Last week the Samsung's 2015 Investors Forum allowed executives from the South Korean company to show off the technology it will be using in the next-generation mobile devices and smartphones. Anyone following the smartphone and mobile world that Samsung is working on will look at these ideas and see echoes of innovations from other mobile companies, especially Apple.
Take the idea of a bio-processor. This would be an integrated system-on-chip that would bring in hardware solutions to track health data through a web of sensors on a device. That would echo Apple's motion co-processor solution in its current M9 chip.
Samsung's chip will initially be targeted at a wearable activity tracker and feature authentication for Samsung's mobile payment solution. That's a feature that mirrors the same feature in the Apple Watch - although you could also argue that Samsung's range of 'Gear Wear' predates Apple's wearable and question who is following who.
Samsung has invested heavily in its imaging solutions, and I would argue that the Galaxy S6 camera outperforms the iPhone 6 camera. While the 6S camera has sneaked marginally ahead, the Galaxy S7 will have the opportunity to leapfrog the iPhone 6S early next year.
Apple may have its focus pixels to decrease the shot-to-shot time, but Samsung got there first with phased detection pixels used in 2014's Galaxy S5. Compare that to Apples deep trench isolation, which sees a physical barrier between pixel sensors in a camera to improve clarity. This technology will be debuted by Samsung as ISOCELL, providing the same separation of the elements in a future product.
As with other areas of technology in mobile devices, once one company innovates an idea everyone else will find a similar method to achieve the same effect. It's how the technology is used that creates clear lines of differentiation. Apple looks to improve image quality with the technology as a primary driver, while Samsung's work is looking to create a thinner camera unit for a better aesthetic effect in the final product.
Samsung's issues are less about the technology in its smartphones, and more about presentation and perception.
Unlike the early days of the smartphone era, the current crop of smartphones have a relatively fixed hardware platform. Your flagship devices are going to offer a broadly similar feature set, from camera output and screen displays, to chipset benchmarks and battery performance. There will naturally be areas where phone 'A' is slightly better than phone 'B' but for everyday use the sweet spot of current smartphone technology covers the vast majority of manufacturers' main devices.
The catch is not in building a cutting-edge smartphone, it's making a cutting-edge smartphone that people believe is a cutting-edge smartphone that they want to buy. This is Apple's core strength. Samsung can parade the technology for the Galaxy range, but the knee-jerk reaction is that it has all been seen before in the iPhone... even if the technology itself debuted in a Samsung handset.
Sales of Samsung's flagship handsets have been flat over the last year, with growth coming from mid-range handsets. That lessens the South Korean company's ability to be seen as a trend-setter, and without that perception the value of the mid-range handsets will drop. Those handsets will then have to fight even harder on price rather than perception, making it harder for Samsung to bring in any significant profit from the smartphone ecosystem.
As long as Samsung continues to fight on arcane technological areas, it's never going to break the current hype cycle that is slowly dragging down its flagship handset sales.
(Now read about how to measure Apple's reality distortion field with a Microsoft Surface tablet).
