Apple Pay to work. And the government still puts its thumb on the scale to help Samsung. We don’t see Google phones here — they obviously hate the Pixels. Locally, we pay higher prices for phones with worse versions of non-snapdragon CPUs than international counterparts, which is frustrating. Samsung and Apple are the only real choices. Chinese handset sales are comical, as the one or two stores that carry them hide them further away in inconvenient places or around corners, not even charging the batteries so people can try them. Salespeople push Android people away toward Samsung. Apple has a huge share and keeps chipping away from Samsung to this day.

 

[chr1s60]

What exactly did Apple do with NFC and wireless charging that the various other OEMs weren't doing?

Yes, there were a bunch of gimmicky features, but there were also legitimate features that Apple seemingly just waited on for no discernable reason (given the version of the technology they eventually released).

Did you only read half my post? I literally say many but not all features work better. You're welcome to pick and choose what fits in each category in your opinion.

 

[darngooddesign]

...

 

[zzrwood]

And then Apple copied Microsoft to turn the iPad into a Surface-clone.

Everybody copies everybody.

You obviously haven’t used a Surface as a tablet… If Apple had copied the Surface experience than the iPad would have pretty quickly ceased to exist… 🙄

 

[BGPL]

Google and Samsung ripped off Apple in the beginning, sure. But now that Apple is out of ideas, they are chasing everyone else's tails, so they really have no room to talk.

 

[TheMacDaddy1]

Same thing applies to my car, my house, my watch... nevertheless I somehow do care about its quality and features.

I do too. A Samsung S22 equals the iPhone in quality in every way. The latest version of Android and iOS have way more features than I will ever use. It reaches a point where I am satisfied, both do that way past my requirements.

Caring about who copied who so long ago? Did Toro copy Troybuilt mower tech back in 2007? Maybe...but no one gives two shoots about it.

 

[Aoligei]

You obviously haven’t used a Surface as a tablet… If Apple had copied the Surface experience than the iPad would have pretty quickly ceased to exist… 🙄

Yet iPad's amazing hardware is being bottlenecked by poor iPadOS software. Even with the iPadOS 16 and the stage manager thing, iPadOS still suck.

I have 12.9 iPad Pro and 7th Gen iPad, both them are in drawer and haven't been powered for almost a year now. I rather use my iPhone (or Pixel phone) or my MacBook Pro than using iPad. So much better experience on multitasking, actual ability to connect external storage, printer etc. without some tricky software workaround.

And Windows 10 or Windows 11on tablet is okay to use, I have actually tried to use Windows 10 on work issued Lenovo Yoga with actual touch screen, I don't really find hard to use.

 

[mayga1]

The Wall Street Journal's Joanna Stern today shared a new documentary about the evolution of the iPhone ahead of the 15th anniversary of the device launching on June 29, 2007. The documentary includes an interview with Apple's marketing chief Greg Joswiak, iPhone co-creator Tony Fadell, and a family of iPhone users.

One segment of the interview reflects on Android smartphones gaining larger displays years before the iPhone did. When asked about how much of a factor Samsung and other Android smartphone makers had on Apple at the time, Joswiak admitted they were "annoying" and accused them of poorly copying Apple's technology.

"They were annoying," said Joswiak. "And they were annoying because, as you know, they ripped off our technology. They took the innovations that we had created and created a poor copy of it, and just put a bigger screen around it. So, yeah, we were none too pleased."

Samsung launched the Galaxy S4 with a 5-inch display in early 2013, at a time when the iPhone 5 had a 4-inch display. Apple did eventually release its first larger smartphones with the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus in 2014, and the devices were met with strong demand and went on to be among the best-selling iPhone models ever.

Apple sued Samsung in 2011 for patent infringement, alleging that Samsung copied the iPhone's design with its own Galaxy line of smartphones. Apple was initially awarded around $1 billion in damages, but the amount was lowered in a subsequent retrial. In 2018, Apple finally settled with Samsung and reiterated the followiang statement:The full documentary can be watched on The Wall Street Journal's website and provides an interesting look back at the iPhone over the years.

Article Link: Apple Executive Says Samsung Copied the iPhone and Simply 'Put a Bigger Screen Around It'

And apple copied the first LG and just put a different operating system on it.

 

[alexonline]

Well yeah but the bigger screen was exactly what people wanted at the time. He's right that it was a poor copy other than that, because I switched for a while to get the bigger screen and more freedom. I did discover how inferior it was otherwise, but Apple sure was obstinate about just giving people the bigger screen they wanted.

I specifically remember at the time when they were bragging about how advanced their processor is, how good their software is, etc- but the only way to experience it was through that tiiiiny little window.

iPads did exist at the time, of course. It wasn't the only way to experience their processor and software, the iPad screen was 9.7-inches in size. I know you're talking about phones, but if we're gonna be accurate, let's be accurate, it wasn't the only way to experience it.

 

[alexonline]

There's a LOT of BS from commenters here about how we'd still be using 4-inch iPhones today if it weren't for Samsung. A lot of DUMB being spoken here.

Apple launched the 3.5-inch iPhone at a time when the LG Prada was a joke, the Motorola A1000 was also a thick useless joke, and the most popular phones in the world where Nokia's with 1 and 2-inch screens.

Apple wasn't "the original" large screen phone but it was THE most popular, they popularised large screens.

On what planet do the bozos here claiming we'd still be on 4-inch phones live when they say dumb things like we'd still be on 4-inch phones when Apple was the one to popularise large screen phones?

You all mad? Wake up! Apple obviously had large screen phones in the pipeline. They understood the concept of size better than most here, having had decades of products in different sizes, capacities etc.

Also the 1GB RAM on the iPhone 6?

It was the same RAM as on the last two generations. Apps that worked on those older phones would work just fine on the new phones, but new apps would also work just fine on the older generations.

Once Apple went to presumably 2GB with the iPhone 6s, older phones would really have started looking and feeling older.

Apple introduces things to suit itself, of course, but it also thinks of the user base.

Apple is a lot smarter than people here in the comments give it credit for. Pretty simple.

 

[Darth Tulhu]

I never cared much for the legalities one way or another. I only cared about the products.

And the last iPhone I owned prior to my current iPhone 12 Pro was an iPhone 4s.

In between iPhones I used nothing but Samsung Galaxy phones, especially the Note Series. And I was HAPPY.

In that time, which also included sealed, un-upgradeable Macs, a Tube Mac Pro, butterfly keyboards, TouchBars, single-port-type-too-early machines, iPhones without headphone jacks, notches, and too-expensive (comparatively) headphones, I did not miss Apple, let alone iPhone, AT ALL.

I just kept chugging along with my 2011/2012 Macs and my more-capable-than-iPhone Galaxy devices until Apple finally got it's head out and fixed their lineup.

Granted, iPhone didn't change much, but since then the tech world caught up with too-forward-jumping-Apple, and the ecosystem became viable for my needs again.

To be honest, perhaps it was me who, in 2020, was finally able to accept the puck's location that Apple skated to.

 

[falainber]

Galaxy S4 was not the first Samsung phone with large screen. It was Note (1) released in 2011 which had screen size 5.29". Apple followed suit three years later.