In the middle of all the evidence in the Apple v. Samsung trial there is an amusing bit which shows how much Jobs' Mob stole other people's ideas.

Secret information about the early days of iPhone and iPad R&D is starting to come to light which Apple probably wishes would not. Jobs Mob has always said that Steve Jobs invented everything, this is despite the fact that he admitted that Apple steals all the best ideas from others.

While some of the evidence that’s been unearthed is incredibly damning to Samsung and shows that Google told Samsung that its “P1” and “P3” Android tablets looked “too similar” to Apple’s iPad. Google demanded changes particularly when Samsung’s own employees thought their product designs were doppelgangers for Apple products, such as the iPhone. But the funnier stuff comes from Apple.

It turns out that Apple’s early vision for the iPad was extraordinarily chunky and came with a kickstand and iPod branding. But even more interesting is that that Apple copied the design of its iPhone from Sony which had a button-less phone. In February 2006, before the claimed iPhone design was conceived, Apple executive Tony Fadell circulated a news article to Steve Jobs, Jonathan Ive and others.

In the article, a Sony designer discussed Sony designs for portable electronic devices that lacked buttons and other ‘excessive ornamentation,’ fit in the hand, were ‘square with a screen’ and had ‘corners which have been rounded out,’” the document explains. An Apple industrial designer, Shin Nishibori, then mocked up the design, even using Sony’s logo on the back of the CAD drawing.