Galaxy S5: Did Samsung Copy Apple?

The Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, saw Samsung unveil the much anticipated update to its successful Galaxy phone line-up. The announcement of the Samsung Galaxy S5 and several Samsung watches has caused much controversy, with many Apple fans crying foul at Samsung once again.

SEE MORE: Apple iPhone is a direct copy of the 2006 LG Prada phone

Fingerprint Scanner Last year's gimmick was 'futuristic voice-assistants, this year it's 'futuristic' fingerprint scanners. Unfortunately for Apple fans, fingerprint scanners aren't anything revolutionary, in fact they made their first appearance on IBM's ThinkPad T42 laptop ten years ago and on a phone three years ago with Motorola's Atrix. Still, Samsung's inclusion of a scanner on their home button was likely brought on by the amount of press attention and sales Apple received by putting a scanner on the iPhone 5S.

iWhat?  It has been about 12 months since rumours started surfacing that Apple would be creating their own digital watch, following the success of the Pebble watch and the uninspiring I'm Watch. However, it was Samsung who unveiled it's watch first and release its two predecessors and fitness spin-off this year. Again, this isn't a new concept, I remember when LG released the Prada watch back in 2009; capable of making calls and text messaging.

A Touch of Copycat Gold For god's sake, Apple didn't invent the "gold-coloured phone", honestly there have been gold phones since the dawn of phones, aimed at rich businessmen (particularly in the Middle East) who want to show off their wealth. I even covered the topic on a different post, when Samsung brought out a gold version of the Galaxy S4 in Saudi Arabia. Even so, Samsung's newest model looks more like copper than gold anyway.

Full of Innovation Samsung is not the most innovative bunch, and have been caught red-handed basing their Touchwiz overlay from Apple's own iOS; so it's not hard to understand why fans are quick to point the finger at Samsung. However, after being ordered to pay Apple a hefty $1.05 billion in fines, it seems that the Korean manufacturer is finally showing that they can innovate after all.

Milking iTunes Radio's Success?
Samsung unveiled its offering to the streaming music industry, "Samsung Milk Music" following the likes of Spotify, Pandora and of course iTunes radio. This 'jumping on the bandwagon routine' is nothing different for Samsung nor Apple, remember the cloud storage craze last year? Like with the posts prior, Samsung may have copied the idea from Apple, but Apple copied the idea from someone else.

UPDATE: Due to a lack of a strong user-base, Samsung has decided to discontinue the Samsung Milk Service. Many forums blame the decision on the service's exclusivity to newer Samsung devices, lack of customer support and strong competition from Spotify and Pandora.