[upinsmoke]

They won't. It will be very hard to differentiate themselves from thousands of other Android devices.

[jerrya]

I think you're both wrong!

I like the hardware of the SGII I have, and I would prefer the hardware of the Galaxy Note, or the Galaxy Note II.

But also, remove TouchWiz, and still the Galaxy Note II has some very nice and innovative software allowing for pseudo-windowing on Android, as well as "Pen" aware apps.

[rustynails77]

The problem is that when Samsung customise Android, they do so to (a) differentiate, and (b) to ensure you can't upgrade.

On a more "on topic" note, this juror is a turkey. As another poster pretty much said "prior art can not be ignored".

[fpgeek]

Here's another gem:

"Just to make it clear, the phone that I have is a Motorola Droid X2 and the reason I'm mentioning that is because it is in the record, it was told to the judge and told to the court when asked that question.

And it is of a slider variety so it has a normal keyboard, and for that reason it's not among the 26 accused phones. "

The Droid X2, of course, isn't a slider. The juror probably has a Droid 2.

[regularfry]

Nice. Except they awarded $130e6 in damages for the Epic 4G. A slider.

[fpgeek]

Good catch. I forgot that part.

The more I hear from the jury the more it sounds like they first decided "Apple good. Samsung bad." and filled in the rest from there.

[rbanffy]

You can upgrade. And, as a bonus, you get rid of Touchwiz.

[andyjohnson0]

Touchwiz provides them with differentiation, but not in a positive way.

[olalonde]

I'd rather have them differentiate on cost and quality (as I suspect most HNers would) but well, it might not be in their best interest business-wise.

[flyinRyan]

This is exactly what they want to avoid doing.

[antihero]

TBH the one thing that Google Nexus devices have is that they offer a "pure" Android experience (and unlockability) which means that I'd avoid buying anything else.

[olgeni]

On Samsung devices you can programmatically configure the hotspot without being punished too hard.

(oh well)

[mtgx]

They seem quite happy using WP7/WP8, though...How come that logic doesn't apply there? Sure WP7 is not that popular yet, but the point is they would want it to be popular as well to have a strong alternative to Android. And at that point they'd be in square one, with a lot of other companies developing devices with identical software, just like in the PC business, which is another market Samsung seems happy to be in.

So yeah, I don't buy that argument. Sure they'd prefer if they'd do their own thing, but I'm sure they wouldn't be too mad about if it if all they could use was stock Android (which by the way, they seem to be using in their Galaxy Camera).

If Google is the only one making a cross-license with Apple, then that scenario is even more likely, because the deal would obviously cover only Google's own software implementations, and not Samsung's or anybody else's. So then if a company wants legal protection against Apple, they'd have no choice but to use stock Android. Win for them, win for us. If some decide to keep on making their own custom software, then the legal risk is all on them.