Samsung's Obsession with Apple Spills over to a Tablet Cover
Samsung is obsessed with Apple. Who doesn't know that by now considering that they've lost two consecutive patent infringement trials that exposed their obsession? Samsung has become a two-faced monster. Their public face is constantly creating anti-iDevice ads in an effort to somehow convince the market that their products are vastly superior to Apple's. The other face is the real Samsung that few of their fans want to know about. Despite putting on a brave face against Apple, the facts remain that their latest smartphones are failing, that they're cutting back Galaxy S5 orders for Q3 and that management is so angry about the Galaxy S5's real world sales performance that they're punishing their executives by cutting back executive bonuses. This week we found a new patent application from Samsung for a crazy tablet pouch wherein they're prior art is Apple's Smart Cover. They can't help themselves. Their whole corporate culture is about being the next Apple, hailed for innovation that's original. This report highlights Samsung's latest tablet pouch patent in all its glory. Report Update August 13, 2014: new photos of the Samsung Tablet Cover are now presented.
Prior Art: Apple's iPad Smart Cover
Apple was first to market with a truly successful tablet computer after years of Microsoft's complete failure of a tablet that never caught on with anyone. Apple created the first protective cover for a tablet with some real thinking behind it. They sweated over the details in how the cover would attach to the iPad with an innovative first to market magnetic system that the likes of Microsoft have since copied. The cover was designed to intelligently fold into a stand for the iPad. It was original thinking by Apple's industrial design team led by Jony Ive.
Now many years later, Samsung comes along thinking that they're brilliant engineers have finally been able to slightly go beyond being a copycat design and introduce to the world a Samsung tablet pouch like none other before it!: Ooh, mine eyes have seen the glory!
It's a pouch. You have to pull the Samsung tablet out of the pouch, lay it down, and begin folding the pouch to come up with the very same thing that Apple's iPad Smart Cover did for years. And it only takes two or three times longer to actually set it up. There's no feature to put the tablet to sleep once it's set up on the foldable pouch. With Apple's Smart Cover, you can quickly peek at data and then close the cover to instantly put it to sleep. That was too complicated so Samsung just skipped that feature.
Samsung's claim to fame here is that their pouch doesn't use magnets like Apple's Smart Cover. They're proud to say that with a straight face like that's an innovative breakthrough of some kind. Wow, moving backwards is sooooo innovative that it's simply breathtaking.
Here's what Samsung actually stated in their patent filing: "Further, when storing and supporting the mobile terminal, without using a magnetic element, the foldable pouch hardly has electrical and physical influence on operation of the mobile terminal, and reliability of the foldable pouch can be thus improved."
The Uninspiring Samsung Tablet Pouch
What will they think of next? For those who want to bask in the light of this great breakthrough, check out Samsung patent application 20140202889.
Update August 13, 2014: Photos of the new Samsung tablet cover are presented below. They were found on Samsung Tomorrow's site.
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