Comment by ignoramous

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

I don't see what's wrong with copying, to be honest. People copy successful business models and best practices all the time-- some even write books about it. And a belief that's long held in tech circles is that ideas are worth nothing, and that execution is what matters. To give credit to Xiaomi, they're setting up themselves a very high bar when they set out to imitate Apple. Google tried it with its initial launch of Android, and if it weren't for M Duarte joining Google in the wake of Palm falling apart, who knows how Android would have looked today. In developing countries, to be able to own a phone that looks ever so similar to iPhone but costs a fraction of the cost is an instant hit. It results in a very good business [0].

I'd give you another example: Flipkart, in its early days, had a website that looked very much like Amazon's. They've since carved out their own identity and were among top 20 well designed apps on iOS Appstore last year (one of the many India-based apps to make the list) [1].

UX is another prime example of how often companies copy each other. Steve Jobs once famously quoted Picasso "Good artists copy, great artists steal" [2] Copying is rampant in the software side of the industry... websites look alike, marketing emails look alike, business models look alike, approaches to solve problems are alike... I am not trying to argue that Xiaomi is anywhere near Google or Apple, what I am saying is that they might just get there or thereabouts; or someone else might outside of the SV.

[0] http://www.businessinsider.com/xiaomi-mi-note-apple-samsung-... | http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2015/04/21/xiaomi-to-m...

[1] http://www.nextbigwhat.com/top-top-made-in-india-ios-apps-20...

[2] http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/what-steve-jobs-really-meant-whe...