The battle between Apple and Samsung is still ongoing and it doesn’t look like the fighting will end any time soon. It’s beginning to resemble a 4th grade fight on the playground over who cheated playing four square. Originally Apple was winning the legal war hands down, able to swiftly convince judges Samsung was copying the iPhone and iPad. Then Samsung got to lead the victory march for a while. Now there’s new dirt revealed on both companies that could change the course of the battle.
First, instead of just taking all the insults Apple’s been throwing at it like it has been, Samsung finally fought back and accused Apple of copying Sony’s designs. Indeed photos of a prototype iPhone from 2006 indicate the design was at the very least inspired by Sony’s design strategies. In one picture, the Sony logo has been modified to read “Jony” presumably referring to Apple’s mastermind of design, Jony Ive. Neither Apple nor Sony have responded to Samsung’s claim.
Apple might be able to fire back just using its traditional Samsung-copies-us-and-we-still-rule-the-world argument, but this time it’s backed by the consumers themselves. One document from Best Buy indicates people have actually been returning Samsung Galaxy Tab 1o.1s after finding out they weren’t iPads. If the report is true, you can bet Samsung is doing just about everything in its power to prevent that information from reaching the court room.
In Apple’s defense, there’s a clear distinction between having some inspiration to build upon and just blatantly copying. In Samsung’s defense, those buyers have to be pretty oblivious to not know by the gigantic Samsung logo on the packaging that they did not purchase an Apple iPad.