Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Regarding the Apple Watch drawings, it's just for reference purposes. Standard practice in the patent world. Companies do it all the time. Nothing to see there.

As for the Samsung C5, I see nothing remotely resembling any copying of Apple's iPhone. The C5 doesn't have symmetrically aligned design and notice the corners have tangency breaks whereas Apple's iPhone's corners are resolved so one surface perfectly curves to the next. And note the shape of the Home button is different too. Finally, Apple did not invent Rose Gold.
All samung phones and marketing are extensively point-by-point copying Apple since the iPhone design lawsuit was won by Apple. This was also shown during the trial where samsung revealed a hundred page document they were using to design galaxy that was checklisting point by point every single copied feature and design of iPhone and iOS.

Trial was won but with low damages awarded. Sasmsung just did a calculation: profit > damages.
Prior to the verdict samsung was careful to change the details a little bit while copying. Not the copy is in detail and in full view. The other manufacturers were emboldened by the low damages samsung had to pay and all started making iPhone lookalikes.

You can stick your head in the sand and go la-la-la but no one will listen to you and the beneath-every-moral behaviour by samsung will be forever known.
 
I don't think you are the least bit paranoid to not want a corporation listening in on you in order to "assist" you. I have Siri turned off on all of my Apple devices, and will not buy any other "assistant" being offered. I don't understand what people find so difficult about typing instructions into a device.


I don't think people necessarily find it difficult to type instructions into a device. I think it's just a natural progression in the world of "smart technology".

There are plenty of reasons why someone chooses to use any of these smart assistants. Sure it won't be everyone's cup of tea, & that's certainly understood, but it also doesn't mean it's ultimately useless.

I know people who still have flip phones, don't order ANY thing online (Amazon is out of the question) or even pay bills online, etc & look at those who do in the similar vein of " I don't understand why people........"
 
  • Like
Reactions: bobmepp and 5105973
No, if that were true, the HomePod would have a better voice assistant.

Btw, my Echo sounds just fine for its use in the bedroom.

And if I wanted to hook up a nice stereo system to it, I sure wouldn't use a one speaker box system, no matter how fancy.

According to YouTube videos Alexa is worse than Siri. Whatever, voice assistance isn't its main feature, it's HiFi sound and easy setup. This is the complete opposite of an Echo.

The HomePod's main competitor is Sonos. If anything, Apple is copying Sonos, which is what people have been wanting Apple to do for years.
 
Let's see how talking to your Samsung fridge will work with Homepod, then we'll talk again. Music streaming services are only one piece of the puzzle - but it's the only piece Apple knows something about. In the meantime, everybody else is busy integrating Amazon's Alexa into their devices and services (that have nothing to do with music). And Samsung and Microsoft have their own range of products and services into which their voice assistants could integrate. Streaming services aren't everything.
Hopefully this is Apple's start to better integration. They have handicapped HomeKit with licensing restrictions (from what I hear) that has prevented hubs like Wink from integrating HomeKit. As it is I end up using my Amazon Echos for voice control when I'm home. Apple will have to play catch-up here, but we know that Apple is good at that. I don't know how critical it would be for Siri to integrate with my refrigerator though....
[doublepost=1503540590][/doublepost]
It was easy as Google search "things Apple copy..." & auto-predict finished "...copied from Samsung" First result:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/timoth...om-apple-and-thats-a-good-thing/#2e880b254e36
http://bgr.com/2016/12/29/iphone-vs-android-samsung-copycat/
http://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-copies-apple-2013-7

I'm sure that we could go on and on about the two of them copying each other. The term "copying" could be pretty subjective though. The video you cited, for example, had as the first issue as Apple copying the screen size of the phone from Samsung. I'm not sure if Samsung was the pioneer of large screens, but people asked Apple for large screens for years with Apple balking at it and finally caving to market pressure. I wouldn't call that copying Samsung.
 
  • Like
Reactions: NetMage
Galaxy C5 “Pink Gold”
<humongous image snipped for clarity>

They even use the AW in their smart watch parents.
<humongous image snipped for clarity>
Do you and Sunny1990 shop at the same Costco supersized image store? :eek: Do they come with a 5 gallon tub of mayo?:p:D
The provenance of rose gold isn't Cupertino, but I will concede Sammy started featuring it after Apple. You're reaching pretty hard with the patent drawings used as reference. Especially since none of Sammy's watches even remotely look like the AW.

But most of the time as of late it’s been things like design cues for minor things like keyboards and such, since the bulk of the cloning has already been done 2008-2014 such as hardware design, software design and product packaging and accessories, all copied straight from Apple. They reference Apple directly in a fair few of their own adverts, it’s not like they’re trying to hide it.
Your definition of recent is different from mine. Did they copy some things in the past? Yup. Are they copying Apple now? Nope. Adverts comparing your competition isn't copying.

...and let’s not forget the timing of this speaker announcement coming off the back of their own digital voice assistant, like Apple also has. Also remember last year when they moved their Note release schedule forward to get their product out before Apple? Yeah, they shouldn’t rush things..
What timing are you talking about? Samsung was rumored to be launching this speaker back in the summer (working on it for over a year) and then rumored to cancel it because of 1. they considered Amazon unbeatable and 2. they couldn't get Bixby to handle English properly. They think they have a handle on Bixby so it's back on again. They'll still get murdered by Amazon, but E for effort I guess.

You've made that "they rushed the Note" claim in the past. It wasn't true then and isn't true now. Note release dates: Note 5 - 8/21, Note 7 - 8/19, Note 8 - 8/24.
 
Am I alone in saying these types of home devices just don't do it for me?
Obviously you haven't seen how convenient it can be.

Instead of walking over and flicking the switch for a lamp. You turn off any appliance making too much noise. Walk over to a device next to the lamp. Then tell it to turn the light on several times until it does it.
 
I don't think you are the least bit paranoid to not want a corporation listening in on you in order to "assist" you. I have Siri turned off on all of my Apple devices, and will not buy any other "assistant" being offered. I don't understand what people find so difficult about typing instructions into a device.

I have nothing against the concept of using your voice to control things or ask questions, it's who does that information - the questions, the song preferences, the products that you are buying, the shows and news that you are listening to- belong to. Right now, Google and Amazon own the rights to use that information. It's not yours, you cannot control it. Bad publicity might make them refrain from using it heavy handedly, but you never know when and where they might make an exception. Google has historically not made any bones about this. They make their money from selling your browsing habits to other companies, and Alexa is just an extension of that. Amazon hides a little more behind legalize, but they are doing much the same. And then there are the First Amendment type rights to privacy and to whom do those companies allow access to the information that they collects about you.

If the information was mine, and stored somewhere that I controlled, and could allow or deny access as I saw fit, my opinion might be different. But I cannot control those things, even though they are about and generated by me. I also realize that I am in a minority here. Most people do not care that an insensitive (at best) set of companies control intimate information about their lives. They may never know the reason that they didn't get a job, or were denied a loan, or had difficulty with a government agency, or an insurance company denied their health claim. The dots connecting you to the data collected aren't always obvious, and data mining isn't understood by most people.

I use to work (a long time ago) at a junk mail shop. We bought compiled lists to mail things to. The lists could be sorted and purchased by combinations of household income, zip code, sex, education, occupation, products you had bought etc. I surprised a relative by finding out-legally- where she had lived as a kid, when they had moved, teachers she had AND her social security number. This was in the 1980's. Companies were already gathering and storing information, then cross checking it with other databases. A company called Donnelly use to have most of the phone book printing business in the US. They also sold information to companies like the one I worked for. It was scary what they knew then, and that was before people were giving their information willingly to get some shiny bauble of technology to turn on their lights by voice.
 
Samsung is indeed working on a smart speaker that will be introduced in the near future, Samsung mobile president DJ Koh told CNBC this morning.

"Maybe soon we will announce it. I am already working on it," he said in an interview following the Galaxy Note 8 launch.
Article Link: Samsung Confirms Work on Speaker to Compete With Apple HomePod and Amazon Echo
Their admission is mind-blowingly shameless. Refreshing actually, let's face it, they all copy to an extent, but most won't readily admit to it. Samsung almost seems to be proud of it.
 
I don't think you are the least bit paranoid to not want a corporation listening in on you in order to "assist" you. I have Siri turned off on all of my Apple devices, and will not buy any other "assistant" being offered. I don't understand what people find so difficult about typing instructions into a device.
Like @RemE we got an Echo for my in-laws who are in their 80's and have impairments. Neither can see very well and while my mother-in-law is decently proficient with technology, she is recovering from several strokes and now lacks the fine motor skills needed to operate her phone manually. My father-in-law has visual impairments.

We had them using Siri but Siri simply has lost the ability to properly render their words. Or even my words. Or anybody's words. Nevermind that of an elderly person with slower speech.

I don't know what the hell happened but Siri has gotten very bad at understanding everything. Siri used to work for my father in law, but now just frustrates him, so we got him an Echo.

Unfortunately, I've noticed a bit of a similar decline with Alexa on my own Echo. She's been misunderstanding my family and I for about a couple of months now. I ask her if she has been out drinking with Siri. ;)

Is it possible that with greater popularity there is some kind of strain on their servers that causes wonky performance on these voice activated AI systems?

As for Bixby, I declined to use it on my Samsung because I didn't like the terms of use. I felt it was more nosy and invasive than Google, giving away too much information to its partners, who could end up being anybody.
 
  • Like
Reactions: bobmepp and macs4nw
Well, no. Apple isn't "forced" into any market. Siri was around well before Alexa, and "Hey Siri" around before the Amazon speaker. Apple could have easily pushed out a smart speaker line before now. It didn't either because Siri had not advanced enough, HomeKit had not advanced enough, or Apple wasn't sure of the market.

Their public comments before the introduction of the Homepod tell exactly: They felt the usability of a device like Echo was limited by being voice only and bound as tower in a room.

Given the state of Siri today, which hasn't progressed too far in Voice-only commands with exception to the expansion of her music knowledge, and HomeKit's growth still only just starting to spread across manufactures on any sort of entry level - I'd say the exact reason we are seeing a Smart speaker from Apple is from the positive response to Alexa from the consumer market; nothing else has changed.
Alexa impacts Siri. Her usage, her perception, her growth, her limitations. Apple had to move into this market, it's undeniable as a producer of a voice assistant and the consumers attraction to echo-like devices.

Why does Samsung wait to follow in Apple's footsteps?
Because they know Apple will break Alexa's grasp of the market by attacking from a proper angle in which to profit: a speaker. Now Samsung just has to follow that category, HQ audio and Bixby, (which they will) and attempt to undercut Apple with a plethora of half-assed features and spread it across both low and high end price points to hit an audience Apple doesn't.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: FFR
Three pages of "Samsung copying Apple" comments. It's rather silly. Naturally competition will follow amongst the other manufacturers, which includes Amazon and Google. The HomePod isn't even released yet and others here are convinced Samsung is already copying Apple? Even if Samsung was 'copying' Apple, we don't know what Samsung has in store for their smart Speaker version or capabilities, let alone even a release date for Smart Speaker.

Competition is a good thing and I hope Samsung does release a successful product in the smart Speaker era, as it gives consumers more options amongst the others.
 
its clear Apple is taking ideas from others, is a natural thing nowadays but come on, samsung is far away....Samsung use to be the first to put a lot of big numbers with almost any new flagship, more ppi more MP...now, they stoped and even went back to Apples strategy, making dual cameras, making 12MP not 16MP for portrait mode and 2x zoom
Now they do speakers, but its samsung, like on the tablet market,where now is a 0 profit, ipad is the only tablet that count,after almost no Samsung laptops, they are close to be the case even with the smartwatch,and in the future with this speaker business.
I mean competition is the best thing, but samsung matters , for now still, only in smartphone category because it is a must have device
[doublepost=1503551842][/doublepost]but in laptop category samsung is 0 competition to Apple, where are brands like Dell to fight Apple, tablets like i said no one, can still compete with ipad/ipad pro, smartwatch is Apples thing, pc again samsung is 0 to compete with imac/mac pro,speakers? no way samsung will be the competition here either, still amazon and google will be
 
Well, no. Apple isn't "forced" into any market. Siri was around well before Alexa, and "Hey Siri" around before the Amazon speaker. Apple could have easily pushed out a smart speaker line before now.
Basically you're claiming that all products are merely copies of Apple products, including products that Apple doesn't yet (or never will) make.
 
  • Like
Reactions: apolloa
Like @RemE we got an Echo for my in-laws who are in their 80's and have impairments. Neither can see very well and while my mother-in-law is decently proficient with technology, she is recovering from several strokes and now lacks the fine motor skills needed to operate her phone manually. My father-in-law has visual impairments.

We had them using Siri but Siri simply has lost the ability to properly render their words. Or even my words. Or anybody's words. Nevermind that of an elderly person with slower speech.

I don't know what the hell happened but Siri has gotten very bad at understanding everything. Siri used to work for my father in law, but now just frustrates him, so we got him an Echo.

Unfortunately, I've noticed a bit of a similar decline with Alexa on my own Echo. She's been misunderstanding my family and I for about a couple of months now. I ask her if she has been out drinking with Siri. ;)

Is it possible that with greater popularity there is some kind of strain on their servers that causes wonky performance on these voice activated AI systems?

As for Bixby, I declined to use it on my Samsung because I didn't like the terms of use. I felt it was more nosy and invasive than Google, giving away too much information to its partners, who could end up being anybody.

Have you considered the common element in the perceived decline is... you?
You have two different vendors, two different products, and you perceive that they have both entered a similar trajectory, one that is not documented as being a global/universal phenomenon. Yes, Siri has fallen behind the progress of other competitors, but there is no reason it wouldn't be as good as it always was for the same tasks it always did.
So...
 
Am I alone in saying these types of home devices just don't do it for me?

Nope. Not only do I find the always-listening aspect a tad creepy, but the only time I ever dictate any questions to Siri is when I set a timer on my phone whilst cooking a meal... seems kinda pointless to have a smart speaker just for that in my case ;)
 
  • Like
Reactions: iapplelove
Not really a fan of the over priced smart speakers. So hopefully Sammy prices it right. And once again I LOL at folks saying Samsung is copying Apple....as if Apple didn't do the same thing to Amazon and Google. Hell Apple has copied Samsung before. If it wasn't for the success of the Note (a device that many first laughed at), there would be no bigger screened iPhone. Hell if it wasn't for the Bezel-less designs that the likes of LG and Samsung are pushing out, the iPhone 8 would still be the same old tired big bezeled LCD design from 2013. So please, let's not act like Apple is the king of originality b/c there's been countless ideas they've either stolen or piggybacked off of
 
I can see it now. They'll throw together enough hardware to compete with Apple on a spec sheet while the end product will generally be a piece of ****. It seems to be working for them, I feel bad for the poor saps that buy their products.
 
What do they do ? Copy everything ?

And so would you do. And any company ever has done, doing back thousands of years.
Ancient Egyptian street markets.
You wish to earn money, you see people are buying a hollowed our gourd for carrying water in the desert, so you think, I can also make money as that's what people are buying, so you also set up a stall selling something similar.
Your items have have differences to the one you originally sold, and you may also offer alternate products as well to the person you saw.
And that's business.

Samsung make a ton more variety of products than Apple has ever done in it's entire life.
Apple uses Samsung parts.

We all know the iPhone would be nothing without Samsung ever having been around so you should thank them for giving Apple someone to compete against, and also making it possible for Apple to build their phones in the 1st place.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.