Samsung is a company that has a long history of both leading and following, though it is difficult to argue that the success the company is currently enjoying with its smartphone business can be attributed in part to its uncanny ability to do the latter. In fact, the company’s handset sales didn’t really start to take off until executives created a confidential 132-page internal document detailing exactly how engineers should copy the iPhone pixel by pixel. Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones improved by leaps and bounds after their software was reworked in the iPhone’s image, and since then, the company has worked to veer away from iOS and carve out its own path.
When it comes to allegations that Samsung may have stolen various physical design elements from Apple devices, however, it looks like Samsung’s biggest iPhone ripoff is yet to come.
FROM EARLIER: New leak gives us our best look yet at Samsung’s most gorgeous smartphone ever
GSMArena on Friday published an image of what it claims is Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy F, which is rumored to be a higher-end version of the company’s flagship Galaxy S5 smartphone. According to previous reports, the Galaxy F features a 5.3-inch quad HD display, a next-generation quad-core Snapdragon processor, 3GB of RAM, a 16-megapixel rear camera, a 2-megapixel front-facing camera, microSDXC support and Android KitKat.
We have seen several purported renders of the Galaxy F, and it looks terrific. We had yet to see the edges of the phone, however, and this supposed live image may shed light on a surprising design element: If this photo is real, Samsung blatantly stole the design from Apple’s iPhone 4S, iPhone 5 and iPhone 5s by wrapping the edges of the phone with an aluminum border that has polished, chamfered edges.
Samsung wouldn’t be the first smartphone maker to steal this key design element from Apple, but the move would obviously be surprising considering the companies’ ongoing legal battles.
Is it really that bad? You be the judge.
Here’s the leaked image that supposedly shows Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy F:
And here is Apple’s iPhone 5s:
