In a new commercial released on Saturday, Samsung expectedly calls Apple a copycat for releasing a larger-screened iPhone, specifically the iPhone 6 Plus, saying the new handset comes three years after the Galaxy Note introduced the "phablet" form factor.
The spot published to Samsung's YouTube channel starts off by recalling initial Galaxy Note reviews from 2011, when the device first debuted, citing assessments that dinged the gigantic smartphone for being too large and unwieldy for everyday use.
Samsung's narrator says, "now it's not being dismissed by competitors," a direct shot at Apple's new iPhone 6 Plus device. The ad moves on to tout a few Galaxy Note features, like inclusion of a stylus and multi-pane multitasking, before showing tweets that imply the new iPhone 6 Plus is merely derivative of Samsung's large-screened smartphone family. The commercial ends by noting the Galaxy Note 4 -- "The Next Big Thing is Here" -- comes out in October.
Since entering the smartphone market, Samsung has fielded a flotilla of devices with varying screen sizes in what seems to be a "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" approach to differentiation. Despite a number of flops, the tactic has allowed the company to cherry-pick popular form factors and crow about being "first" to market.
The ad comes one day after Apple CEO Tim Cook told Charlie Rose in the first segment of a two-part interview that the company could have made a big-screened iPhone years ago, but decided to hold off until the pieces were in place to create a high-quality device.
"We could have done a larger iPhone years ago," Cook said in the interview. "It's never been about just making a larger phone. It's been making -- it's been about making a better phone in every single way. And so we ship things when they're ready, and we think that both the display technology here, the battery technology, but all -- but everything else and the software."
Saturday's spot is Samsung's second attempt to discredit Apple's new iPhones since the company debuted the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus at a special event last week. It took Samsung less than a day to write, shoot, edit a short campaign consisting of six short ads bashing Apple's new iPhones, the upcoming Apple Watch and the release event.
Apple kicked off preorders for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus last Friday to overwhelming demand. It appears Apple has sold out of stock allotted to preorder customers and is now quoting ship-by dates of up to three to four weeks for the iPhone 6 Plus.