Apple Vs Samsung

A guest post by my son - Siddharth Jindal

Everyone knows that there is a rivalry between Samsung and Apple, but the rivalry is not as old as you think. It's pretty recent. Apple has had lots of enemies in the past before Samsung. For example, IBM in the 80s, Microsoft in the 90s and finally Google in the 2000. Before Samsung entered the smartphone industry it was previously in the semiconductor business. A semiconductor is a crystal-like material that stores binary code. In simpler words it could be said as a material that stores software. Apple and Samsung were actually very good partners in the manufacturing business. The two CEOs were actually very good friends. The beautiful OLED display or panel that you see on the new iPhone X is bought from Samsung by Apple. In the late 90s Apple was Samsung’s biggest consumer in key iPhone components. Now we're going to learn how this great alliance and friendship withered into a rivalry. Apple first released a series of computers that were not as bulky as the ones that other companies were making. After that they shifted their focus to the smartphone industry. They started applying for the patents necessary to make one. Patents can be said in simple words as permission to make something which comes with a sort of copyright. If anyone makes something like what you have made you have the right (in the USA) to sue them and get some money out of it. They got their essential technological parts from Samsung. As soon they had finished making the first touchscreen phone and were ready to release the first iPhone, they went to Samsung. Apple's had a good enough relationship at the time with Samsung that they disassembled and showed them exactly how the first iPhone works.

Samsung took this to their advantage and released a similar smartphone two years after the first smartphone which started the long seven-year lawsuit war. Apple’s iconic CEO, Steve Jobs was enraged by this and filed a lawsuit against Samsung. His exact words were ​“Instead of pursuing independent product development, Samsung has chosen to slavishly copy Apple's innovative technology distinctive user interfaces, and elegant and distinctive product and packaging design in violation of Apple's valuable and intellectual property rights.”​ He even said that he was ready to go thermonuclear in the android design. They successfully won the lawsuit. The judges were in the favour of Apple and Samsung was forced to give $1.049 billion dollars to Apple. In Germany the Galaxy Tab 10.1 was banned because Apple claimed that it was infringing on their patents. Even German Judge, Johanna Bruckner-Hoffmann said that there was a ​"clear impression of similarity”​. Due to this, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 was banned from the entire of Europe. This was a big win to Apple, but a week later Samsung was arguing that their devices should not be banned from sale all across Europe. Eventually the Dusseldorf District Court agreed to Samsung's claim and just banned it from Germany. Apple didn't take a loss, but it did have a much smaller victory now. This war has been hoping for a long time Both tech companies have enjoyed wins and endured losses. In 2018, the two tech companies had a settlement which stopped the worldwide thermonuclear war that had hurt both companies immensely. Although nobody knows what was on there it resolved everything and that's what matters. They have teamed up several times and benefited each other. For example, the company that bested them both, Huawei was teamed up against or when Samsung added the iTunes store to their TVs. In this case Samsung gets more consumers because of iTunes and Apple gets more iTunes users. Even now they still exchange profits and their rivalry has been resolved.