"He hit me first!"
"But he stuck his tongue out at me." Not exactly. The iPhone design was patented in 2007. The Samsung copies, with evidence in the form of a 125 page internal memo from Samsung's top management on how Samsung's design department needed to change each feature of their current phones to match the Apple's iPhone, came out in 2009-2010. That's smoking gun evidence of intentional patent infringement.
Samsung went so far as to use Apple's icons in their stores! They duplicated the look of the Apple BOXES their Samsung products came in, attempting to make their products look like Apple's. Samsung copied the power cords, and power bricks, changing only the color. Cult of Mac used a tongue-in-cheek approach when Samsung claimed they never copied anything from Apple and presented the following photo array:
The thing that I find so amusing is that Apple often has followed Samsung and other manufacturers over the years in very substantial ways. They do not innovate as much as they perfect the external appearance of a product and then add a few bells and whistles. Then you and the other fan boys proclaim that Apple has done something revolutionary.
I can come up with plenty of examples to make my point and you can come up with plenty to make your point. The two of us have gone round and round on this point over the years and there really is no way to win the argument. In human history there are few revolutionary developments and many evolutionary developments and tech companies give us many perfect examples. They all copy from each other and we never typically find out who the true innovators really are because they are treated like cogs in the wheel by the lawyers and executives who run the companies.
I recently reread THE HOME COMPUTER WARS by Michael S. Tomczyk, An Insider’s Account of Commodore and Jack Tramiel. We keep seeing the same things over and over again and it is going to keep going the same way for years to come.
Apple is a highly successful company with many mazing products that have helped shape the technology world as we now know it. But it is more the corporate savagery that has got them to where they are now as opposed to true innovation. Their teams of lawyers and aggressive executives greasing the palms of crony-capitalist politicians here and abroad are the true heart and soul of the company.