Samsung has admitted it made "a few mistakes" when it shipped a mobile phone into the Korean market with a graphical user interface that contained Mac OS X desktop wallpapers and icons for applications like TextEdit, Sherlock, and Stickies. Microsoft's MSN Messenger icon was used too.

According to a Korea Times report, the head of the South Korean giant's corporate design centre admitted that other companies' artwork had been used in the design of the device, Samsung's 'Skin' slider phone, which went on sale in the region late last month.

Almost immediately, local Mac users spotted the similarity between certain icons on the phone and on Mac OS X. As the KT screengrab shows, complete icons used include Apple's TextEdit and Microsoft's MSN Messenger. Icons made from a variety of others used bits of the images for Sherlock and Stickies. Many of the other icons look rather like third-party Mac OS X icons we've seen over the years.

The screengrab's background also appears to be a section from Apple's 'Aqua Graphite' desktop wallpaper image.

Samsung’s corporate design centre head Chung Kook-hyun said the Skin's UI had been now changed, and phones containing the old version withdrawn from sale. An alternative UI is available to download from Samsung's website, he added.

"We have already fixed the designs and I believe that the old models are not being sold in the market anymore," he told the KT.

Ironically, Samsung and Apple are good chums: Samsung recently claimed it had won the contract to deliver controller chips for future iPod Nanos. ®