Try this: just look at the side of a bunch of cars, if you can tell them apart you've got a better eye for this than I do, but ever since the 'windtunnel' took over as a designer I am having a harder and harder time telling cars apart. Plenty of brands have caught on to this and actually share 90%+ of the basic design of the car and concentrate on the interior to differentiate the brands. The biggest difference on the outside is the logo on the hood.

Once physics and usability enter in to the design process the constraints can be such that there will be fewer and fewer options and room to play without impacting those in a negative way.

Design is always a compromise. By going for a minimalist design you remove all of that room so any minimalist design for a device will likely be very much like every other minimalist design.

So, um.

iPad: aluminium back, aluminium stretching out to create a visible border around the front of the device. Prominent single physical button on front of the device. 4:3 form factor.

Galaxy Tab: black textured plastic (?) back, front of the device pure black. No physical buttons on the front. 16:10 form factor.

But sure, identical on the outside...

Replace the word "car" with "wheel" to more realistically compare with the iPad functional design and you'll spot an awful lot of alloy wheel designs that untrained observers will be able to distinguish only by the badge.

>The same with phones compared to iPhone.

Except, of course, for that phone reveled before the iPhone that had the same basic style. It was a style that the industry was headed towards anyway, apple just helped the momentum.