Has Samsung gone and copied Apple (again)?
Technically Incorrect: The latest campaign for Samsung's Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge bears an eerie similarity to a campaign Apple has been running for some time.
Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives.
Shot on Galaxy S7.
I fear the hackles of Apple fanpersons might rise at the sight of this.
I sense that certain Cuperteenies might screech: 'There they go again, those Samsungians! Call Judge Lucy Koh!"
For here is a new campaign for the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge that is slightly identical to a campaign Apple has been running for more than a year.
Samsung's new oeuvre is called "Captured on Galaxy S7." Might this remind anyone of the award-winning Apple campaign entitled "Shot on iPhone"?
The Samsung campaign doesn't appear to claim that its ad was shot by real people, as the Apple campaign does.
Indeed, it's there to highlight the 4K Ultra HD Video enjoyed by its latest phones. The images are pretty and, oddly, not wobbly in the slightest.
And, frankly, how else is Samsung supposed to show off its fine video capabilities, you might say. (I can think of a couple of ways.)
Perhaps it's just the tagline that hurts. "Captured on Galaxy S7" does enjoy an excessive echo of "shot on iPhone."
It could be meant as a dig, of course.
Neither Samsung nor Apple responded to a request for comment.
The controversy over who copies whom has been long and tortured. It's made it to courts as well as to hearts.
The truth, of course, is that the copying just might have drifted both ways on occasion. Just as Apple has pursued Samsung for copying on many fronts, the iPhone maker did suddenly have the brainwave of big-screen phones rather later than its main competitor.
This new Samsung ad, while pretty in itself, isn't entirely involving. It feels far too manicured to be inspiring. It feels like a lot of stock footage slapped together.
Perhaps the hearts of those who made it weren't quite in it. Perhaps they felt as if they'd seen the idea somewhere before.
Indeed, as a reader points out, Samsung released an ad similar to this one in 2013, two years before Apple's campaign launched. However, one never got the sense that Samsung took ownership of the concept.
That's something Apple has historically been quite good at.
Update, June 19 at 2:05 p.m. PT: Adds information about 2013 ad.