Xiaomi executive Hugo Barra has given an interview with Bloomberg where he once again spoke out in defense against copycat accusations that have been levied against his company. Barra, who came from Google, is the vice-president of the Chinese startup that makes Android phones that are cheaper than the iPhone and Samsung’s phones, and has long been accused of copying design-led Apple.
In the interview, Barra says that the criticism is not so much because Xiaomi’s stuff looks like Apple’s stuff but rather because “every smartphone these days kinda looks like every other smartphone.”
“So this whole copycat melodrama all boils down to one chamfered edge on one particular phone model which was Mi 4, which people said looked like the iPhone 5,” Barra said “And I’ve been the first one to ad
Barra goes on to say that the copycat claims aren’t fair, especially in today’s market where smartphones were all starting to look like one another. He claims that moving forward, he believes that the opposite will happen, which is that other companies will start to copy Xiaomi in terms of design. Given that Xiaomi’s phones are some of the most pirated phones in the market, it is certainly starting to look that way.
Over the course of four years, Chinese electronics company Xiaomi has managed to become the world’s third largest smartphone distributor, competing with the likes of Lenovo, LG, Samsung, and Apple. Its devices, ranging from smartphones to tablets, have been publicly criticized for heavily borrowing design elements from Apple’s iPhones and iPads and adopting marketing materials tactics similar to Apple’s.
Jony Ive, Apple’s design chief, once even referred to companies that mimic Apple’s designs as “theft” when asked about Xiaomi at a conference. “I think it is theft, and it’s lazy. I don’t think it’s okay at all,” Ive said, responding to a statement made by Barra where the latter stated: “Our designers, our engineers are inspired by great products and by great design out there. And frankly who in today’s world isn’t?”[blockquote cite=”Jony Ive” type=”left”]”When you’re doing something for the first time, like with the iPhone… and you spend 7 or 8 years working on it and then it’s copied – I have to be honest, the first thing I think isn’t ‘oh, that was flattering.’” [/blockquote]
Source: Bloomberg