Due to Apple’s feast-or-famine strategy to product bulletins, January is usually a tedious month for the Macworld crew. The final batch of recent merchandise got here out within the fall, and the subsequent ones in all probability gained’t be right here till the spring; in between, we shiver and get bored. Of their wintry desperation, keynote-starved Apple reporters have even been identified to observe product unveilings by different firms.
I don’t know if I’ll go that far this week when Samsung holds its subsequent Galaxy Unpacked occasion. Not as a result of Samsung telephones are intrinsically inferior to iPhones—though coincidentally they’re—however as a result of I really feel like I’ve seen all of it earlier than.
Samsung, you see, is the unique. Not, sadly, within the sense that it does issues first, however within the sense that it was xeroxing iPhone designs earlier than it was cool. I do know this as a result of the long-running patent dispute between Apple and Samsung was my first beat subject as a Macworld reporter. The primary lawsuits have been filed again in 2011, and the saga dragged on till 2018. I obtained a bunch of articles out of that dispute, and an look on British TV information. (I can solely assume it was a gradual information day.)
Samsung and Apple have a protracted historical past of borrowing options from one another yr after yr.
Foundry
The core of Apple’s authentic criticism–which later obtained muddied by further claims and counterclaims–was that Samsung had violated plenty of patents protecting the iPhone’s form and software program interface. It was instructed, not unreasonably, that the 1st-gen Galaxy S took a level of inspiration from the iPhone 3GS that pushed the bounds of authorized propriety. My very own view was and stays that, as soon as a tool finds its optimum approximate design, it hinders competitors if the corporate that got here up with that design is ready to forestall rivals from following go well with in a common sense. However on the similar time, it’s price acknowledging that Samsung actually was pushing its luck.
Roughly 14 years on, I’m feeling somewhat nostalgic about these easier days when individuals may get offended about one thing as minor as product design. (Oh, maintain on.) Funnily sufficient, given the lightning velocity at which the tech trade is meant to maneuver, each Apple and Samsung are nonetheless releasing merchandise from the identical strains mentioned within the 2011 lawsuit: we’ll get a brand new iPhone in a few months, and at Galaxy Unpacked on January 22 we anticipate to see one more Galaxy S cellphone. Which can presumably pay homage in its personal technique to the present vary of Apple merchandise.
This isn’t only a title or a common measurement and form. Something goes at Unpacked—maybe Samsung will announce a brand new charging commonplace referred to as SafeMag. Or a digital camera cutout interface characteristic referred to as the Energetic Islet. I’m hoping to see a brand new button referred to as the Controller For Cameras, with a Response Button on the other edge. Perhaps Bixby Intelligence. And all of this in fact shall be introduced by the brand new CEO, Tom Saute.
At this level, in fact, I’m solely indulging in facetious hypothesis. I don’t know the small print of Samsung’s bulletins, and even when I did, I wouldn’t be allowed to let you know something about them. However rumors counsel the brand new Galaxy telephones will get rounder corners, a sooner chip, and extra AI. And a potential preview of an ultra-thin cellphone coming later this yr. Ahem.
Don’t imagine it? You’ll simply should watch the occasion reside and see for your self. Then comply with the following seven-year authorized battle proper right here on Macworld.
Simply kidding! I hope.
