Is that you, Suunto?

News came last week that Alphabet’s health division, Verily, got clearance from the FDA to test the EKG feature on their smartwatch. Remember, last year Apple introduced this feature on the Apple Watch Series 4.

Anyway, that’s not the follow-the-leader news that caught my eye. It was the watch photo featured in the Verge story. It reminded me of a watch I had seen before:

The reason I know about the Suunto Lumi is because I bought one and wrote a blog post on it in 2009.

Everything is a remix.

Huawei the Copycat

Huawei has replaced Samsung as the top Apple Ripoff Artist. Let’s also not forget they’ve been caught trying to pass off DSLR pictures as phone camera samples.

But for now, check out Huawei’s latest nova 3 phones compared to the iPhone X Apple released just last September:

Huawei doesn’t stop at copying the hardware. They copy the product photography styles and angles too.

But why stop there? Why not copy the wallpaper styles too:

I wouldn’t be able to feel proud of my work if all it entailed was reacting to what other people made and trying to copy it as closely as possible.

Yesterday was Apple’s Keynote where they announced the new iPhone Xs. I’m curious how long it will take Huawei to update their own product line to match.

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Who said it first, Google or Apple?

Let’s play a game, it’s called Who Said It First?

Here’s your first clue:

“Our product represents the best in hardware and software, designed and built together.”

What’s that? You said Apple? I thought so too! I thought about when Steve Jobs first introduced the iPhone in 2007 and he said that Alan Kay quote, “People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.” (YouTube)

Apple has ‘controlled the whole widget’ since the company was founded in the 70s. Yes, they had a brief stint licensing their OS to OEMs from 1986 to 1991 but it didn’t pan out well. When Steve Jobs came back to the company in 1996 he doubled down on their integrated approach which was one of many factors contributing to the success of the iMac, iPod, MacBook, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch to name not a few, but the majority of products released by Apple in the last 15 years.

So if someone at Apple didn’t say it, then who did?

The quote above is from Google’s hardware chief, Rick Osterloh, and he said that earlier today at the unveiling of Google’s new phone, Pixel.

Here’s what the Pixel looks like:

Doh! My bad. That’s the iPhone 6 from last year. How the hell did I mix them up.

Here’s Google’s new phone for 2016:

Looks pretty unique, doesn’t it?

Hell, it doesn’t look anything like an iPhone 6. It doesn’t even have a Home button, just a big-ass chin! And those plastic bands at the top and bottom of the device, those have to be there! There’s literally no other way to make a smartphone without those bands. Except for the Samsung Galaxy S7 and Asus ZenFone 3, but those guys use black magic to make their phones. They cheat.

What? No, that shiny bezel around the face of the Google Pixel is from the iPhone 5 from 4 years ago so like, the statute of bezel-copying has expired, dude.

And let’s not even get into how everyone was making plastic phones before Apple started making unibody aluminium products and started plastic-shaming their competitors.

There’s a Tumblr site devoted to all the examples of Samsung blatantly ripping off Apple. I think it’s time someone started one for Google ripping off Apple. There’s many less examples, but I have a feeling those numbers are going to rise.

Google’s original mission statement was “organizing the world’s information.” (link)

They need to amend it to include, “…and putting it into devices we copies from Apple.”

Seriously, Google, you called your new phone the fucking Pixel? What a shitty name. Pixels aren’t even visible to the eye on mobile devices anymore. It’s like calling the new the HP printer the Ben Day. If this is an attempt to be hipster ironic, it’s really weak.

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Samsung means “cheap ripoff” in Korean.

Via SamMobile (the page has been removed, but still on Google Cache)

Today, we have screenshots of a newer version of S Voice, Samsung’s personal assistant app, which is expected to debut on future devices like the Galaxy S5. As with the S Health and WatchON apps, Samsung has made a few changes to the interface, though in case of S Voice, we can’t say those changes are for the better, as the app looks as unattractive as it does in its currently available avatar
Samsung makes unattractive software?
Definitely sounds like my experience.
I mean, look how dull and lifeless the design of Samsung’s S Voice app is:
SamMobile-S-Voice-5.jpg
Compared with what they copied, Apple’s Siri:
Apple_Siri_questions.png
Samsung knows how to make money, but I find nothing admirable about their products.

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