Samsung vs. Apple - The Basics

Samsung and Apple currently dominate the smart phone market currently accounting for half of all smart phones being sold worldwide. Unfortunately, despite it being a very big world, these two have decided the tech world ain’t big enough for the two of them.

Whether you’re an Apple fan boy or you stand firmly behind your Galaxy – the American legal system is about to decide who will reign supreme with Apple initiating a lawsuit stating they’ve lost valuable revenue because people are buying Galaxy’s instead of their iPhones.

Apple is suing Samsung for $2.5 billion in damages but if the court rules in their favour these costs could quite easily double if they are found to be in violations of trademark agreements. For the past year these two global giants have been throwing lawsuits and countersuits at one another like a couple of school children and this is when it’s all theoretically going to be finally put to bed. Over the next four weeks, ten Silicon Valley based jurors will have to unanimously decide who’s been copying whose homework. Apple claim Samsung are using both their designs, technology and user interface whereas Samsung will claim Apple in fact copied their designs for the hand set from Sony, Apple are using Samsung patented technology without paying for it oh and Apple are being big meanies and basically not letting anyone else play in the smart phone industry.

In the past Apple have been accused of filing deliberately vague copy right and patent protections so they can challenge anyone who comes out with a product vaguely similar to theirs. So far Apple have stormed courts all over the world and got products banned. Although when they got to the UK, their case was thrown out by a judge who claimed there was no way the Galaxy Tab was a copy of the iPad as it wasn’t cool enough and ordered the tech giant to run advertorials in British press reassuring everyone no intellectual property had been infringed. In typical Apple fashion, they threw another hissy fit, refused and now this will have to wait until October as it goes through the appeals process.

This time Apple are claiming Samsung have stolen features like tap to zoom as well as the overall look of the handset. This at least Samsung can’t deny, both handsets are large rectangular screens completely touch screen except one central ‘back’ button. Samsung’s argument to this is that they were working on designs for their original Galaxy S before Apple launched their iPhone.

The reality is Apple cannot feasibly continue to dominate the market through bully boy tactics. If they truly have the best product would it not make more sense to spend their time and money developing even better products and beating their competitors in reviews and sales rather than law suits and court rooms? Nine times out of ten, when the average consumer is torn between two products offering similar features and specs and with similar reviews, the deciding factor is going to be price – how can Apple honestly expect to stay market leader when their nearest competitors are so much cheaper than they are?

Author Bio:
Jessica is a uses a Galaxy SII (so maybe slightly biased) and writes for mobiles for business supplier businessmobiles.co.uk