….a sequel to Times when other Tech companies copied Apple’s products and innovations
Emojis
WhatsApp recently released its own set of native emoji after a long run of using those of Apple’s. The move was a good one and while many were still basking and singing WhatsApp praises to for such a brilliant and innovative move, Emojipedia was quick to point out that the WhatsApp emojis were somewhat a clone of Apple’s emoji; even though WhatsApp claimed it wasn’t using them anymore.
“At a glance these could be confused for Apple’s own emojis. It appears that the brief for this project may have been “take Apple’s emojis, and change them enough so we can call them our own”. Is that a bad thing? Perhaps not, given how change-averse most users can be”, says Emojipedia.
Face ID recognition technology
Although many have erroneously thought Apple copied a feature on the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy Note 8, the fact however remains that the “Iris Scanning” is different in its entirety from the iPhone X Facial recognition technology. This is a story for another day.
The Apple Face ID Facial recognition technology is new but that isn’t stopping some OEMs from copying the feature already. Not too long after the iPhone X was announced, some other Chinese manufacturer wasted no time to announce that their upcoming devices will feature the Facial recognition technology.
In this article, we listed about three iPhone X alternate devices with the Facial recognition technology, but what we didn’t say was that they took the inspiration from Apple. I’m speaking of devices like the Doogee Mix 2, Vivo X20 and Vivo X20 Plus.
It is surprising how the Face ID still serves as an inspiration to many OEMs despite the misconceptions (which we have cleared) that clouded the innovation when it was announced. There are even reports that says enquiries from Android brands about the Facial recognition technology have tripled since the iPhone X announcement.
3.5 mm headphone jack removal
When Apple ditched the 3.5mm headphone jack last year on the iPhone 7, many cried foul and some thought Apple have made the biggest mistake ever.
Well, seeing top dogs like Xiaomi (on the Xiaomi Mi Note 3 and Xiaomi Mi Mix 2) and Google (on the Pixel 2 and Google Pixel 2 XL) ditch the 3.5 mm headphone jack on their devices only proves how much of an influence Apple has in terms of determining what other smartphone brands adds or removed on their products.
The Apple Airpods is another product we have seen other brands taking their time to replicate; like Google is doing with the Google Pixel Buds for the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL.
Though Apple isn’t the pioneering company or parent to most of the above innovations but it is quite surprising as to how many other brands picks interest in an innovation or idea only after Apple does.