The dust still hasn’t settled down on the latest court ruling that adjudged that Samsung’s handsets have infringed upon the patents that Apple had and ordered a 1 billion dollar fine in the form of damages and penalties and the news radar is abuzz again with the global mobile giants locking horns one more time. This time around the wheels have turned in the opposite direction with the court ordering that the ruling of a district court which went against Samsung is invalid and Samsung gets to continue the production and sale of its nexus handset.

In case you have thought that there was any lack in the number of lawsuits in which that Apple and Samsung are locked into and the 1 billion dollar payoff will settle the problems for the time being, then you are gravely mistaken. There are a number of lawsuits that Apple and Samsung have filed against each other accusing each other of many patent infringements and the one billion dollar settlement was only one of them. One of the lawsuits that Apple had filed against Samsung included the order to get there nexus handsets off the market owing to patent infringements. Though the district court had ruled in Apple’s favor, the national US court dismissed it when Samsung reappeared and stated that Samsung can continue the sale and production of its alleged handset.

In case you are a Samsung loyalist and would love to see Apple going down, and you are just starting tow arm up with the news of this defeat for Apple, you will be nothing but disappointed in knowing that this is nothing but an extremely small victory in an otherwise huge lawsuit battle that the two global mobile giants are locked into.

The national US court ruled that the appeal of Samsung against the verdict of the district court was valid owing to the fact that the district court had clearly failed to link the evidence in question with the verdict that they had passed in favor of Apple. Samsung also pointed out in their re-appeal to the US national court that the district court was not convinced completely regarding the evidence that Apple had procured against Samsung which was cemented by the fact that they had erred while passing the judgment. After taking into account all these aspects and a host of other evidences that both Apple and Samsung fought over, the national US court decided to turn down the verdict of the district court.

The problems between Apple and Samsung seem to be anywhere but near the end owing to the fact that Samsung is planning to sue Apple’s iPhone 5 over a host of other patent infringements.

Editor’s Note

This guest post was written by Brenda Lyttle. She is a gaming addict and a tech freak. She loves staying updated with the latest in technology and is completely hooked onto sniper games 365 nowadays. You can email her by clicking here.

I mean seriously, can Apple sell you anything?

Smartphones have existed as a product class for a long time before the iPhone came on scene. The most popular smartphone manufacturer was Research In Motion (RIM), and their Blackberry continues to be a popular device. Nokia too, had a range of multifunction phones that could access the Internet and perform a variety of tasks that normal mobile phones could not do.

Photo via Digital Trends

When the iPhone came on scene, it did a number of things that were truly innovative for a phone. It featured a huge full touch screen that was very responsive to fingers. Most other touch screens till then seemed a bit slow. Further, the Gorilla glass screen was scratch resistant and allowed you to keep your phone in your pocket with other knickknacks, without the fear of it getting scratched. The sleek phone with just one physical button and a firm aluminum casing was very innovative.

Hardware aside, what really distinguished the iPhone when it was launched, was the software that you could run on it. The iOS coupled with the App Store allowed you to install and run a host of apps on the iPhone, developed by programmers across the world. Till then, there were not many ways for smartphone users to extend the basic functionality of their phones. With the introduction of a system to install apps, the iPhone opened gates for people to use their phones in many ways.

Graphics intensive mobile gaming, streamed videos, watching movies, browsing the Internet, photo sharing from the mobile, checking emails, chatting, social media networking, GPS navigation, ticket booking, location sharing and uploading videos are some smartphone features that became commonplace, because of the iPhone. While many of these were possible on certain models of phones before the iPhone, never was there a phone that could handle all these functions with ease. What’s more, the design of the iPhone made these features easy to use even for the non tech savvy.

The roaring success of the iPhone spurred the development of Android based Smartphones that have come to provide a lot of the functionality that was initially available on the iPhone to a whole range of Smartphones. The replication of the Android market in a manner similar to that of the App store has further enhanced the similarities between various Smartphones.

Image via Today I Learned Something New

Currently, it is pretty hard to point out significant differences in functionality between the iPhone and other Smartphones. All the major features that are available on one are available on the other. The hardware looks similar and even the user interfaces have many similarities. Today, the differences between the iPhone and other Smartphones boil down to considerations such as price, ability to jailbreak the phone and install your favorite software, hardware specifications, data plans provided by mobile carriers and the ability to connect with other devices. Choosing a smartphone has become difficult as the distinguishing lines between the iPhone and other Smartphones have blurred. It is all boiling down to user preference rather than significant differences between the iPhone and other Smartphones.

Editor’s Note

This guest post has been brought to you by April Damasco, who you can e-mail by clicking here.ff

It RIM (Research in Motion) had a nightmare it would look something like this headline. In truth, the Canada-based technology developer must have seen a decline coming. After the riots in London last year left them holding the bag and facing demands from the British government to turn over customer information (BlackBerry users were blamed for inciting incidents via smartphone telecommunications), not to mention global blackouts and the major delays on the launch of their next-gen lineup of phones, RIM is struggling to stay afloat, and the economy certainly hasn’t been terribly obliging. In fact, it is estimated that the company has seen a 20% decrease in shipments during the first quarter of 2012. And it appears that Samsung and Apple are more than happy to pick up the slack.

Of course, it’s not all bad. Nokia is faring even worse than RIM, seeing a shipping dip of approximately double what RIM has experienced (a whopping 40% less shipments of product). In an interesting twist, this actually puts RIM in position to realize at least one major success: they have finally surpassed Nokia, shipping 11.9 million units worldwide in comparison to Nokia’s 11.1 million (in Q1 of this year). And with RIM’s BlackBerry 10 rumored to be on the slate for launch later this year (October is the current release date being speculated by pundits), they may leave Nokia in the dust, especially since the recent switch from Symbian to Microsoft’s mobile OS has left them playing a losing game of catch up.

But of course, the real story this year is Samsung. The tech developer has engineered market dominance, shipping an incredible 43 million units in the first quarter of 2012, followed by Apple’s still remarkable 35 million units (unsurprisingly, Sony trailed all four companies, shipping an underwhelming 7 million units for their mobile division). And together, Samsung and Apple cornered the market for mobile devices, accounting for 55% of products shipped across the globe in the first quarter and capturing an astonishing 90% of profits. And the trend doesn’t look to change any time soon.

Despite the fact that RIM is set to launch the BB10 platform later this year, you won’t see either Samsung or Apple sweating. The latter will almost certainly see massive sales when the long-awaited iPhone 5 finally launches (if it doesn’t happen this year their loyal customers are likely to riot). And their recent deal with a slew of automakers to let Siri interface with automotive voice command systems will probably make their products even more popular. As for Samsung, they have the release of the Galaxy S3 this year to keep their sales figures high (not to mention branded peripherals like docks, adapters, cables, and of course, a snappy Samsung Galaxy S3 case).

And the fact that they’re launching before Apple is further good news as they will get a jump on sales for the rest of the year (they’ll beat out BlackBerry’s rumored release date, as well). Their S3 has already become the hottest new mobile device in Britain (surpassing the iPhone as the “most popular” smartphone), and it continues to fare well in other countries of launch throughout Europe and other parts of the world, which bodes well for upcoming U.S. sales. In short, it seems as though Samsung and Apple have cornered the current market for mobile devices. But Samsung is the clear Cinderella story so far this year.

Editor’s Note

Thanks to Evan Fischer for this guest post. He is a freelance writer and part-time student at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, California.