Pot, meet kettle.
Over the weekend, Motorola USA’s social media team caused a stir on Twitter, after a tweet appeared to publicly accuse Samsung of “stealing” the always-on display concept found in Motorola phones since the Moto X in 2013.
Oddly enough, the tweet came after the launch of the Galaxy Note 7, which is the second time Samsung has introduced an always-on display (the first was for the S7/S7 edge earlier this year).
But here’s the thing: the concept of an always-on display wasn’t originally from Motorola, either.
Perhaps it was an oversight, or perhaps the social media manager who tweeted it wasn’t old enough to remember, but always-on displays have been around for over a decade. It was on Nokia’s Symbian and Sony Ericsson dumb phones in the early to mid-2000s, with the Symbian phones showing not just the date and time, but also notifications – just the same as what you see today.
If Motorola was only referring to smartphones, then it wasn’t the first, either. Again, Nokia pioneered the concept onto a smartphone, first on the Symbian-powered N8 and then to the N9 running MeeGo. Later on Nokia shifted the tech to its Windows Phone devices, and called them Glance Screen.
All of this happened before Motorola debuted the Moto X in 2013.
Naturally, some Twitter users went up in arms after the tweet was posted, giving Motorola a crash course in smartphone history.
It may initially have been intended as a light-hearted jab at the competition, but Motorola’s social media team should have worded the tweet better instead of the strong language used – that’s what prompted the outcry from loyal fans in the first place.
With that said, the ultimate benefactor of this alleged “theft” is of course, the smartphone user. With Motorola, LG, and now Samsung finally hopping on board, the oft-cited statistic that we unlock our smartphones 150 times a day – often just to check the time – may finally begin to decrease.
(Source: Motorola USA (Twitter))
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