Due to Apple’s feast-or-famine method to product bulletins, January generally is a tedious month for the Macworld crew. The final batch of latest merchandise got here out within the fall, and the following ones most likely 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 recognized to observe product unveilings by different corporations.
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 and Apple have an extended historical past of borrowing options from one another yr after yr.
Foundry
The core of Apple’s unique criticism–which later obtained muddied by extra claims and counterclaims–was that Samsung had violated quite a lot of patents masking the iPhone’s form and software program interface. It was recommended, 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 stop rivals from following swimsuit in a common sense. However on the identical time, it’s value acknowledging that Samsung actually was pushing its luck.
Roughly 14 years on, I’m feeling a bit nostalgic about these less complicated days when folks might get indignant 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 telephone. Which is able to presumably pay homage in its personal method to the present vary of Apple merchandise.
This isn’t only a identify or a common dimension 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 alternative edge. Possibly Bixby Intelligence. And all of this after all shall be introduced by the brand new CEO, Tom Saute.
At this level, after all, 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 recommend the brand new Galaxy telephones will get rounder corners, a quicker chip, and extra AI. And a potential preview of an ultra-thin telephone coming later this yr. Ahem.
Don’t imagine it? You’ll simply have to observe the occasion reside and see for your self. Then observe the following seven-year authorized battle proper right here on Macworld.
Simply kidding! I hope.
