I use air-quotes on inspired because while it's obvious in hind-sight the way the Braun styling was adapted, distilling the design language of a blender or a pocket calculator made in the 1960s into a cutting edge product launched in the mid 2000s is not exactly a straight-forward exercise.

If you look at the mock-ups people made of the hypothetical and long-rumored "iPod phone" that Apple was working on you'll see how many of the design decisions Apple took were completely unexpected: https://www.engadget.com/2009/12/28/how-early-iphone-predict...

Apple didn't invent everything under the sun, and they didn't even "invent" everything they use. What they do is try hard to come up with a striking, simple design that they know will differentiate their products. They also get very upset when people steal their design without even trying to make it their own.

Notice how Apple's been quiet about the Microsoft Surface device, and even though it directly competes with the iPad, they're still partnering with Microsoft to build Office apps. I think they respect Microsoft here because re-inventing the tablet and making a compelling notebook product of that sort takes a lot of bold engineering.

Apple's appropriation of the keyboard cover (http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/9/9297805/apple-ipad-pro-micr...) is one of those things that's inevitable. I'm not sure what else they could have done here, they were boxed in, so it ends up being 'theft' by some definition of that term. Microsoft doesn't seem to have raised this as an issue, so I'm sure there was some communication here between the two parties to make sure it didn't poison the waters.

It's stylistic exercise which may be (or not be) enabled by technological advances but it's no different than when 80s cloths coming back now. Understand that I'm not saying it's trivial to accomplish this exercise. Specially to achieve global cultural icon status. But I'm arguing that part of journey to achieve that status requires other's following your lead.

Xiaomi "thin, machine-metal" laptop looks as much like an Macbook as iPhone's 6 antenna lines look like HTC One M7.

Apple has been quiet about Microsoft (and vice-versa) because if Samsung v Apple design patent wars taught us anything is that it's pointless and expensive to engage in these fights.