Articles about Apple vs. Samsung

Answer: One-hundred percent of all profits gained from Sammy's smartphones and injunction barring sales of future models. Is that clear enough for you? Because it might not be from the stilted news stories about the Apple-Samsung trial under way here in California. Apple feels entitled to everything. That's how highly the company's top-brass thinks about their intellectual property and how little they do about Samsung's.

Instead of reading about how much Apple demands, blogs and news reports focus on the puny 2.4 percent per phone Samsung asks Apple for so-called essential patents or the extent of copying as told by the fruit-logo company. The story you read everyday about the Apple-Samsung trial is a good yarn, but there's enough urban legend to warrant a Snopes.com entry.

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We’re only into the second week of the "patent trial of the century" but we’ve already been granted an unprecedented peek behind the curtain into the notoriously secretive world of Apple Inc. Here, in no particular order, are ten of the most fascinating reveals from the trial to date.

Steve Jobs was open to the idea of a seven inch iPad

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While the focus on Apple's next big thing has surrounded the likely release of the iPhone 5 next month, the Cupertino, Calif. company's decision to change the dock connector may affect its entire product line, a new report claims.

Rene Ritchie at iMore says sources told the publication that the entire iOS device lineup will receive a refresh when the iPhone 5 launches, rumored to occur on September 12. The report claims that date will see a refreshed iPad, new iPod nano and iPod touches, the iPhone 5, and even the debut of the 7-inch iPad.

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I was supposed to be on CNN on Monday night to comment on the Apple v. Samsung patent infringement trial that just started in San Jose, Calif., but then presidential candidate Mitt Romney insulted the Palestinians and I was bumped. The way these things work is CNN calls the day before so I have time to think up something pithy to say. The question now is what to do with all that pith? So I’m dumping it on you. Consider this the long distance view of this legal battle in the context of what it really is -- brands at war.

As a practical matter, I think it is very unlikely that Apple can win based on its accusation of “slavish copying”. We have laws based around copyright and patents for that, and if patent or copyright had been broken, this would be an easier case. I suppose there may be laws that cover “slavish copying”, but my guess is that it is something hard to prove. Even if the products look similar, the internals are likely to be quite different, as is the OS.

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Like I wrote two days ago, "iPhone sales are slowing", all while Samsung's increase. Today, IDC released calendar second-quarter smartphone shipments, and Samsung and ZTE took share from every other major manufacturer, including Apple. Let's be clear: iPhone doesn't typically lose share. It's a persistent gainer. Well, that is, until now.

Apple shipments into the channel increased by 27.5 percent year over year to 26 million units from 20.4 million. But global market share fell to 16.9 percent from 18.8 percent a year earlier. Meanwhile, Samsung smartphone shipments surged 172.8 percent to 50 million units from 18.4 million. Market share rose to 32.6 percent from 17 percent a year earlier. Quarter on quarter, Apple share fell from 24.2 percent, erasing most of the gains following the iPhone 4S launch last autumn. Meanwhile, Samsung rose from 29.1 percent.

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Now here’s an interesting thing. A couple of days ago Samsung disabled the Google local search function from the international version of its Galaxy S3 handset, preventing users from being able to search their phone’s apps and contacts. It was believed to have been done as a result of a patent dispute with Apple, and followed the search-on-device disabling update that hit Galaxy Nexuses in the US.

Users were understandably up in arms because they weren’t told that installing the new stability update would remove the universal search feature, and probably a fair few of them felt compelled to join the boycott Apple movement as a result. (Fortunately I didn’t update my S3 so my opinion didn’t change. Not that it would have.)

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Patent settlement talks between Apple and Samsung have been planned for a while, and despite the major importance they have to both companies, it wasn't until last week that executives met to discuss whether they can agree on ending the quarrel between them. So what happened? They couldn't set their differences aside as the settlement talks have hit a bump in the road, not agreeing on each other’s value when it comes to patents.

After numerous meetings in court it's clear that settlement is the best option, but the companies haven't yet arrived at a compromise, and the two companies' other legal disputes haven’t been put on hold, as Apple is still trying to resolve an issue it has with Samsung in a San Jose federal court on July 30.

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Apple is one of the most important companies in the world of consumer technology and one that has changed the destiny of the smartphone and the tablet. It came as a big surprise when the Cupertino, California-based company announced the iPad more than two years ago. In 2010, Apple made waves with its first tablet generating $9.566 billion in revenue from the iPad alone, and in 2012 it's making headlines again with a smaller, seven inch tablet it hasn’t even announced yet.

In 2010 Apple had the market all to itself, with the iPad dominating 83 percent of the tablet market. Why? The iPad wasn't designed to have the most cutting edge software or hardware in terms of features or speed, but it was conceived to offer easy-to-use software with hardware to match it, wrapped in a good looking package. It sold 14.789 million units in 2010 alone, so it's clear the idea caught on. The original iPad was released in a time when tablets weren't as popular as they are today, and despite previous efforts by Microsoft with the TabletPC, they never caught up. So what's changed?

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Samsung and Apple are two of the most popular smartphone and tablet manufacturers in the world right now and those top spots don’t come without responsibilities. But there's a disconnection somewhere in the corporate brains, with the companies seeing these responsibilities as green lights to be at each other’s throat in every major market over patents -- all that the cost of customer choice and satisfaction.

The latest round in the never-ending patent war between Samsung and Apple began today in Australia, where a local Judge started hearing evidence on their latest legal dispute. Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple claims patent infringement. The two companies dispute whether the touchscreen technology used by Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 violates Apple owned patents. The South Korean manufacturer's counter-claim: Apple uses 3G patents without a license, which is supposed to be available on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.

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According to the Bloomsberg News Agency a UK judge has ordered Apple to publish a notice on its website and in various newspapers and magazines (the Financial Times, the Daily Mail, Guardian Mobile magazine, and T3) informing visitors and readers that Samsung did not copy the design of the iPad. The judge, Colin Birss, also stipulated that the notice on Apple’s website should remain there for a minimum of six months.

The order follows Apple’s failed attempt to block sales of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab tablets in the United Kingdom and is apparently intended to correct any damaging impressions consumers may have been given about the South Korean company as a result of the litigation.

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It's bad enough that Apple uses patents to bully competitors. Now the company threatens retail partners, demanding they remove two Samsung devices from store shelves. Apparently, court orders aren't good enough for Apple, which also ignores one of them.

Apple, through its army of lawyers, has sent a letter to an unknown number of retailers and carriers selling the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet and Galaxy Nexus smartphone. Last month a US court issued temporary injunctions against both devices, but temporarily lifted the one against Galaxy Nexus.

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My colleague Joe Wilcox certainly created a storm when he declared his independence from Apple on July 4th. Annoyed by what he saw as the fruit company’s aggressive patent bullying, which he believes "thwarts competition and takes away consumer choice", he sold his remaining Apple devices, and now refuses to touch anything the company makes.

He’s not alone. The #boycottapple hashtag has gained a fair amount of traction on Google+, Reddit and Twitter and many, many words have been written on the subject. Read Joe’s articles if you need more background.

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Today, UK Judge Colin Birss confirms what Apple fans have claimed for years: Samsung isn't "cool enough" to copy the trendy fruit-logo company. But the result is opposite their meaning about copying badly. Birss ruled that Samsung's Galaxy Tab family of tablets do not imitate iPad, meaning violate Apple's registered design -- they're not "cool enough" and "do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design".

The court gave the win to Samsung by stating that Galaxy Tab 10.1 is different enough to the iPad, being thinner and with a detailed back cover. Apple spokesman Alan Hely doesn't agree, saying: "This kind of blatant copying is wrong and, as we’ve said many times before, we need to protect Apple’s intellectual property". This is what happens when you lose and can't do it with dignity.

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Today, the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals announced the ban on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone has been lifted until July 12.

Samsung's week-by-week slog through patent hell continues.

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It seems that Samsung didn’t get the memo about the financial crisis, and they apparently seem to be unfazed by it. The South Korean company is the best-selling phone manufacturer in the world right now, according to Gartner, and today they collect the benefits for all their efforts, reporting huge profit gains, up 79 percent year over year.

Soaring Galaxy S smartphone sales have helped Samsung become the largest smartphone manufacturer in the world as well, beating Apple in the process. This was bound to have an effect over Samsung’s profits this year and the results are starting to show already in their second quarter profits.

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