Samsung Headphones Will Control Apple Products, Among Other Similarities
There's been an ongoing legal battle between Apple and Samsung over patent infringement over the past few months. Apple has laid lawsuits on Samsung, and then Samsung lays a few of their own in retaliation. Specifically, Apple filed suit to ban the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 from selling in Australia and Germany, among other countries, and won. Samsung has filed their own suits to block the iPad 2 and iPhone 4 from selling in Japan, Australia, France and Italy, but has not yet heard verdicts. It's been a long few months no doubt for both of their legal teams.
All of this legal action between these two mobile giants isn't solely regarding how one device like the Galaxy Tab 10.1 or the Galaxy S II look extremely similar to the Apple iPad 2 and iPhone. It involves mainly patents, such as wireless technology used in either manufacturers' devices, obvious appearances, similarities in function such as the 'Home button on the iPhone and the 'Menu' button on the Galaxy S devices.
Samsung is a major manufacturing partner with Apple, and as such, they receive information from Apple to build the parts that will go into their next devices. Essentially, Samsung is accused of using that advance knowledge to build their own devices which compete with Apple.
I was recently able to find another similarity between the devices. In a moment of desperation, and a need to listen to music, I had forgotten my usual headphones at home, and decided to try the Samsung headphones I got with my Samsung Galaxy S Captivate smartphone a while back. The video I have below shows how the physical control button for play/pause on the headphones works perfectly with my Apple iPad 2, when using the default iOS 5 music player.
I figured I had better test this out with other devices besides Apple. I tried to get those same headphones to control another family of Android devices with the HTC Flyer tablet, HTC Magic and lastly the HTC Sensation. None of those devices responded to my play/pause button mashing from my Samsung headphones. I thought to be a little strange since they are all Android devices. Points to the simple explanation that it's all in the hardware, not the OS.
Sources - All Headline News, Engadget
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