Samsung doesn't pull punches with its ads, does it?

[Bateluer]

https://twitter.com/Wicked4u2c/status/516377619554504705/photo/1

Skipping the iPhone 6S, I suppose.

 

[Crono]

You got to admit they have some serious gumption to do ads like that, considering how Galaxy started off as an iPhone clone.

And as far as I can tell, even though Samsung was successful with the Note, they didn't exactly pioneer the phablet space, either. Dell (and others earlier, no doubt) beat them to it with devices like the Streak. I know a few people who considered the first Note only because they had played around with or had a Streak.

EDIT: Yup, they were beat to it. The Streak was the first one that looks like other current phablets, though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phablet#History

Not a bad marketing campaign on Samsung's part, though.

 

[Ravynmagi]

Being first doesn't really matter too much if you don't do it well. There were many that made tablets long long long before Apple. Apple was just the first to do it well. There were phablets before the Note, but Samsung did it well.

Samsung definitely has taken a lot of criticism for being a copy cat in the past. When the tables get turned and it's now Apple doing the copying, of course Samsung is going to milk the heck out of it.

Though I'm not really crazy about Samsung's ads. They are coming off a bit too snarky. Samsung needs to find a better way to get the message across without sounding like dicks.

 

[Crono]

Being first doesn't really matter too much if you don't do it well. There were many that made tablets long long long before Apple. Apple was just the first to do it well. There were phablets before the Note, but Samsung did it well.

Samsung definitely has taken a lot of criticism for being a copy cat in the past. When the tables get turned and it's now Apple doing the copying, of course Samsung is going to milk the heck out of it.

Though I'm not really crazy about Samsung's ads. They are coming off a bit too snarky. Samsung needs to find a better way to get the message across without sounding like dicks.

Apple actually innovated with the iPad. There weren't any multitouch tablets in that kind of chassis before that. Smartphones with large screens and/or styluses? Old hat.

Apple hasn't copied Samsung so much: the iPhone 6 Plus isn't like the Note 3 in any way except for size. If it had a stylus, maybe they would have a point. The whole industry is putting out larger phones, so maybe you could accuse LG, HTC, Nokia, and the rest of copying Samsung and Apple copying those other manufacturers. If Samsung can claim anything, it's being semi-early and pretty successful in their Note line, but I don't think they did anything so noteworthy (excuse the pun) with their phablets that they could say, "Hey, look! Apple is copying us!" without being hypocritical.

Some phablet success was inevitable, and I think it's actually mini tablets that have done more to convince consumers that they could live with a bigger smartphone screen than actual hands on experience with the Note. Phablets significantly above 5.0" are still a niche part of the market, and I doubt they will be the majority of smartphones even in 2 to 3 years. The Note may be the most successful phablet line, but the market still isn't even close to being dominated by 5.5"+ phones.

It's all marketing and doesn't matter, anyway.

 

[Bateluer]

You got to admit they have some serious gumption to do ads like that, considering how Galaxy started off as an iPhone clone.

And as far as I can tell, even though Samsung was successful with the Note, they didn't exactly pioneer the phablet space, either. Dell (and others earlier, no doubt) beat them to it with devices like the Streak. I know a few people who considered the first Note only because they had played around with or had a Streak.

EDIT: Yup, they were beat to it. The Streak was the first one that looks like other current phablets, though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phablet#History

Not a bad marketing campaign on Samsung's part, though.

Ah, the Dell Streak. I remember it. TN 800x480 resolution screen@5in, slow CPU, pitiful amount of RAM, a tiny battery, and a half assed Dell UI skin overtop Android 1.6/2.2. Not exactly coming out swinging, was it?

Apple actually innovated with the iPad. There weren't any multitouch tablets in that kind of chassis before that.

I still find it amusing to read this kind of post. Taking an iPod Touch and stretching it out to 9.7in counts as innovation to some, I suppose.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Though I'm not really crazy about Samsung's ads. They are coming off a bit too snarky. Samsung needs to find a better way to get the message across without sounding like dicks.

That's exactly correct. I think many on the android camp will take this and laugh at Apple, but for consumers who have no loyalties and are simply out there to get the best product, it comes off as desperate.

I think of this similar to campaign ads. People respond well to positive ads, but when you resort to mudslinging and negative campaign ads, it really ruins the mood of the campaign. Not only that it often backfires and makes you look worse. I get that maybe 1 ad once in a while would be ok, but this is coming off as desperate now.

My honest opinion is that Android saw a huge growth spurt during 2010-2012. Many people jumped on Samsung hoping to get a smartphone, but in the recent years, the media and public are turning against Samsung. TouchWiz is now regarded as bloat, and Samsung phones are regarded as sluggish with updates that make it worse and worse (in some ways Apple has that problem too). So yeah, this kind of campaigning definitely seems a bit meh to me. Samsung--learn to make your products better. You don't need to throw the kitchen sink at it or resort to pure negative ads. If you make a good product and revise on your weaknesses, people will come.

 

[Crono]

Ah, the Dell Streak. I remember it. TN 800x480 resolution screen@5in, slow CPU, pitiful amount of RAM, a tiny battery, and a half assed Dell UI skin overtop Android 1.6/2.2. Not exactly coming out swinging, was it?

Android was crap then, anyway. Doesn't change the fact that it wasn't exactly Samsung's idea to make phablets, as their marketing would lead you to believe. Dell could have refined their phone as Samsung did with the Notes if they were a larger player in the smartphone arena. Samsung's TouchWiz isn't exactly a paragon of Android skins, either, and that's after years of tinkering with it. I also don't recall anyone having 1080p screens and massive batteries in their phones at the time (see this review for it's competition at the time), it's only recently has the hardware become so good and it isn't the case that Samsung has a corner on high-end Android phones.

I still find it amusing to read this kind of post. Taking an iPod Touch and stretching it out to 9.7in counts as innovation to some, I suppose.

Innovation is all relative because there's very little that's genuinely new. The smartphone itself was just the marriage of PDAs and cellular phones. And in this case, relative is comparing what the Note did - following Dell and HTC and Nokia by using a larger screen - with what Apple did. Even having a stylus for your smartphone wasn't remotely new or innovative, companies were doing that for more than a decade prior to the Note.

So I find it amusing that Samsung is even inferring that Apple copied them in any kind of way. The Note by itself isn't even successful enough for Apple to merely have copied Samsung until it was evident pretty much the entire industry was going to compete in that space. The Note was a reason for Apple to do the iPhone 6 Plus, not the reason. There was pressure to do something in between the size of their tablets and phones. That's just a logical step even without the existence of the Note, much like how it makes sense to create the iPad if you can master scaling up your OS to that size (and yes, there is some innovation involved there, it's just not a mind-blowing idea to do so).

The Note 4 is a fantastic phone, don't get me wrong, but Apple isn't exactly copying Samsung here. The Galaxy Alpha is more Samsung copying Apple than the iPhone 6 Plus is Apple copying Samsung. The new iPhones look more like HTC products than anything else. Does the new iPhone have faux leather*, stitching, or a stylus? No? Then it's probably not ripped off from any of the Notes...

* I somewhat like the textured back of the Note 3 and 4. Definitely better than the Galaxy S1-5.

 

[kasakka]

The "let's bash the competitor" form of advertising is really lame in general and likely to only appeal to the worst kind of Android fan-boys. Samsung should be more confident with their brand and product than produce endless comparisons with Apple.

 

[TiredEngineer]

Hi, I'm a Mac.

Sorry couldn't resist. Anyway... I agree that I don't like negative ads that go too far. I thought the waiting in line ads Samsung did a while back were funny.

Give me a Note 4 Google Play Edition and I may buy another Samsung phone. Until then... Nexus all the way.

 

[Bateluer]

Android was crap then, anyway. Doesn't change the fact that it wasn't exactly Samsung's idea to make phablets, as their marketing would lead you to believe. Dell could have refined their phone as Samsung did with the Notes if they were a larger player in the smartphone arena. Samsung's TouchWiz isn't exactly a paragon of Android skins, either, and that's after years of tinkering with it. I also don't recall anyone having 1080p screens and massive batteries in their phones at the time (see this review for it's competition at the time), it's only recently has the hardware become so good and it isn't the case that Samsung has a corner on high-end Android phones.

Samsung knows full well they didn't invent the phablet; but they were the first to do it well. High end screen, high end CPU, large battery.

TouchWiz is my least liked Android skin, in a sea of disliked skins. One could make the argument that a skin was more necessary in the Donut days than it is in the post-HoneyComb/Ice Cream Sandwich days.

Could Dell have continued the Streak line and improved it? Sure, absolutely. But they didn't. If memory serves me, the catastrophic failure of the Streak 5 was a major catalyst in Dell pulling the plug on its smartphone line for years. Even at the Streak 5's launch, they went with midrange innards, and what was even though a low end screen. At that point in time, Dell had only a slight disadvantage in the smartphone market. Microsoft was still awol with Windows Phone, Samsung wasn't the juggernaut they are today, HTC was ruling the roost, Motorola was busy locking down their phones and skinning them in feces, and LG was asleep. If Dell had spent the cash and played the long game, they'd be relevant in the smartphone market today. At least their newer Venue tablets look decent.

 

[QueBert]

I'm laughing because just this morning I was looking at my Roommates old Samsung tablet that has a connector that looks almost identical to the 30 pin Apple one. Forget a phone, Samsung copied a CABLE, Samsung's a hypocrite company.

said cable

 

[WelshBloke]

I'm laughing because just this morning I was looking at my Roommates old Samsung tablet that has a connector that looks almost identical to the 30 pin Apple one. Forget a phone, Samsung copied a CABLE, Samsung's a hypocrite company.

said cable

You might want to go look up PDMI connectors there...

 

[WelshBloke]

https://twitter.com/Wicked4u2c/status/516377619554504705/photo/1

Skipping the iPhone 6S, I suppose.

The crease in that newspaper is deliberate I suppose.

 

[Brian Stirling]

Apple actually innovated with the iPad. There weren't any multitouch tablets in that kind of chassis before that. Smartphones with large screens and/or styluses? Old hat.

Apple hasn't copied Samsung so much: the iPhone 6 Plus isn't like the Note 3 in any way except for size. If it had a stylus, maybe they would have a point. The whole industry is putting out larger phones, so maybe you could accuse LG, HTC, Nokia, and the rest of copying Samsung and Apple copying those other manufacturers. If Samsung can claim anything, it's being semi-early and pretty successful in their Note line, but I don't think they did anything so noteworthy (excuse the pun) with their phablets that they could say, "Hey, look! Apple is copying us!" without being hypocritical.

Some phablet success was inevitable, and I think it's actually mini tablets that have done more to convince consumers that they could live with a bigger smartphone screen than actual hands on experience with the Note. Phablets significantly above 5.0" are still a niche part of the market, and I doubt they will be the majority of smartphones even in 2 to 3 years. The Note may be the most successful phablet line, but the market still isn't even close to being dominated by 5.5"+ phones.

It's all marketing and doesn't matter, anyway.

There were many attempts at PDA's/phones and similar devices but it wasn't until the first iPhone that all the pieces came together. IBM and many others took a shot at it decades before but the technology wasn't there and wouldn't be for, well, decades.

All the while tech companies like Motorola and Samsung continued to improve the radios, displays and other subsystems until about 2005ish when Apple put it all together with the first iPhone. What Apple did was less ingenuity as it was great timing. They took advantage of all the improvements and miniaturization that Moto, Sammy and others did over the years and struck when the time was right.

Sadly, they then tried to prevent everyone else from playing the same game and that included the very companies that had made the component improvements that made the iPhone possible. Yeah, Samsung's first efforts were a little too similar to the iPhone and Apple made hay with that for years, but now that they've clearly copied the phablet and large phone how can anyone deny they are in fact copying? And this isn't the first time Apple has copied either -- remember the time Apple added notices to iOS in a blatant copy of Android???


Brian

 

[DeathReborn]

You got to admit they have some serious gumption to do ads like that, considering how Galaxy started off as an iPhone clone.

And as far as I can tell, even though Samsung was successful with the Note, they didn't exactly pioneer the phablet space, either. Dell (and others earlier, no doubt) beat them to it with devices like the Streak. I know a few people who considered the first Note only because they had played around with or had a Streak.

EDIT: Yup, they were beat to it. The Streak was the first one that looks like other current phablets, though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phablet#History

Not a bad marketing campaign on Samsung's part, though.

To be fair Sony got most of the design for the iPhone before Apple did, so Apple cloned Sony, Samsung cloned Apple and nobody clones Dell's mobile business model.

I remember wanting the Streak but at the time it launched it was so high priced I balked. Nowadays I don't balk at prices of phablets, unless they have really crap hardware like Cortex A7 SoC's or low res screens (<300dpi).

I do kinda like it when companies don't pull their punches in adverts. When the pander it sucks but when they have the confidence & guts to go for it they should.

 

[Mopetar]

Yeah, Samsung's first efforts were a little too similar to the iPhone and Apple made hay with that for years, but now that they've clearly copied the phablet and large phone how can anyone deny they are in fact copying?

You'd probably have a better point if the new iPhone looked almost exactly like a Note, down to the icons in some cases.

If there's crow to eat it's because Apple maintained that 3.5" was the perfect size for years, then 4", and now neither of those sizes are getting new models any more.

remember the time Apple added notices to iOS in a blatant copy of Android???

Didn't both of them essentially copy the idea from PalmOS?

 

[Red Storm]

The ads make me laugh if only because of all of those "Hi, I'm a Mac" ads from Apple. Karma just happens to be swinging against them right now, I will be laughing at whoever is the next as well.

 

[Eug]

Those Hi, I'm a Mac ads sucked.

 

[shortylickens]

You got to admit they have some serious gumption to do ads like that, considering how Galaxy started off as an iPhone clone.

Apple had serious gumption ripping off Samsung and others with their original iPhone.

 

[Brian Stirling]

You'd probably have a better point if the new iPhone looked almost exactly like a Note, down to the icons in some cases.

If there's crow to eat it's because Apple maintained that 3.5" was the perfect size for years, then 4", and now neither of those sizes are getting new models any more.



Didn't both of them essentially copy the idea from PalmOS?

Actually, the new iPhone appears to have copied the size/format from Sammy but the backside is almost 100% the same as the HTC One save for differences in the camera and LED flash position. The design language, if I may use that overused term, is pure HTC.

The point I was making in my prior though was that Apple took the many advances done by others and jumped in when the time was right and then tried to block everyone else from competing in a market many were already in and a market these other companies had spent time and money perfecting the sub-systems needed to make things small enough and efficient enough to put into a small handset.

So yeah, when the shoe is on the other foot you can't deny Apple is doing what Jobs said -- steal...


Brian

 

[s44]

That's exactly correct.

Nope, it's exactly wrong. Samsung is continuing to position itself indelibly as the anti-Apple. Whether you prefer them or not, you know they're on the landscape.

HTC, LG, Moto - who are they, in the mindspace? There aren't any natural niches to occupy. Moto was doing better for a while with the pitch of "we're (sort of) Google", but now that they're Lenovo who knows.

 

[blankslate]

Though I'm not really crazy about Samsung's ads. They are coming off a bit too snarky. Samsung needs to find a better way to get the message across without sounding like dicks.

So yeah, this kind of campaigning definitely seems a bit meh to me. Samsung--learn to make your products better. You don't need to throw the kitchen sink at it or resort to pure negative ads. If you make a good product and revise on your weaknesses, people will come.

As if Apple never resorted to such ads before.

Hi, I'm a Mac.

in case you missed the above reference....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQb_Q8WRL_g


As for Samsung not inventing the tablet that is entirely true. Many examples of recent tech has an earlier predecessor that wasn't quite ready for prime time.

However, Apple and some of their ardent fans did make fun of huge phones not so recently (Apple was very subtle about it with saying the iphone 5 and predecessors were perfectly sized).... Now Apple does have a phone that can fit the definition of phablet.

Some people may see that as being a copycat.

It's an ad.

I doubt any company in this thread is innocent and only produced entirely snark free ads.
Could be wrong about LG, HTC and some others, but I'll say that neither Apple or Samsung are innocent of that with certainty.



....

 

[Eug]

Apple set the standard for anti-other-guy tech ads, 30 years ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R706isyDrqI

 

[master_shake_]

I'm laughing because just this morning I was looking at my Roommates old Samsung tablet that has a connector that looks almost identical to the 30 pin Apple one. Forget a phone, Samsung copied a CABLE, Samsung's a hypocrite company.

said cable

you mean apple is using a cable that motorola has a patent for!!!!

call the papers!

edit: heres the patent

http://www.google.com/patents/US6509659

 

[Zaap]

you mean apple is using a cable that motorola has a patent for!!!!

call the papers!

edit: heres the patent

http://www.google.com/patents/US6509659

Yeah I can see grouching over a mobile device itself- if one rectangle with rounded sides resembles someone else's rectangle with rounded sides.

But quibbling over cables resembling each other is delving into team-sports cheering for the team territory. I had a cable similar to the iPod one on an old Sansa. "Oh NOES! SanDisk copied Apple!!!!!" That's funny, I don't recall anyone ever giving a crap. Was before the smartphone sue-wars, so no one did.