In a candid email exchange, Samsung’s Mobile Head of Communications JK Shin highlighted the difference between Apple and Samsung smartphones as the “difference between heaven and earth.” This memo was one that Samsung had sought to keep out of the trial and unfortunately was admitted as Samsung legal counsel mentioned the “crisis of design” in a question to Samsung strategist Justin Denison, thereby allowing the memo to be admitted as evidence.

“Influential figures outside the company come across the iPhone, and they point out that ‘Samsung is dozing off.’ All this time we’ve been paying all our attention to Nokia, and concentrated our efforts on things like Folder, Bar, Slide,” Shin wrote. “Yet when our UX is compared to the unexpected competitor Apple’s iPhone, the difference is truly that of Heaven and Earth. It’s a crisis of design.”

Needless to say, this memo should help boost Apple’s case as emails coming from a top Samsung exec gives Apple at least some evidence that Samsung was looking to make some drastic changes to their smartphone design.

“Do you know how difficult the Omnia is to use? When you compare the 2007 version of the iPhone with our current Omnia, can you honestly say the Omnia is better? If you compare the UX with the iPhone, it’s a difference between Heaven and Earth.”

“When everybody (both consumers and the industry) talk about UX, they weigh it against the iPhone,” Shin wrote. “The iPhone has become the standard. That’s how things are already.”

It seems like this memo provides Apple with another argument that Samsung saw a crisis and attempted to resolve it by copying the product that was blazing a new trail. Of course, it’s not a 100% slam dunk for Apple either given that it doesn’t show Samsung explicitly saying they should “copy” Apple’s design, but this is still going to provide plenty of fodder for Apple’s legal team. What do you think? Will this help Apple, hurt Samsung or neither?

All Things D