By SteveJack
This is not an April Fool’s joke. Take a look at the image below. It’s Samsung’s newly-announced “Instinct” to be offered to the criminally obtuse by beleaguered Sprint in June.
In the spirit of Samsung’s lack of originality, portions of the rest of my article are basically just half-assed rephrasings of statements lifted directly from my recent RIM BlackBerry 9000 article. Unlike Samsung, I’ll throw in some actual new ideas, too:
Samsung clearly seems to have tried to copy Apple’s iPhone exterior look, but it has none of the multi-touch goodness of Apple’s iPhone. It’s the same old, same old in an iPhone-inspired wrapper. And that should fail to inspire much confidence in Samsung or Sprint (which has precious little to begin with).
You can judge the distance behind and overall cluelessness of iPhone’s future roadkill by the amount they copy the iPhone’s exterior. See: LG, HTC, RIM, and now Samsung, among many others.
According to CNET, “Except for a [few] feature changes and a unique interface, the Instinct is a recycled CDMA version of the SGH-F490, which we saw two months ago at the GSMA World Congress.” This ceaseless quest to dress up antiques in Apple veneer is pathetic and sad.
What are Sprint customers supposed to do? Get this phone, stick an iPhone Apple logo sticker on the back, and just pretend throughout the duration of a 2-year contract?
Obviously, Samsung has no shame. And Sprint’s so desperate, they’d sell blocks of wood painted like iPhones if people would buy them.
The question I’m left with for Samsung and Sprint — and this goes for the rest of these companies rolling out imitation iPhones this year — exactly how stupid do you think your customers are?
See Gizmodo’s gallery of Samsung Instinct photos here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Joe Architect” for the heads up.]
SteveJack is a long-time Macintosh user, web designer, multimedia producer and a regular contributor to the MacDailyNews Opinion section.
where’s the keyboard?
Don’t blame Samsung…this is sprint (notice all lower case) realising that THEY need to have an iPhone look-a-like.
Samsung has an incredible design group; they dont’ need to copy other people’s designs…but if a client is paying, you do it and then move on.
iPhone iMitation is the sincerest form of iFlattery
I just don’t get this. For years Apple’s iPod competitors tried to be “iPod” killers by imitatin the iPod. If you’re going to unseat the iPod, you need to create something a magnitude GREATER than the original. Why buy a copy when the original is available.
Similarly, Apple stole a march on the phone industry. They reinvented the phone and made it an internet platform. They are not going to defeat it – or even slow it down – by following in it’s path. It’s very hard for me to understand how such very smart people can continue to make such very foolish mistakes.
iStink more like it…
This is such a joke. I remember a girl friend I dated was a patent attorney. She was a biter but that is another story. She was wrapped in this suit where on trash bag company used the same packaging as their client and marketed the trash bags as similiar to the other. The color of the boxes were very similiar and the logos and such were as well. She eventually won the suit and the other company had to pay them several million dollars in a judgement. Samsung trash bag sure looks like Apple’s trash bag.
Nor about the biting………
It’s a huge fat ass phone at .49″ thick. More plastic then you can shake a stick at and Gizmodo is impressed and said it’s a good competitor to the iPhone. Man, Gizmodo is getting lame these days.
Does it squirt?
It doesn’t seem to be nearly close enough to the iPhone to be considered a knockoff. Calling it a iPhone knockoff is really too much of a complement.
Great article, Steve Jack. It’s really pathetic to see the whole mobile universe try to copy one product. The copy cat scheme has gotten much better since the iPod knockoffs, and are focusing on the polish and trim of the iPhone, not the software (because they can’t). I agree with your comment that Apple SHOULD stop these phones on patent or copyright infringement charges, as it is just plain wrong to take a unique, recognizable design from an innovative company and try to market it as your own duping the dumb and the innocent. In the process, they cheapen the image and render the design ubiquitous.
I don’t know if it’s Samsung or Sprint who’s behind this, but it’s wrong. Actually, I like both companies for different things. Samsung’s got some great innovative hardware design, it’s a very capable company. And Sprint offers fairly decent phone service for a good price (much lower than Verizon, lower than ATT, at least in NYC), albeit their phone selection is pretty rotten.
Having said that, it’s wrong to rip off proprietary designs.
Instinct is actually an Avid product and a trade marked name of Avid.
http://www.avid.com/products/inewsInstinct/
There will always be a market for cheap knock offs, especially if Sprint subsidizes them. Some people are cheap and desperate enough that they’ll fall for it.
It’s just sad that a company like Sprint would stoop to these levels to get any kind of market share. Methinks they’re going down and it’s going to be long and ugly. Once Verizon gets its 4G network sorted out, no one will have any use for Sprint. they are still digesting Nextel and customers are fleeing in droves.
Meanwhile, back on AT&T;, at least we get international roaming on GSM without too many headaches and a data network that works, albeit slowly. Let’s hope their 3G services work decently.
settle down guys. this will not be a problem. as with the ipod, apple will announce the 3G iphone for june and probably, as Muenster the analyst has stated, come out with lower priced iPhones with different form factors to destroy the clones. It happened the iPod and it will happen with the iPhone. Innovation always wins out in the end and this company has its eyes on the ball.
By the way instinct = i stink?
Poon Tang will probably like this thing but it really is artless and shameless.
Apple’s Bertrand Serlet said it best: “If you can’t innovate, you imitate, but it’s never as good as the original!”
I can’t type a French accent, but the shit was hilarious when he said it.
Peace.
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Olmecmystic
Actually, if this iPhone imitation was sold for about a hundred bucks, I can see it selling quite well – copy or not. It would be ideal for those who can’t afford the real thing.
MW: deal, as in “deal with it.”
This is a land of derivatives. It reminds me of design school, the european and asian kids would come up with imaginative, outlandish designs, the american, ‘safe’ and ‘marketable’ designs appealing to the lowest denominator (BTW – if I see one more skull on a t-shirt, ima scream!!). The Samsung will sell – just like Scary Movie 9, Saw 12, and Spiderman 35, because too many people love old crap in a new wrapper. The iPhone (and Apple) prove though, that people eventually want someting better out of life, and marketing can’t sell that dream alone. One thing is certain, as todays youth grow up on Apple, and become tomorrows CEOs, the standards will get better.
quelle homage!
That interface sucks.
Yuk.
The problem with ALL Apple’s competitors is that they all look at what Apple is currently producing and not create a competing product of what they think Apple will be doing in the future.
All the time they do this there is no way they are going to make any viable competitor to Apple.
I only see TWO things better about this phone. One of those things, I don’t even care about:
1. While I have NO use for it, and actually find it quite annoying, it has push to talk. My stepdad would consider this a HUGE plus. This leads me to believe that others would as well.
2. I am envious of this one. A landscape keyboard that appears to be in texting mode. I want a landscape keyboard for ALL typing functions on the iPhone and it seems like it is STILL absent with version 2.0 that is being tested by the select few.
Other than that, this thing is a POS. I am SOOO tired of copycats stealing from Apple. That is exactly what it is, STEALING and you are absolutely right, Apples lawyers SHOULD be suing.
I’d feel ashamed to be involved in the process of making such an obvious rip-off. Like Falkirk said, you don’t beat someone by following in their footsteps, you have to outdo them in some way.
This is all for naught anyways, the iPhone will obviously come out on top as it’s already got cult status, just like the iPod.
The real question is:
Will it blend?
I’d say it’s a fairly primitive Instinct.
“Exactly how stupid do you think your customers are?”
Answer: Very.
Sadly, they are correct. Most people are lemmings.
@ferenc,
But they are very different products and so it is likely allowed to have its own trademark.
(I have been doing research into trademarks recently)
@maclover,
Don’t be knocking the Saw movies! They have all kicked @$$ and haven’t suffered from the same sequel malaise that seems to affect other movies.
As a Sprint customer I’ll be the first to say that their phone line-up sucks. If just one company would make a high-quality basic phone with good sound quality and reception, I still believe it would sell.
Not all people feel the need to have the latest trendy device OR be stuck with AT&T;.
Looking at the photos, I think they are VERY close to the iPhone- even the keyboard. Depending upon how the phone actually works, ease of use, etc. I would say it has a good chance at taking some market share. That will all depend upon marketing and the sale price.
Is it just me, or does ‘Sprint Instinct’ sound akin to ‘running in sh!t’?Which would explain why Sam sung blue…..
It’s obviously a knockoff.
I don’t think Samsung thinks people are stupid at all. They simply want to cash in on the growing popularity of the iPhone with something that obviously appeals on the same level.
Samsung would be stupid not to want to get in on the action and the truth is many people will buy it because it will basically perform many of the same functions as the iPhone – albeit not as elegantly – and cost way less than the iPhone.
@ Cuthbert – Lemmings? vs. lemmings who answer to a different iTune.
Only 8 more months til my sprint contract runs out…
My instinct says to stay far away… from Samsung phones and Sprint service.
I wonder if the Instinct users will be able to print their airline boarding passes from their phone.
You have it wrong, it’s the Samsung Extinct!
Good one.
I don’t see how anyone at Apple is afraid of this product.
@tooneth,
Clean your glasses.
This reminds me of the discussions of how the iPhone is just a copy of the LG Prada.
Indeed, this is an attempt to have a knockoff. But if Apple wasn’t so greedy by limiting this wonderful iPhone to just AT&T;, then there wouldn’t be any demand for it all. As much as we like our Mac computers and iMac’s, what if we were were limited in our ability to purchase it and be saddled with exorbitant monthly user fees by the Apple stores? How popular would Macs be then? Their market share would not be growing the way it is.
Considering how substandard the AT&T;network is with regards to scope and coverage… it is amazing that they have sold as many iPhones as they have in this country. There would be no problem with bricked phones if they opened it up to Verizon and the like.
What Rick says is exactly right: Sprint and Verizon are CDMA, and CDMA is arguably a better network than GSM. It is certainly more advanced. They couldn’t switch to GSM even if they wanted to and why should they switch to an inferior system. Do you actually think that either Sprint or Verizon would refuse to carry the iPhone if Apple were to offer it to them? Of course not. So faced with the situation where there is a very popular phone whose manufacturer refuses to allow them to sell, what else can they do other than to try to approximate it as best as they can. FWIW, I’d love to have an iPhone, but I can’t because AT&T;is just impossible for me. Indeed, I’d gladly pay three or four times the cost of an AT&T;iPhone just to get a CDMA version. But I can’t, so in the mean time I have to make do with a regular phone and an iPod Touch. That’s almost as good when I can get WiFi, but I wish I didn’t have to carry two devices. And if I were to buy one of these clones, it wouldn’t be because I was too stupid to realize that I was getting a knock-off, but because Apple forced me to buy the knock-off by refusing to sell me the real deal.
@rick — You make a good point. It would be great if Apple would open up the iPhone to be sold by any viable phone company willing to meet its terms on price and share or recurring revenues. But in Apple’s defense, they started a new revenue model and at the time there were no takers. So they gave ATT the nod if they were willing to take the risk on the phone. Remember, lots could have gone wrong here.
Sure, the Samsung and its ilk (RIM’S Blackberry 9000) may be pale imitations of a better phone – but you have to hand it to Apple, really.
Their first attempt at a mobile phone stunned the entire industry into a frenzy of ‘me too! me too!’ panic. And when those companies talk about their ‘iPhone killers’ it’s as if Apple doesn’t even need to spend a dime advertising the phone – its rivals do that just fine, thank you very much.
Heh heh heh.
http://www.instinct-samsung.com is the best samsung instinct website on the Internet.
it is a nice phone but if it was a little thinner it would be nice and you shouldnt have to have the sprint everything plan to use it you sholud be able to have whatever plan you want
The best samsung instinct fans website is at http://www.instinct-samsung.com check it out folks.
It amazes me how you apple fan boys are quick to label something as a “knockoff”. Last I checked the LG Prada came out before the Iphone, so did the HTC Touch. The Instinct is nothing like like the Iphone, actually I would call that Apple thingy an Ipod-phone, if you take away the phone side (which is crappy) and the browser, what do yo have… an ‘Ipod’.
The Instinct has a true GPS chip with LBS, MMS, video recording, picture mail (you can send & receive pictures and videos). You Apple fan boys were fooled into spending $600 on what is basically an Ipod.
The Instinct is actually smaller than than hard-drive sized Ipod…
http://gizmodo.com/photogallery/instinctlive2
I also just got word that there is nothing special in the Iphone 2.0 firmware update, you fan boys will be disappointed, source; http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/18/iphone-firmware-2-0-hands-on/
Samsung Instinct wins CTIA awards…
http://www.cellphonedigest.net/news/2008/04/the_samsung_instinct_an_iphone.php
I don’t understand why people keep saying that the design of the Iphone is original. First of all the LG Prada came out before the Iphone, and it has a very similiar appearence. It’s really hard to come out with a full Touch Screen phone, without making it that shape or size. I mean come on, there isn’t many options. I’ve actually already used this phone, and I liked it more than the Iphone considering it was a beta version. And i’m not a Iphone hater, I actually was considering changing to At&t;for the Iphone but now I think im going to stay with sprint for this phone. The phone is suppose to be in the 200-250 price range with contract, and so for 50 bucks more i can get an 8gb micro sd. Than i have basically everything the iphone has for 100-200 bucks less. It’s a great phone people just need to be more open, and people need to get there facts straight when they say that everyone is copying the design of the Iphone when LG brought it out first, and im not to sure but I think I heard or saw that the Touch by HTC was announced before the Iphone was. Not sure on that one though.
OK. So all the Apple iPhone users have determined this is a piece of junk. Fine. I get brand loyalty. I’m a hardcore Apple/Mac user since the mid 80s. never even thought of deviating from the enlightened path (I mean that sincerely). And I’ve wanted an iPhone since the day they were announced. I waited with eager anticipation. And then came the stunning disappointment: AT&T;exclusive service.
What a HUGE let down. I am a Sprint user and in my area they offer great service as well as superior coverage to AT&T;. Additionally, all (well, many) of my AT&T;friends have complained about their service. Nonetheless, I was ready to drop Sprint in order to get the iPhone, and sign on with AT&T;. I was ready to suffer inferior service just to have my iPhone…until I heard about the Sprint Instinct.
So I really have no basis of comparing the 2 phones, having neither owned and iPhone or held a Samsung Instinct. But other than you all poo’ing on the Instinct because it’s an obvious attempt to copy Apple, why shouldn’t I buy one and keep the service that has served me well.
If AT&T;has inferior service to Sprint, in my area, then what is your suggestion about the Instinct vs the iPhone, other than piling on the boo-hiss-it’s-an-Apple-wannabe bandwagon.
I have a serious issue/decision to make, and would love some sincere sensible advice. Is the Instinct really a hunk of junk? If so, please explain in terms other than emotion-driven Apple loyalty (which I understand and sympathize with).
Thank You.
so i’m guessing its only SteveJack that credits Apple with inventing the touch screen and everything else is bordering on patent infringement. I’ve never been to this site before, but SteveJack is the epitome of why people hate mac users. He’s clearly well brainwashed into the cult of Mac, and his ramblings reek of FAIL.
What makes this lame is not that it looks similar to the iPhone. What makes it lame is that Samsung is trying to fool people into thinking it works like an iPhone, but in reality it is just a tired old product wrapped in a new package. Just like what Microsoft did with the Zune. What makes it lame is that the company is touting it as an ‘iPhone Killer’. Please. Apple worked on the iPhone for years, and put plenty of sweat and money into developing it.
You know, it doesn’t matter if LG got a phone out the door first. Afterall, if LG’s Prada mattered, then why are there no ‘Prada-killers’ out there?
The simple fact is the iPhone took several technologies and packaged them into a device that has no equal – save the iPhone 3G. (heh)
It’s a fact that after January 9 2007, the cellphone industry went into free fall panic. And the best they can come up with? Half asssed imitations of the iPhone!
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Apple is just mad that they are sucking at it and other companies are creating better products it might look like the I phone but has a compleatly different style they run on different interfaces and apple is mad that people are liking a different product other than theirs just cuz its looks like it alittle doesnt mean its a knock off all of you people are probably ifans and ilovers
i bought a samsung spirit phone only for me to find out is a zoom land line phone wat rubish