Hmm. From a quick scan through the screenshots, of the 13 apps reviewed only two use a large image of a microphone in their UI and only one of those is a photo-realistic rendition - the other is much more stylised. So what I get from this is that given complete freedom there are a huge variety of possible UIs, and the chances of Samsung and Apple coming up with the same design independently is near zero. So yes, it's likely that Patrick O’Keefe's VoiceRecord app was a source for Apple, and a raging certainty that Apple's was a source for Samsung.
Apple and Samsung have much larger budgets for art direction than a guy selling a $.99 app. There are tons of recording apps that have photos (or if you have money, illustrations) of the equipment they're mimicking. Ever heard of ProTools? Apple takes inspiration all the time from its indie developers. iBooks is a great example:
I've had over the air updates on my Sony-Erricson phones as well as my Nokia phones. That is not something new that was introduced when BB or Android came out.
