Apple Defeated Samsung. Yay!

"Ooh, that's gotta hurt". If Duke Nukem was reporting from the Apple vs Samsung trial, that is how he would describe more than billion dollars in damages. While many people are unhappy about verdict, they shouldn't be. Apple played fair and square by American law and won. Now let's forget about the case and let's start to think how future will look like. I will try to present different aspects of Android ecosystem and how verdict impacts them.

Android scene is troubled by lack of fragmentation. Unbelievable, right? I will explain why. Samsung shipped more Android phones than next seven vendors combined. It is not just that - it is the only Android company that makes some serious money on it. It is the Android company. They can push Google into all sort of things, and Google must be very careful with their response so it does not make Samsung angry, which can threat with switching to another platform, like Tizen, Windows Phone 8, or their own Android fork. But Samsung does not really need to go Amazon way with their custom Android. Phones now have Samsung's application and media stores in addition to Google's.

The Good: After the verdict, Samsung will become a bit humbler company. They will have to play nice with the Android ecosystem and pick their battles carefully, which will give some power back to Google and some breathing space to other vendors. Put other mobile platforms into equation and we could see some really innovative features in the near future.

The Bad: Kick in the sensitive spot of the biggest Android player could hurt Android as a whole if all involved parties don't push harder to regain market share. It might also happen that everybody else is incompetent to make best of the situation. Apple will be then even less inclined to make something new.

Samsung copied Apple UI. They decided to increase market share by mimicking Apple as much as possible. While idea is good, it is also very risky one if you cross the thin line between inspiration and copying, and jury decided that this line was crossed. No one forced Samsung to do that; Google even tried to persuade them not to go that way.

The Good: I really hated some parts of TouchWiz. I find bounce back counterintuitive; I always thought that there is more to see, but the rendering is lagging. I actually like "hard" end of scrolling.

The Bad: There are some UI gestures that a hard to imagine any other way, like pinch-to-zoom or smart double-tap zoom. I hope that Google guys will come up with good, alternative solution. Single tap on non-link area to zoom? Why not?

Samsung copied how stuff looks like, and they did not stop at device; they also copied boxes and even power supplies. Jury's view of that is confusing to me. Although Samsung had similar phone at the time when iPhone was launched, F700, it got slapped for phone ripoff, but not tablet ripoff. If you look at the picture of F700 and Galaxy S, and then at the picture of iPhone and Galaxy S, in both cases it looks like Galaxy S was derived from the other one.

The Good: Design of iPhone 4 / 4s is not very practical; I prefer more curvy S III, which is design-wise successor of Nexus S rather than Galaxy S. Many people don't get which is which anyway; on couple occasions people asked me "Is this iPhone?" although my Nexus S looks completely different.

The Bad: Nothing I can think of. OK, less Apple-minimalistic packaging will be less environmentally friendly.

Damage to Android reputation. Due to Samsung's misbehavior, people perceive Android as lower grade platform, which copied The Real Thing.

The Good: If it is to be believed, now people start to think "If Samsung makes same stuff as Apple, why pay more for Apple?". More technically inclined people understand the difference, but average Joe might think differently. Maybe this could push iPhone price down.

The Bad: Average Joe could see Android as inferior platform. This is pity as Android introduced many interest features, which are now flowing back to iOS. "The Good" part will make this irrelevant anyway.

Vendors in the open. Apple managed to tame biggest competitor, which has very deep pockets, too. Without indemnification from Google, smaller vendors should be very afraid what will happen to them.

The Good: Google will be forced to throw away unnecessary Apple patents and license just critical ones. It will make life easier for everybody, especially phone vendors.

The Bad: Some vendors may stick to stock Android to be on the safe side, which will lead to less interesting devices. However, I do not think that top ones will do that; they will have to work harder to differentiate itself from the rest of the pack.

Biggest threat that I see here is that sum of licensing cost for otherwise free operating system could surpass cost of commercial product like Windows Phone. While Windows Phone is not bad in itself, it is more closed that Android, so we will see less imaginative products.

Smartphone market is lacking innovation; only platform that looks original is Windows Phone. Hopefully this trial will shake things up and push mobile platforms even further.