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>I'm sure this will be downvoted into oblivion but I have Karma to burn preaching some truth. Between big phones (even the small iphone 6 is bigger!), the watch and NFC, Apple is clearly repositioning themselves as fast followers and letting Samsung et. al. foot the bill on R&D and market building.

First, there's not much (if anything) they have gotten off of Samsung about these devices, except maybe how not to do some things.

First, if you have seen the prototype iPads and iPhones tested, they've actually built all kinds of prototypes in different sizes half a decade or more ago. And obviously the same thing holds for the Watch and the bigger iPhone: they were in development for at least a couple of years, iterating and refining them.

Unlike the iPad, which at least also had a redesigned GUI library (and thought behind it) to take advantage of the larger screen, a slightly larger iPhone is not something not obvious. Apple could have made the iPhone 5 a 6" model if they liked to rush things, it's not that they missed some key insight. What they actually did was wait for several things to fall into place, like baterry capacity, CPU/GPU power to provide a smooth experience with the bigger screen, etc.

If Samsung provided anything is just some early "market research" in the feasibility of selling a large phone. There's nothing technical or UI-wise here that was copied, or needed to be copied, from a Samsung phone.

Second, Samsung only started on their watches when rumours of an iWatch pending had already surfaced (and it shows, since theirs was mostly a hack job of mashing existing stuff and rushed decisions). Apple was building the thing for a long time, and I'd say has put far more thought and polish on the whole thing that anything we've previously seen from competitors (including Peeble).

>I'm also reminded that the "c" model has been dropped. Sales figures didn't seem to be very high and I think the experiment has been deemed a failure.

Actually, it sold very well. "From the constant harping about the supposed "failure" of Apple's iPhone 5c, you'd think the phone is selling poorly. The reality is that middle tier model, while dramatically less popular than Apple's top of the line iPhone 5s, still managed to outsell every Blackberry, every Windows Phone and every Android flagship in the winter quarter, including Samsung's Galaxy S4.". http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/03/22/apples-iphone-5c-f...

In general it was constantly in the top-3 to 5 best selling phones for all US carriers. Most phone companies (including Samsung) would kill for a "flop" like this.

Second, it wasn't dropped. It's still available, and just rolled on the $0 with contract tier.

First, there's not much (if anything) they have gotten off of Samsung about these devices

I have a black Samsung Galaxy S3. I held it up against the image of the iPhone 6, and they're barely different. The s3 has slightly bowed sides, and the two phones have a home button with a different shape. Oh, and the Apple phone doesn't have 'Samsung' written on the front (I haven't seen an image of the back, so you never know...)

I'd love for Samsung to turn around and sue them back on this design issue.

>I have a black Samsung Galaxy S3. I held it up against the image of the iPhone 6, and they're barely different.

Was talking about the watches.

But since you mentioned it, I had a look: http://www.hitechmobiles.co.nz/uploads/images/Samsung_Galaxy...

This is like iPhone 6 in the sense that Times New Roman is like Helvetica. They are both fonts after all.

Different buttons, different curves, different materials, different home button, different back design, different colors...

Where exactly do you see the similarity?

Not to mention the whole "huge touch screen, minimal buttons smartphone" thing was pioneared by Apple already since the first iPhone, when Samsung did keyboard smartphones that looked nothing like this?

The iPhone 6 looks like the Galaxy S3 in the same way that the Galaxy S2 looked like the iPhone.

Not to mention the whole "huge touch screen, minimal buttons smartphone" thing was pioneared by Apple already

So? It's irrelevant to my point: Apple took Samsung to the cleaners over a visual design patent (amongst others), and I'm saying that this phone looks a hell of a lot like the S3.

Yes, if you look at the screen, it's android vs ios and doesn't look similar, but the hardware lines, button placement, curled edges, earpiece are all very similar. The home button is a little different - but again, these kinds of difference are the same in magnitude as S2 v iPhone. For example, the home button on the S2 was an oblong ringed with metal, wheras the home button on the iPhone is a circle. Apparently that's visual-design-patent-infringing for Samsung, but a marker of innovative distinction for Apple?

Was talking about the watches.

Then make that clearer, because you sound diversionary in saying this. The article is about the iPhone. The parent comment mentions watches in passing, but is primarily about the iPhone. You spent half your comment talking about ipads and iphones right after the bit I quoted.

Did you really just say earpiece?

S2 doesn't look like iPhone enough for Samsung to get sued (my opinion as an Android user that loves iOS as well), but.. earpiece? Really? The curled edges I'd agree with. But that's about it.

> And obviously the same thing holds for the Watch and the bigger iPhone: they were in development for at least a couple of years, iterating and refining them.

Sources or guessing?

I think the similarity of how the iWatch and the Android watches work is too similar to be a coincidence. There's some cool software work on Apple's watch, and I believe it'll generally be a better product overall. But it looks just like something somebody would make after seeing the competition and iterating an improvement on it. That's my assertion and I'm going to stick with it until somebody proves me wrong.

> Second, Samsung only started on their watches when rumours of an iWatch pending had already surfaced

IIR that's correct. iWatch rumors started and Samsung tossed together the Gear to get it out the door first. Apple didn't ship and now we're on Gen 2 of Android watches while Apple releases a nearly identical product...even down to some fairly small use-case details. I'm not poo pooing the device, with Apple's polish and tight integration I'd call it a Gen 2.5 smartwatch. It looks good, and going old-school Blackberry with the knob as an input device is a good idea. It's probably a full half-to-full generation ahead of the current Android devices for very Apple-y reasons.

But there's very little new here, and more important it's not all that different. It doesn't look like an independently developed device. It looks like a particularly well thought out Android smart watch. Apple could have...should have...gone a completely different direction with the watch, but they didn't.

Basically your story doesn't make any sense. The public story is that all Samsung knew was "Apple is working on a watch", and with that information, completely independently tossed together (with a little help from Google) a device that, in the Gen 2 version of Android Smartwatches, just so happens to work almost exactly like the iWatch minus the nub. From needing to tether, to use-cases, to display turn-on when raised, etc. There's a million different directions each watch development effort could have gone, yet both efforts coincidentally independently arrived at the same conclusion...with both teams operating in secret, probably on opposite sides of the planet.

The probably of that happen are only slightly less than throwing a bunch of parts into a dryer and at the end of the cycle getting a clock.

If Samsung developed the smartwatch based on nothing more than a rumor and just slapped it together, then they did one hell of a job because that's the template all new smart watches are currently following and they deserve a little more credit. If they copied Apple outright, then there's some serious leaks in Apple's R&D department.

But neither of those cases fits Occam's razor -- there are no coincidences...the similarities are too strong. It's more likely Apple has been mulling around a watch for a while. Samsung slapped together a watch based on a rumor, the gen 2 devices were pretty good and Apple simply went the direction with the idea that Samsung had pioneered. The only other conclusion is that Samsung committed one of the greatest acts of industrial espionage since the Soviets stole the designs for the atom bomb.

Note: I don't know why you're getting downvoted, we're just having a civil discussion. People get so emotional around Apple's stuff.

>Sources or guessing?

Neither. For one, it's obvious that any such products needs at least 1-2 years to design, manufacture prototypes, etc. Second, we've seen several previous exposes of how Apple developed new stuff (iPad was in the labs for 7-8 years, the iPhone the same, etc, and there have been galleries of the tons of prototypes they checked published). So, I was basically just stating the obvious.

>I think the similarity of how the iWatch and the Android watches work is too similar to be a coincidence

Well, people already had a uncanillity similar experience to Android watches 5 or so years ago, by strapping an iPod mini to a wrist strap. It's a watch that talks to a smartphone and has a computer screen, so of course its similar in that, but that's inevitable. The kind of interface, the controls, the fashion styles for the straps and everything, and the internal design / sensors / etc are unique.

>Basically your story doesn't make any sense. The public story is that all Samsung knew was "Apple is working on a watch", and with that information, completely independently tossed together (with a little help from Google) a device that, in the Gen 2 version of Android Smartwatches, just so happens to work almost exactly like the iWatch minus the nub. The probably of that happen are only slightly less than throwing a bunch of parts into a dryer and at the end of the cycle getting a clock.

For one, the "almost exactly" is only in the sense that one car and another car do mostly the same things. The design, controls, software and everything is different, from the "nub" to the style choices to the sensors to the charging, to the e-payments, to the app selection UI etc. The Samsung version is sub par in every way.

>If Samsung developed the smartwatch based on nothing more than a rumor and just slapped it together, then they did one hell of a job because that's the template all new smart watches are currently following and they deserve a little more credit. (...) Samsung slapped together a watch based on a rumor, the gen 2 devices were pretty good and Apple simply went the direction with the idea that Samsung had pioneered.

What are those ideas again? Can you name one thing Samsung did that was a) non obvious part of a smartwatch, b) better?

> Neither. For one, it's obvious that any such products needs at least 1-2 years to design, manufacture prototypes, etc. Second, we've seen several previous exposes of how Apple developed new stuff (iPad was in the labs for 7-8 years, the iPhone the same, etc, and there have been galleries of the tons of prototypes they checked published). So, I was basically just stating the obvious.

Good, so then you must agree that Samsung couldn't possibly have just slapped together a design and manufactured hundreds of thousands of watches in a few months. Even Samsung must take time to bring a product to market. If you truly believe Samsung just craps out devices, then you're also claiming they're among the most efficient design, production and marketing organizations on the planet. Nobody would even come close.

> Well, people already had a uncanillity similar experience to Android watches 5 or so years ago, by strapping an iPod mini to a wrist strap.

Can you link to what you're talking about?

> It's a watch that talks to a smartphone and has a computer screen, so of course its similar in that, but that's inevitable.

I don't think it's inevitable or obvious at all. Given the instructions "go make a smart watch" I can think of half a dozen completely different ideas right off the bat, none of which are what smart watches look like or how they work -- I never would have required tethering at all for example. I personally think cramming down the pinch and swipe smartphone metaphor into a device that size is not a good solution, I think all of the competitors (except pebble) failed in that respect.

It's like if somebody told you to "make me a device that will transport me distances using an engine". While you could have come up with anything from a boat to a train to rocket propelled rollerskates, instead you and your competitor both "independently" arrive at solutions which are basically different trim levels of this year's Toyota Camry, except one has a stick shift.

Odds of that happening are close enough to zero to be effectively the same. So either Samsung has the best industrial espionage team on the planet (doubtful) or Apple just waited for the competition to jump first and then just followed the trendlines and produced a really polished as hell version of what they were fumbling around with (likely).

In fact, Apple could have copied and refined the Pebble instead and knocked it out of the park. By so blatantly copying what's going on in Android land, it leads to too many unfavorable comparisons. They could have completely broken away from that path Samsung has set and gone with a smaller, sleeker, more elegant device. By refining the Samsung template, Apple just leads itself to comparisons, even if the final product is super polished. Basically, if Apple was going to make a car, they needed to make a Tesla or an Ariel Atom, not a top spec Camry (with a stick shift).

> The Samsung version is sub par in every way.

On this we can completely agree. I'm not impressed with the Android smart watches at all. I don't see a good use for them, they're overpriced, underspec'd and don't provide me with anything I wouldn't rather just do with my phone (and in fact require my phone to be nearby anyway).

That's why I'm so disappointed with Apple's offering, even though it's just the Android watch polished to the n-th degree. In the end the whole direction is just a "meh" idea to me.

Imagine instead an Apple polish to a pebble style watch, no tethering required, all the watch faces and notifications and canned responses, week-long battery life, none of this swipe and nub nonsense, beautiful Apple design (Pebble watches all look like something I would have loved when I was 12, but not 40) and flawless execution.

Apple's refinement of Samsung's ideas aren't even particularly tasteful. Imagine if the interface looked like this instead http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/7/5477768/gabor-balogh-circul... or this https://dribbble.com/shots/1197072-My-iWatch-Concept-Overvie...

Or used a pixel qi display so you could use it equally well indoors or outdoors.

Or a long thin screen http://www.tuvie.com/wp-content/uploads/nissan-nismo-smartwa...

Or hell like the Samsung Gear Fit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ro1sRmxu4BM

What you're failing to understand is that I'm not saying Apple copying Samsung is bad because they copied Samsung (who gets credit isn't important), it's bad because, given a possible universe of ideas they could have followed instead, they copied a crappy design idea and then polished that turd until it shined. But it's still just a ball of poo.

Seems there's corroboration on the "years in the making" think: "Apple Watch is first device category developed under Tim Cook, took years to complete" (video interviews here: http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/09/09/apple-watch-is-fir... ).

>Good, so then you must agree that Samsung couldn't possibly have just slapped together a design and manufactured hundreds of thousands of watches in a few months

The "hundreds of thousands" is not an issue time-wise given their manufacturing expertise. It's the design, programming etc stage that takes time. I'd say they've spend a year or so. The first one (Gear) was using Android, and was mostly like a shrank phone, with not much thought. That the Gear 2 switched to Tizen shows that at the time they released the first they didn't have a long term plan nor had settled their basics, like OS choice.

>Apple's refinement of Samsung's ideas aren't even particularly tasteful. Imagine if the interface looked like this instead http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/7/5477768/gabor-balogh-circul.... or this https://dribbble.com/shots/1197072-My-iWatch-Concept-Overvie...

There's nothing particularly tasteful or well thought out in either mockup. The circular display, for one, is limiting and too watch-inspired for use with apps. That's why both mockups just show a few basic functions.

But, really what "refinement of Samsung's ideas" or "copying"?

Most everything we've seen on the Watch (and Gear) were already out there in the rumors for the iWatch, years ago. Some pressumably leaked from Apple's tests too.

Samsung rushed ahead and did a (ho-hum) implementation of them, Apple did a more mature one. It's not like there's anything in Gear 1/2 that either Apple didn't already have in the iPhone or everybody was not already expecting in the iWatch rumors years before either watch was released.

Honestly that's kind of always been Apple's strategy. They're usually not the first mover, but they try to be the best mover.
I think they've been a little bit slow to follow shifts in the smartphone market though. They should've had a larger iPhone quite some time ago, and they were unfashionably late on notifications and 4G.
Still, this latest release will sell briskly per usual. Jury's out on the Apple Watch. Especially since battery life was conspicuously absent from the unveil.

I'm not an iPhone fan by any stretch of the imagination. But I recognize the importance of Apple playing a major role in the smartphone market in terms of making the competition much much better than they would be otherwise. The glacial slow response from Apple on things like phone size is really strange. I can really only attribute it to a larger picture shift in focus and approach between Apple and Samsung.
There's other weird uneven things going on though in the internals. 64-bit CPUs and 1GB of RAM? 16GB base models near the end of 2014?
I'm sure there's strategy behind it, but as a consumer it's just weird.
The important thing is that it doesn't really matter. When people like my mom go into the phone store, they'll see nice big, and in their minds competitive, iPhones for sale and will now give them a second look.

About the specs: I don't think the average iPhone buyer is concerned about them as much as the average HN user.
In the end what it counts is user experience, and if the average user see sharp, quick, responsive UI and fast applications he/she couldn't care less about how much RAM the phone has.
Storage is a different issue, but Apple got away until now offering more storage as a premium, so why change ?

I don't really disagree with you, but specs can be an indicator of capability. With modern Android phones hitting 3GB and soon 4GB of RAM, multi-tasking is really nice on that kind of phone.
This all sounds like feature talk, but here's my use-case at least: being able to listen to music, get directions in the background and switch between a game, the web, and a book in the foreground without worrying about any of the apps getting killed due to low memory is really empowering and enjoyable.
My old phone would kill one or two of those apps outright and it was nothing more than memory getting cleared up.
If the rumor is true, 1GB of RAM is really a full phone generation behind. Even weirder, I would have expected Apple to be using their 64bit CPU tech to push the boundaries of memory on phones.

> With modern Android phones hitting 3GB and soon 4GB of RAM, multi-tasking is really nice on that kind of phone.
Could it be, given that iPhone 6 apps are native code and Android apps are bytecode, that iPhone 6 apps have less memory overhead than Android apps?

"Between big phones (even the small iphone 6 is bigger!), the watch and NFC, Apple is clearly repositioning themselves as fast followers and letting Samsung et. al. foot the bill on R&D"
Just like Apple let Creative Labs foot the bill on R&D and market building with the Nomad before the iPod was introduced?

Other than "both devices played compressed music files" I don't think there was really lots of comparison between the nomad and the iPod.
But yeah I guess in some way that's true, portable mp3 players of some kind were a rapidly growing market being developed by dozens of companies when the iPod came out. I had an entire series of CD-R/mp3 capable portable CD players back then for example. So the market was open and proven, but Apple provided real innovation in both technology and in digital distribution that wasn't there at all before the iPod. Combined, those were game changers and set Apple ascendant to the point it is today.
Getting most of the major record companies to sign on the dotted line is something I think only Apple could have done.

The iPhone 5c is still available for sale. (Technically free, with a 2 year contract.)

Yeah, but the "c" line is clearly EOL. Otherwise we'd have seen a 6c. Which we didn't.

Not sure about that. The 5c is basically a 5 that's built slightly more cheaply, so that it fits in at the bottom of the price spectrum at all points. The 6 currently is two notches up from the bottom, and because of that it may be that Apple decided that they didn't want to dilute the 6's brand with a cheapo version.
Another year down the line when there's an iPhone 6S and the 5C has been dropped, that's when I'd start expecting something like a 6C, though perhaps it would just be a 5SC. Not necessarily those names, exactly, but something following the pattern of "Drop the bottom-end phone, replace the 2nd-from-bottom with a plastic version."

Glad to know that you have inside knowledge from Apple about this. Clearly, the ATV is EOL, or we'd have seen a new rev. Same goes with the Mac mini, iPod Touch, etc. Apple is still selling them, and "clearly" intends to do so for the near future.