Greg Joswiak, Apple’s marketing leader, said during a special to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the launch of the first iPhone made by the Wall Street Journal that its direct competitor, Samsung, had “copied” their technology.
When asked by Joanna Stern about her opinion of the South Korean firm, Joswiak gave a controversial statement due to the history that Apple and Samsung have of competition.
“They (Samsung) were annoying and they were annoying because as you know, they copied our technology. They took the innovations we created and created a poor copy, and they just put a bigger screen around.”
The Apple executive said.
Greg Joswiak’s complaint is particularly regarding the integration of large screens into Android smartphones. However, Samsung in the times that had as flagship the Galaxy S4, incorporated a screen of 5 inches, while the iPhone 5 remained in the size of the 4 inches.
For the following year, Apple dabbled even in larger screens, so in 2014 it announced its iPhone 6, with a size of 4.7 inches and a larger version called Plus, which grew to 5.5 inches.
The copying allegations began much earlier, in 2011, Apple filed a lawsuit in court after they claim that Samsung had violated the patent law in its Galaxy line that year, particularly in the design of the terminals.
The matter concluded a few years later, when both brands reached an agreement. Despite this, the apple brand issued a statement that the case “had been more than for money”, and considered that they started the smartphone revolution, which was “blatantly copied” by Samsung.
“It’s important that we continue to protect the hard work and innovation of so many people at Apple. We thank the jury and are pleased that they agree that Samsung should pay to copy our products.”
DATUM
In the long history of lawsuits, Samsung agreed on December 4, 2015, to pay Apple the sum of USD 548 million determined by the justice, although this only represented half of what Apple had requested.