Categories
Blog Linkblog

Google warned Samsung about copying Apple

John Paczkowski for AllThingsD:

Among those documents are a few purported to show that Samsung not only deliberately copied certain characteristics of the iPhone and iPad, but was also explicitily warned away from doing so by various third parties, including Google. Below, a sampling of some of Apple’s more compelling points.

  • In February 2010, Google told Samsung that Samsung’s “P1” and “P3” tablets (Galaxy Tab and Galaxy Tab 10.1) were “too similar” to the iPad and demanded “distinguishable design vis-à-vis the iPad for the P3.”
  • In 2011, Samsung’s own Product Design Group noted that it is “regrettable” that the Galaxy S “looks similar” to older iPhone models.
  • As part of a formal, Samsung-sponsored evaluation, famous designers warned Samsung that the Galaxy S “looked like it copied the iPhone too much,” and that “innovation is needed.” The designers explained that the appearance of the Galaxy S “[c] losely resembles the iPhone shape so as to have no distinguishable elements,” and “[a]ll you have to do is cover up the Samsung logo and it’s difficult to find anything different from the iPhone.”


Want some examples? How about these:

Or how tablets look since Apple released the iPad:

(via Reinaldo Versuri/Twitpic)