Is Apple rattled by Samsung's success? Some people think so, and their suspicions were fuelled this week when Phil Schiller slagged off the incoming Galaxy S4.

It will have "an OS that is nearly a year old," he says. Android is fragmented, and Samsung's mum is fat. Okay, not that last bit.

Apple is going "on the defensive", the Wall Street Journal said, although "unprovoked attack" seems like an unusual definition of "defence" to me.

I think Schiller's carefully timed interview is Apple business as usual.

Apple takes great pleasure in ruining rivals' parties - usually with product announcements or leaks, such as the iPad 3 rumours that overshadowed others' tablets during CES 2012, or the media invites for the iPad 3 and iPad mini that overshadowed 2012's MWC and Microsoft Surface launch respectively.

Maybe the plan was to unveil the iWatch, but it wasn't ready in time* so Schiller decided to wind Samsung up** a bit.

Is Apple really on the back foot here?

War! Huh! What is it good for?

The Apple and Samsung thing has been going on for years. Remember when Steve Jobs wound up Samsung by claiming its OLED tech wasn't a patch on Apple's retina displays?

Tim Cook dismissed Android in February ("success is not making the most"), and last March ("none of their tablets are a great experience"), and last January ("scaled-up smartphone... bizarre").

And Samsung plays the same game with its rivals, and sometimes even its partners and prospective customers. Windows 8 is no better than Vista, it told the world this month. You're all sheep, it told Apple users last year. And so on.

What is interesting, though, is the press coverage of all this. Take the WSJ, for example, which used to be Apple's go-to place for strategic leaks. When Hilton Lipschitz analysed the WSJ's recent Apple-related headlines he found that the overwhelming majority of them were negative. Apple has "lost its cool", its "magic wears thin", investors feel "pain", it "cuts orders for iPhone parts"... "worry"... "downbeat note"... you get the idea.

I read a dizzying amount of tech news, and the overwhelming majority of Apple coverage I'm seeing is negative. It's as if everybody had a meeting and decided that Apple is beleaguered again, based on absolutely no evidence whatsoever.

The iWatch, which doesn't actually exist yet, is a dud! The Galaxy S4, which hasn't actually launched yet, will destroy the iPhone! Giant mutant bats from the planet Thargle, which I've just invented, mean that Apple is dooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooomed!

Of course Apple's going to slag off the Galaxy S4. That's what Apple does. It'll slag off the S5 too, and Samsung will return the favour when Apple ships the iPhone 5S, 6, 6S, 7 and Eleventy-Ten.

You see exactly the same in music ("Our album's going to be so much better than theirs"), and in boxing ("I am really good at punching people, and he isn't"), and in supermarkets ("We're cheaper than them, and our food isn't made of horse!").

It doesn't mean anything. It's just marketing.

* Time! As in watch! ** Wind up! As in watch!