Did Samsung Just Awkwardly Copy Apple With Their New Smartwatch?

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Unless you're a tech company - in which case it's grounds for a lawsuit.

Apple and Samsung are famed for their legal disagreements, with the former winning a huge patent infringement case in the US that required Samsung to pay up for various "design infringements", which the South Korean tech giant recently failed to have overturned. If your new gadget looks like an Apple product, walks like an Apple, then there's a good chance the US courts will give you a slap on the wrist.

Which means that Apple's lawyers may want to have a good look at the new Samsung Gear S2.

Teased at a recent Samsung launch event - itself a new strategy for Samsung, which paralleled the media-centric launches of Apple - the Gear S2 is a smartwatch that apparently uses a new Samsung-made operating system. But all those little circle icons have been seen before. 

Now app icons are nothing new, and all developers will want to work to a similar style across multiple operating systems - but the new Gear S2 appears far more similar to Apple's Watch design than it does Samsung's previous Gear smartwatch. We actually prefer Samsung's new design to Apple's offerings.

We'd bet our considerable gadget collection on the Apple vs Samsung case rearing its money-hungry head again in the near future. 

Until then, so long as it results in consumers receiving a greater range of impressive, cheap tech, we're happy to watch the legal tete-a-tete from the sidelines.

[Via: Fortune.com]