A document presented Friday in federal court for the Apple versus Samsung patent trial revealed that some Apple officials had serious concerns about the iPhone’s competitive position vis-à-vis the growing popularity of Android smartphones. Shown during a cross-examination of Phil Schiller, a 2013 email from Apple’s senior vice-president suggests he was seriously concerned about how the consumer market perceived the iPhone, as compared with Samsung’s line of smartphones.
Samsung has helped make a name for itself with cheeky, edgy commercials, which sometimes prompt a smirk at the expense of chief rival Apple. While Samsung was gaining this momentum, its sales chops certainly got the attention of Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller. “We have a lot of work to do to turn this around,” Schiller wrote in an email to James Vincent at Media Arts Laboratories, Apple’s ad agency since 1997. The email linked to a January 2013 article from The Wall Street Journal headlined, “Has Apple Lost its Cool to Samsung?” The article specifically cites “marketing savvy” as one of the factors giving Samsung a boost. The email was just one of the documents presented in court Friday, the third day of this latest installment of a long-running legal saga between Samsung and Apple over alleged patent infringement.