RAS - Your comment explores the angle where someone may be coming in with little or no history in a particular market segment. I was relying on the fact that Samsung has a lineup of previous products that show a convergence with Apple's products.

Some of this furball reminds me of the early days of the IBM PC where a competitor built their own BIOS using the published specification and a "clean room" / "Chinese wall" approach to software development*. One could argue that by selling the iPad and iPhone Apple has published the specifications. The various patents themselves are also a form of publication.

I boil this dog's breakfast down with a simple test : Where is the truly unique hardware ? CPU ? No, it's just a variation on the ARM architecture. RAM, radio, sensors, and battery are all pretty much the same. Apple's latest display is unique but comparable displays are available. So the only substantial difference is the software which is readily matched given the number of clever programmers out there.

I'm not saying that one could (or should) copy iOS. But given Android as a starting point one could build a functional equivalent of iOS fairly quickly**. And that is what various Apple competitors have done.

MB94128

* "Cloning the IBM PC BIOS" (Wikipedia article)

**Possible steps : port to new hardware combination, add various features, test, release to manufacturing.

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