Look at these two phones below; look very carefully, and think to yourself. 

In case you’ve been living under a proverbial rock for the past three months, you’ll know that Apple and Samsung are locked in a patent war. Apple accuses Samsung of (to put it briefly) copying the designs of iOS, iPhone, and iPad, and more specifically breaching patent rights. Every company has the right to defend their intellectual property. I’m also no Apple fanboy; in fact, I don’t care for iOS devices - I think Apple are lazy and cocky about iOS innovation and development. This brings me onto the issue I take with Samsung: laziness. 

Look at those two phones above again; how much lazier can Samsung get? Look at the style and position of the icons, look at the large home button - it’s almost like they’re making no effort to conceal the fact that they essentially copied the iPhone’s design. Samsung’s Galaxy S lines of phones have been ridiculously popular recently; why is that? Well, I think it’s because they are so similar to the iPhone. Replicating (arguably) the most successful smartphone of all time will almost certainly bump your sales figures. 

So instead of creating something new and thinking outside the box, as HTC does, Samsung took the easy route. Look where it’s got them. In my view, copying the design of the most successful device (note: I used ‘most successful’ rather than ‘best’) will always put you in their shadow; creating something from scratch that people like is what will gain you real success. 

I’m not advocating Apple’s behaviour; I actually think that they’re being, well, Apple. Samsung have dug themselves into this hole, though; a company like that should know better, and I certainly won’t be buying a Samsung phone any time soon out of principal. I believe that Samsung are the party in the wrong, and that they have everything coming to them. It’s easy to criticise Apple, but the patent wars does give Apple haters/Android fanboys a lot of ammunition. Again, I’m no Apple fanboy, but I’m actually on their side; they had those designs first, and for Samsung to come and essentially steal is totally unacceptable business practise. Quite frankly, they should be ashamed.