Samsung, what happened to you? You used to make fun of Apple’s design choices. You used to be innovative and stand out with your designs. Now? You’re releasing products that look like knockoffs of Apple’s products. Yeah, I get it. Apple’s AirPods and Apple Watch designs are popular and sell well, but that doesn’t mean you should straight up copy it.
Want proof of Samsung trolling Apple for some of its decisions? Look no further than this (now deleted) tweet.
Let’s take the new Galaxy Buds 3 and 3 Pro for example. Samsung opted for the stem-design, which the company steered clear of for years. Every other pair of Galaxy Buds were just buds, and felt pretty comfortable to wear. Aside from the Galaxy Buds Live, or as many of us called them “Galaxy Beans”. Those were different, and in a good way. The Galaxy Buds Live were my favorite pair of Galaxy Buds, aside from the glossy finish. They were comfortable and didn’t look stupid like the AirPods and AirPods Pro.
Fast forward to 2024, and Samsung is putting out two new pairs of earbuds that look exactly like the AirPods and AirPods Pro, and even the differences between the Galaxy Buds 3 and Buds 3 Pro are identical to the AirPods. Sure, Samsung is offering them in a different color, with more lights on the buds themselves. But it’s clear where Samsung was aiming.
The new Galaxy Watch Ultra is the same as the Apple Watch Ultra in almost every way
I was briefed on the Galaxy Watch Ultra a week ago. And ever since then, it keeps running through my head how everything about the Galaxy Watch Ultra screams Apple Watch Ultra. From the color bands available, to the names of the bands available, and even down to the design. I’m still working on forming an actual opinion on the Galaxy Watch Ultra, but it seems like Samsung kept the worst of both watches here. That’s the square design of the Apple Watch Ultra, with a circular display. Honestly, it is growing on me, but it does still look like an Apple Watch Ultra from Wish.
The Apple Watch Ultra is titanium, so of course the Galaxy Watch Ultra is as well. In fact, Samsung is calling them “Titanium Cushions” on the side that makes it more rugged. Hence the square watch case with the circular display. Samsung made the Galaxy Watch Ultra for outdoors, just like Apple did. But the main difference here is that Samsung did not add satellite calling, unfortunately. Surprisingly, most of Android doesn’t have that feature yet, but we know it’s in the works as several Android engineers have confirmed as much.
Samsung even added an Action Button – sorry, it’s called a “Quick Button” on the Galaxy Watch Ultra. But it does essentially the same thing. And much like Apple’s Action Button, the Quick Button can do a number of different things, including starting a workout.
I could keep going on about the choices here that Smasung made and how close they are to Apple, but I think you get the message.
Why is Samsung so blatantly copying Apple now?
To be quite honest, Samsung is the last company that I thought would straight up copy Apple on multiple products. Any other Chinese OEM, like HONOR, Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, yeah sure. But Samsung? They’ve always steered clear of copying Apple. Now they might put out similar products, but they never put out anything that looked so similar to Apple as the Galaxy Buds 3 and Galaxy Watch Ultra. So why are they doing this?
I don’t have any insider knowledge at Samsung as to why they are doing this, but I’m sure it has to do with sales. If you take a look at the best selling earbuds on Amazon, you’ll notice something about almost all of them. They all have the stems like the AirPods.
Look at the screenshot above. Now we started at #7 here, because five of the top six are some form of AirPods available from Apple. With another one being from TAZO which are not AirPods-styled which is somewhat surprising. But look at these here. Besides the JBL Vibe Buds and the option from bmani, they are all stem earbuds, even the Amazon Echo Buds.
So is it really that hard to figure out why Samsung decided to go with the stem approach? I will also give them credit, the new Galaxy Buds 3 Pro do feel much more comfortable than the previous Galaxy Buds 2 and Galaxy Buds 2 Pro.
The same thing goes for the Galaxy Watch Ultra actually. The best selling smartwatch in the world right now is, the Apple Watch. And the Apple Watch Ultra has sold very well too, in fact, I’ve seen so many Apple Watch Ultras out in the wild, far more than I have any form of a Galaxy Watch. Take a look at the image below, it puts the Apple Watch Ultra side-by-side with the Galaxy Watch Ultra in the orange band color option. It looks eerily similar.
For Samsung, and really any other company, the main reason for making any sort of decision comes down to money. Samsung isn’t quite happy with the number of products that it is selling these days, and is always looking to sell more, especially in these two product categories where they are not number one.
How will consumers react to Samsung’s design choices?
Perhaps more important than Samsung making this change is, will consumers flock to these new products? That obviously remains to be seen. Since the products were just announced on Wednesday and won’t be available in stores until July 24. Reviewers, like myself have not even had time to put together a good amount of thoughts on these new products.
Among techies, like those of you reading this post, I can pretty much guarantee you won’t like this change. But those like my parents, or those just looking for a good pair of earbuds, the Galaxy Buds 3 and 3 Pro might be the ones they buy. As they care more about price and features, than they do the fact they look like Apple’s AirPods. Though that could also be a selling point for them.
Would you buy the Galaxy Buds 3/Pro or the Galaxy Watch Ultra because it looks similar to what Apple offers?
