Creating a phone is not like a multiple choice question. It's not a case of choosing to be a rectangle or not. There are too many variables too much aesthetic reasoning and brand imposition that goes into the design. If we do use a black rectangle, then do we round the edges? What is the radius of our rounding? How much do we chamfer the edges? Why that amount? Do we need a bezel? What material should that be made of? What shape should our speaker hole be? Where should it be? What is the primary goal of the OS? How do we achieve that? Etc. No... Designing a phone is not a multiple choice, but an essay question. You figure out all the ideals and then, through design, you try and create something that achieves every nuance of your love letter to a smart phone. I'm willing to accept that after the release of Apple's iPhone, Samsung's soul searching led them to the same goals (maybe), but they didn't write their own essay; they looked at Apple's essay and stole Apple's exact wording Apple's grammar. Two people can agree on the highest level outline of an essay, but they won't independently write the same one word for word.*
Look at the Samsung Fascinate and tell me, without copying Apple, that they independently came up with that design, the 4x4 grid of icons, plus a four icon dock at the bottom, a side profile white silhouette of an old phone receiver on a green rounded square, a yellow flower for their photos app (because that's a standard, right?!), the same SIRI implementation, the same speech bubbles metaphor for their chat client, the same dotted pagination, the same dock connector, the same wall plug, the same box art..... So no... It's not Apple trying to stop black rectangles... This is Apple getting mad when someone is turning in stolen homework as their own.*
