Apple Rumors Seemingly Drive Samsung's Strategy Again
Wednesday, January 22, 2025
Samsung held their annual Unpacked event today to formally take the wraps off of their next generation flagship phones. The Galaxy S25, Galaxy S25+, and Galaxy S25 Ultra are exactly what anyone who follows this industry expected. Minor hardware upgrades with a boatload of AI features that may or may not actually be useful. While these were the real entrée of today’s event, there was a fourth S25 model presented at the very end of the show. The Galaxy S25 Edge is Samsung’s new design-first, ultra-thin, hero device. As far as I can tell, it’s an S25 but thinner and missing one of the cameras. Now if all of this is sounding familiar to you, join the club.
Last May, the first murmurs that Apple was working on a “slim” iPhone 17 model started to percolate around the industry. On May 5th, 2024, my buddy Chance Miller at 9to5Mac reported on an investor note from Jeff Pu that mentioned a new slim model that would be replacing the plus. In July, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo corroborated the rumor when reporting on new Apple chipsets. On August 1, 2024, YouTuber and leaker Jon Prosser shared that he believed the device was real and it would be the first iPhone to adopt the “Air” modifier. Ultimately, on August 11, 2024, Mark Gurman also confirmed the ‘iPhone 17 Air’ was in the works for next fall. In just the past few weeks, Mark and Ming Chi-Kuo have continued to reiterate that the device exists and is still expected to launch this fall. In fact, it appears that we have actually seen the new design already.
Now let’s step back a bit, it was clear that Apple was indeed working on an ultra-thin new iPhone focused on being a highly desirable beautiful object as early as May of 2024. It was even clearer by mid-August as the rumor continued to be substantiated. Enter October 2024, Samsung is reported to be working on their own “slim” version of the Galaxy S25. That came as no surprise to anyone who’s been around awhile. Samsung is well-known for releasing, how shall I say this, Apple “inspired” products of their own. That’s as cordially as I think I can frame it. Today’s event seemingly lent further credence to this. Very little information was shared about the Galaxy S25 Edge. The press got virtually no details and no one got to go hands-on with it. The company also didn’t reveal a price or release date. All we got, as reported by 9to5Google, was that it should land around April. Heck, the company didn’t even mention it in their English press release today and as far as I can tell it isn’t listed as a product on their website. All it got was a single brief mention on the Korean press release.
It is clear that the product is not finished or ready to fully share with the public. In other words, its development likely didn’t start that long ago. This may be the best example of an Apple “inspired” device trying to preempt the Cupertino company’s own innovations. It sure looks like Samsung moved forward with this device, potentially last spring, because Apple was rumored to be working on the ‘iPhone 17 Air’ and they wanted to beat them to the punch. May 2024 to April 2025 is nearly a year of development. It’s not farfetched to think that they cobbled something together, after all they control much of the supply chain.
This wouldn’t be the first time they’ve appeared to have done this either, I can recall the conspicuous launch of the terribly received Galaxy Gear in October 2013 after over a year of Apple smartwatch rumors. Apple Watch was first rumored to be in development in December of 2011 by The New York Times with the first Galaxy Gear leak popping up in February of 2013. That fall they got the exact headlines I imagine they wanted. And strategy aside, Samsung seemingly continues to introduce product designs that look awfully similar to Apple ones. See a new VR device announced back in December but shown off today called “Project Moohan” that looks a lot like the Vision Pro or last year’s Galaxy Buds and “Ultra” watch.
See the original post with links on Substack