Asian market always takes competition to the next level, whereas American companies usually value integrity and honesty over sacrifice of principles. I am proud to be an American because all the American companies here (Google, Moto, and Apple) have class and present their phones as they are. I could imagine the decision in the engineering department, a VP thought of the good old days of a budding Silicon Valley where a young boy could get a job at a company by walking up to its CEO, where innovation thrived, driven by a group of idealistic young men, so he scoffed at the proposal to compete with these Asian newcomers at their level. Samsung might be the biggest smartphone maker, and HTC and Asus are poster childs for successful Taiwanese companies, but they have nothing of the tradition and history of people like Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, Sherman Fairchild, and Andy Grove. This is why Silicon Valley continues to be the birthplace of most cutting edge technologies and inventions while their Asian counterparts master their arts of copying and expanding. I think what it comes down to is risk. What makes Silicon Valley special is the risk-taking courage. Samsung could come up 50 useless whiz features because as long some of them work, some generate buzz, then they accomplish a goal. It is 1,000 harder for companies like Google and Apple to say, create an entire new platform, or embed a finger print sensor, or use a new screen technology (retina), a new casing material (metal and glass); these are much more risky because they require huge capital investment and a commitment of your product line and company identity where a failure cannot be an option. Then once they pioneered it, it is much easier for Asian companies to follow suit and refine. "You got a retina? I will out 1080p in my phone." Well you see, it is not hard to put 1080p in a phone, it is hard to be the first company to take the huge risk to explore a new market. Once proven, of course it is easier for other companies to learn and follow. People of the world need to give more credits to this tradition entrepreneurial culture that differentiates American companies on this list. Without Google and Apple recently, or Intel, Fairchild, Bell Lab, Microsoft, etc, Samsung and LG will be still copying Sony and make DVD players.
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Think about it from the engineers perspective. They always want to build and code their products to be better, not meeting a standard. Now if they know how to ace a test, why wouldn't they tweak their systems to do it? Well some engineers won't, those with class and confidence that their PhD degrees probably from a better school taught them to use their time well, on work and research of actual substance and impact, instead of wasting time on inflating their works.
