Samsung has taken some heat since launching the Galaxy Watch Ultra and Galaxy Buds 3, mostly because many view the products as being too similar to Apple’s, namely the Apple Watch Ultra and AirPods. And people aren’t wrong in thinking so. We pointed out the similarities before the products were official, because well, they are hard to ignore.
And since launching, most reviews of Samsung’s new watch have taken to focusing entirely on the Galaxy Watch Ultra being a copycat of the Apple Watch Ultra, while also praising it for being a good watch. Our readers called the Watch Ultra’s similarities “insane” and said it is “getting close” to cringe level.
According to a new report, Samsung’s Chairman is not exactly happy about how the new products are being received. Sources of ajunews say that Samsung Chairman Lee Jae-yong has given some sort of “strict order” to the mobile division (MX) because he’s not happy about design plagiarism (and quality issues). We aren’t sure what the order is, but the internal atmosphere in the MX division is reportedly “very bad” and some actions may have been taken against executives.
As someone who is deep into testing the Galaxy Watch Ultra, I wouldn’t disagree that the device is pretty goofy. I’ve owned an Apple Watch Ultra and would certainly not fault folks who think this is a copycat product by design. Like, Samsung’s design team knew exactly what it was doing here and they shouldn’t be that proud of it.
Samsung even deliberately changed the name at the last minute from “Galaxy Watch 7 Ultra” to “Galaxy Watch Ultra” to bring it even closer to Apple’s watch. I know because I wrote “Galaxy Watch 7 Ultra” throughout our launch coverage and Samsung asked that I update to the correct name. It seemed odd to not have “7” in the name, since Watch 7 Ultra was the reported name for so long leading up to launch, but then I noticed this support page that called all of Samsung’s new watches the “Watch7 series” and named the Ultra as the “Watch7 Ultra.” Again, Samsung knew what it was doing here.
That said, the software is so different from Apple’s, that it isn’t really a copycat outside of the design. If anything – and this is a topic for a separate post (potentially) – this is the Android option for those who want an Apple Watch Ultra, but can’t use it since Apple doesn’t let their watches work with this platform. I’ll say more in our review, but I actually really like the Galaxy Watch Ultra. It’s well-built, has a unique look, and is a chunky beast of a smartwatch that fills a niche.
In the end, all of this chatter probably doesn’t matter as long as Samsung fans like it and buy millions of them. Samsung should do better, though. They are too big and had moved so far from their earlier days of being called an Apple copycat.