Keepin' it real fake, part XXVII: Samsung admits to knocking off Apple

We all know the Korean companies raging against the Chinese knockoff artists aren't exactly innocent of taking "design inspiration" themselves. As soon as one comes up with an original design, the other knocks it off and vice versa until it spins out of control into hideously mutated 10 megapixel cameraphones. But one thing you won't see them do is admit it -- until now. We're lacking hard detail on the assuredly pride-crushing debacle, but according to Telecoms Korea, in an interview with Korean publication Yonhap News Samsung fessed up to plagiarizing the menu icons and design work in their SCH-V890 and SPH-V8900 handsets from none other than Cupertino's finest. Not that anyone should really be surprised or anything that a company knocked off Apple's design, but you know what they say about the steps to recovery: the first step is admission that you have a problem.

[AJ @ May 5th 2006 10:29AM]

Can we get some shots of this "plagarization?"

[Peter @ May 5th 2006 10:42AM]

"the first step is admission that you have a problem"

Engadget has such great writers. Heh.

[Rivendale286 @ May 5th 2006 10:43AM]

Actually the buttons on this phone look more like a ripoff of the Creative Zen series buttons. I guess the center-button thing is Apple-ish, but this looks less like an Apple product that most everything else out there...

[Hatchdog @ May 5th 2006 11:38AM]

Lets see on the market what kind of products are Korea's own designs.
Just name one: None
They are all copied from American or Japanese.

[Alex @ May 5th 2006 11:49AM]

I second Hatchdog. Korea is one rung above China as far as I'm concerned. I don't know how they look themselves in the mirror.

[japa @ May 5th 2006 11:57AM]

Lol,japanese's cellular phone really ugly.

[tyio @ May 5th 2006 12:12PM]

japanese's cellular phone ???
Who would care anyway? toshiba? sharp? Hitachi?panasonic?

[Thom @ May 5th 2006 12:36PM]

Translation: Look at our product! Yes, it's in some obscure way like an Apple product! *Please buy it.*

[Jeremy @ May 5th 2006 3:10PM]

Here's a page which shows some screenshots of the evidence, on an Apple user forum site in Korea, no less:
http://www.appleforum.com/showthread.php?t=47259

Especially look at the last post on the first page - shows side by side comparisons. Apple should sue Samsung, especially if they're admitting it to the press (as if it's not obvious enough). I've worked with their mobile design team and when we asked about getting clearance from their legal team for things, they said their legal department was "too busy" to deal with such "small" issues.

[diulei @ May 5th 2006 5:58PM]

The moral of the story is: NO ONE has 100% original designs these days. NO ONE. Everything is derivative of something else. Get over it.

[Intrepid @ May 5th 2006 8:07PM]

Well it's not like Apple didn't copy their entire MP3 Player UI from Creative...

[Walter @ May 6th 2006 3:38AM]

And what is it to say hideously mutated 10 megapixel cameraphones?

[Jimmy @ May 6th 2006 10:56AM]

I am a spammer: [e-mail]

[daniel @ May 6th 2006 8:03PM]

err even if this phone was a "copy" of the iPod, it doesnt really matter in korea where iPods are one of the most unpopular mp3s on the market. so it wouldnt really do anything to consumer choice.

plus, as for "Hatchdog", it would be kind of you to name electronic goods Koreans have so-called "copied" from the Japanese/Americans. If you compare Korea's mobile phones with Japanese phones... actually, wait, there's nothing to compare. Let's look at television sets... I don't see any plagarism in design. Name me some major electronic company in the U.S.A. Hmmmm...

Don't blatently state something with no evidence.

[tekdemon @ May 23rd 2006 11:56AM]

I think a lot of people read this and thought they had knocked off the ipod menus. That doesn't seem to be the case here.

Apparently the problem is that someone who was involved in designing the phone menus was lazy and decided to just use the icons that Apple uses in OS X for the phone menus.

Far as I know, Samsung actually has a legal version of Apple's ipod interface since they hired that ipod interface designer from Apple. Plus Apple is not going to sue Samsung anytime soon since Samsung and Apple are about as tight as you can get these days, between the cut-rate that Apple gets on memory chips and the mp3 player chipset deal that they just inked they're like best buds.

Probably just some lazy designer at Samsung is gonna get fired hardcore though.