Hugo Barra, the vice president of Xiaomi, has admitted that he is an unabashed Apple fan, but even though the iPhone 6 is "the most beautiful smartphone ever built," its design too is inspired by other OEMs' devices.
On Tuesday, Oct. 28, the erstwhile Google employee, at the Wall Street Journal's Live technology conference in Laguna, California, in response to comments that Xiaomi copied Apple's designs praised the iPhone 6 for being "beautiful." Barra also mentioned that he was a "huge Apple fan."
Xiaomi is often referred to as the "Apple of China" and many attribute its meteoric rise in the last four years to imitating designs from other OEMs. The issue of Xiaomi copying designs has also been raised by Apple's head of design Jony Ive earlier in October.
In response to Ive's stance, Xiaomi's CEO Lin Bin invited him to try the China-based company's products before passing a judgment.
"I'm very willing to give a Xiaomi cell phone to him as a present, and I look forward to hearing his remarks after he uses it," said Lin at the time.
At the WSJ event, Barra said that the iPhone 6 has a design which is "HTC-like" but "with an astonishing twist ... but it is somewhat familiar design language."
According to Barra, not only does the iPhone 6 borrow generously from other OEMs' products, but the quick setting feature available on iOS was found on Android much before.
Barra was also quick to defend Xiaomi and generalized the design commonality among the products of manufacturers by attributing it to inspiration. He also averred that one would hardly find products that had an exclusive "design language."
Barra also opined that even though Apple was synonymous with iconic devices and is frequently hailed as the "world's design mecca," the Cupertino company also gets inspiration for designs from other OEMs.
"I think it's great that Apple took existing ideas that were very good and added their design twist on top," said Barra. "That's what they do. That's what we do."
It is often said imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but with Apple's Jony Ive crying foul and calling the blatant copying "theft" and laziness, wonder how Apple feels being accused of imitating HTC. Pot calling the kettle black?
