Samsung has emerged as one of Apple’s biggest rivals and has overtaken Apple as the leading Smart phone maker.

On Friday August 28, 2012 San Jose California, Apple Inc. Sued Samsung Electronics CO. for ripping off the innovative technology used by Apple to create its revolutionary iPhone and iPad. Samsung also testified against Apple wanting 399 million dollars. The jury rejected all Samsungs claims against Apple and ordered Samsung to pay Apple 1.05 billion dollars in damages. They also decided against some of Apples claims involving the two dozen twelve Samsung devices at issue.

Many Samsung phones are no longer able to be sold because of the lawsuit such as the Galaxy S, Galaxy Tab and Galaxy S 2.

“Samsung just got what it deserved”, said Apple user. Samsung shows a lot of evidence of stealing ideas, and it doesn’t look good.

“Simply come up with your own ideas,” said Apple user. There is also a social cost here. As a company you don’t want to be known as someone who steals from someone else. To work hard for years coming up with genius ideas, and for them to be used, copied and just slightly being changed using other designs and covers, is just plain plagiarism.

Features that believed were copied from Apple, were the “bounce back” scroll, voice recorder, iOS home screen, icons, sharing, sync, search, large screens and stylus functions are all blatant apple rip-offs.

On the other side, many people are against apple. They believe apple is just looking for a way to get rid of their biggest competitor and to get some money out of it.

“Wasn’t Apple the one who claimed the proudly “stole” ideas from other companies…?” said a Samsung user.

That can also be argued, because Apple became popularized by the Macintosh computer which was a total rip-off from innovations. Samsung also conceded that Apple makes great products but said it doesn’t have a ‘monopoly’ on the design of rectangle phones with round corners that they claimed they created.

We can see that Apple can be hypocritical. I also asked some students what they thought about the situation.

“I think apple is a really good, strong company, but I don’t think they had to sue anybody,” said Emilee Kendall a junior from Placer High. This lawsuit can mean fewer smart phone options for consumers to choose from. The lawsuit just benefited Apple and no one else, and the outcome is likely to have ripple effects in the Smart phone market.