They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. This morning’s hot launch, RIM’s BlackBerry Storm has all the features we predicted, including the iPhone-trumping copy and paste on its spanking new touchscreen. Plus added plagiarism.
What no-one predicted is that someone at either RIM or Vodafone would be such a muppet that they’d publish evidence of the inspiration they’ve taken from Apple’s iPhone.
Vodafone’s Storm specs page – before they took it down to replace the picture – carried this great shot of the Storm… complete with screen grab taken straight from the iPhone. They also “borrowed” pics of the iPhone’s web browser on the same page. Blatant!
If we were RIM’s legal department, we’d be expecting a call from Cupertino any time now. Steve and his gang are well known for reaching 
for the statute book to fend off competitors, and have proudly boasted in the past that the iPhone is “protected by more than 200 patents.”
OK, so gizmo manufacturers are always copying from each other. Nokia even admitted that the iPhone gave it a push in the direction of the 5800 XpressMusic. Let’s just hope the Storm has copied all of the iPhone’s best bits… while improving the rest.
Outrageous rip-off or “oops, we let the work experience kid in the design department do that”? Tell us your thoughts in the comment box below.
Out TBC | £TBC | BlackBerry (via Gizmodo)
Vodaphone has just taken down the page (404 not found) I guess there’s an update coming soon – and there’s probably been rather a lot of shouting at somebody down the phone.
Amazing how that can slip through. Do you reckon Apple saw it? I can just picture Steve Jobs lacing up his hobnail boots, then stomping into BlackBerry hq screaming “Come get some!” in the foyer… or just calling the lawyers.
Yes, as we wrote the story this morning, we kept refreshing the page, incredulous that they hadn’t taken it down yet!
Just goes to show that you have to get up pretty early round here – to get to 5am handset launches and to catch them messing up.
Methinks the next meeting between Apple execs and Vodafone is going to be… tense!
Someone’s P45 is already in the post, that’s for sure. They’ve taken the entire specs page down now. Surely, it’s not that hard to replace a few images, is it?
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