Proving that not everybody was as thrilled about Apple's iPhone 5s and 5c announcements yesterday as Apple was, rival smartphone maker Nokia responded with a few well-timed disses via social media.
Nokia’s first Tweet came after Apple showed off its brightly colored iPhone 5c range. Nokia was quick to respond with a jab at the familiar design of the 5c: a picture of Nokia’s distinctive colored Lumia smartphones with the caption ‘Imitation is the best form of flattery.’
Which, considering Apple’s history of legal disputes over intellectual property infringements, is something the Cupertino company should keep in mind.
Nokia followed the Lumia post with a swipe at the gold iPhone 5s, tweeting ‘Real gangsters don’t use gold phones’, alongside the black-and-white logo of Breaking Bad meth kingpin ‘Heisenberg’.
Finally, Nokia posted a video of the Nokia 1020’s 41-megapixel camera, with the comment ‘8 megapixels? Aw, that’s cute. Apple, this is what real innovation looks like :)’
The pictures and video were released to both Nokia’s Twitter and Facebook accounts, and proved popular with the company's followers. The Lumia picture was retweeted over 7000 times within 20 minutes of it appearing on Nokia's Twitter feed.
Snark-eting or marketing?
Of course, this is far from the first time Nokia has used its advertising to take a less-than-subtle dig at the competition.
Earlier this month, the company responded to Google’s Android 4.4 'KitKat' announcement by releasing a mock advertisement parodying the chocolate's red and white branding, and featuring a broken-in-two Samsung Galaxy S3 accompanied by the KitKat slogan, ‘Have a break, have a…’
Despite its history of trash talking, the Finnish company wasn't alone in capitalizing on Apple’s announcement to promote its own products.
HTC posted several tweets during the Apple launch, including ‘It’s time to upgrade to actual change. Help your friends trade in their iPhone toward an #HTCOne.’
And Motorola referenced its own poorly-received use of fingerprint scanning technology in the Atrix 4G smartphone by asking ‘Remember that one time you were stoked to give your fingerprints? Us either.’
While we don’t think Apple will need a trip to the burn ward to recover, it will be interesting to see how it responds to these latest jibes from the competition.
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