Copying or improving?
I wonder which came first - the god-awful plain white-is-good layout of YouTube, or iOS7's white-is-good plainness?
Isn't the function partially dictated by the available technology? For example, while feature phones from way back could run Java applets, a true smartphone needed sufficient processing and memory available to make it functional, plus a touch based interface so we aren't saddled with trying to do stuff using a phone keypad (remember "T9" predictive text?). Plus, of course, displays with resolutions akin to early laptops (and better) because 128x128 is about suitable for WAP and not much else.
Please, for the love of God, Apple, copy Android and make your keyboard display lower case when not in caps. Or, as this might be too shocking for iFans, make it an option.
Actually, iOS is really crying out for a skinnable interface (OMFG - user options! nooo!). Bright light hurts my eyes so I prefer to work in a low-light environment. I would like the keyboard to be black/grey like it is when you go to search, but most of the time everything is WHITE. Thankfully there is, at least, a workaround, you can set a treble-press of the home button to invert the display.
Thing is, very few things are complete innovations. Most things are improvements on what has come before. Now Ives might see Samsung as ripping off iThingies, but maybe they see it as improving upon them? What is Apple going to do to raise the bar? And the bar needs to be raised, as resting on laurels has killed companies in the past. You're the market leader only until somebody builds a better mousetrap, then it is up to you to one-up that. That's how it works.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
