Apple and Samsung aren’t exactly what you would call the best of friends. Despite Apple paying Samsung millions, most likely billions, of dollars for components every year that find their way inside many of Apple’s portable products, Samsung obviously competes with Apple in the consumer electronics game. Recently Apple successfully managed to get sales of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 stopped in the European Union and Australia. The documents that were supplied by Freshfields Bruckhaus Derringer, Apple’s European lawyers, to a judge that then used said papers to make his decision, feature an image that’s causing a lot of controversy on the internet. Apple’s iPad, both the first and second generation, feature a screen that has a 4:3 aspect ratio. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 has a screen with a 16:10 aspect ratio. Why is it then that in Apple’s documents the Galaxy Tab looks like it has the exact same dimensions as the Apple iPad?
Anyone with common sense can obviously see that some Adobe Photoshop was used here to make Apple’s arguments more convincing. Then again, Samsung may also have built an early Galaxy Tab prototype, which the courts ordered be supplied to Apple, that had a 4:3 aspect ratio, and then decided they’d be better off going wide screen. Whatever the case may be, we wish that both of these companies would stop brawling with each other in court and get back to doing what they do best, making hardware. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 is a beautiful device, but it runs the incredibly premature Android Honeycomb operating system. If a consumer is so dumb that they’re confused by the difference between iOS and Android then maybe they deserve to be stuck with a product that didn’t quite meet their expectations.
Seriously, there’s only so many ways you can differentiate yourself when you’re building the same glowing glass rectangle as the next guy.
Update: It’s now (August 19, 2011) been discovered that Apple also altered images of the Samsung Galaxy S to make it look as if it has the exact same dimensions as the iPhone 3G/3GS.