Edit:
Changed the wording on the first sentence. Good points from replies about it really being smaller innovators getting caught in the crossfire.
But small startups who can't afford the dozens of billions of dollars these companies are spending to keep Apple off. Those are the ones who will be hurt. Next time an innovative startups tries to disrupt anything Apple is doing. They'll be put out of business because they use pinch to zoom. And this trial has set precedence in Apple's favor. This result is terrible for any small app developer. You should be worried about them, not Apple or Google.
That "Apple is the bogey-man and they'll eat anyone that does pinch and zoom" argument is turning into a hollow fallacy. It's not just Apple and they won't sue everyone - it's an all-out war against very specific players (Google, Apple, Samsung and a couple others) that was even announced by Jobs before it happened. Not like they're moving entirely to the business of "patent trolling the world". "Innovative startups that try to disrupt anything" will be safe, IMHO... (except, of course, if "disrupting anything" means blatantly copying everything, from hardware design to icons...)
I remember the days in witch patenting software or business methods was unthinkable, but now it is the "New normal". It was hard to believe at the time but is happening now.
And you expect people to invest in business in the hopes that your "Humble Opinion" holds true?
I'm sure most startups are safe from being sued by Apple... as long as they don't become a threat to their business.
And of course, no startup is safe from IV and other patent trolls that are feeding this patent insanity.
I don't want a world where after the first 5-10 years of an industry no new players can enter because the entrenched companies own it legally. Patents as they exist today don't translate to the fast iterative software world. We need to restrict patents to 2 or 3 years. Give the innovator a runway, first-mover advantage. Owning a scroll animation for 20 years is insane.
If you use Apple App Store you accept in the Eula that Apple could use any of your ideas or patents without compensation.
But they could tell you to pay more to them if you use the bouncing effect in a graph, something I was doing five years ago.
It is true that Samsumg stole a lot of Apple's design but also true that Apple did the same with Google Earth, gmail design, dropbox, OLPC sandboxing and process interruption. Good designers are always learning from others.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/110745064115147792537/posts/14WN...
Even this remains to be seen.
I don't think vanilla Android is going to be affected very much. There might be a chilling effect on anyone trying to re-skin Android as an iPhone wannabe, but that's probably a good thing.
I'm an iPhone user who thinks that some of Samsung's older models were blatantly trying to knock off the iPhone, but on the whole, I don't think that Android itself does, especially with the more recent releases of the OS.
Samsung just got a deserved spanking for some past bad behaviour, but even they have moved past the "aping" phase and have been producing non-infringing phones lately.
I don't get all the doom and gloom going on here.
You're obviously not familiar with the lawsuit on universal search. [1] Apple forced Samsung to remove a feature from its phone. Even from the stock Android Galaxy Nexus, which is much different from the iPhone. This lawsuit is already affecting consumers today. My tablet was just updated yesterday and had universal search removed. Meaning Apple already directly made my device worse.
[1] http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/galaxy-s3-loses-universa...
--edit--
According to: http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/25/3268609/how-google-has-avo...
Apparently the universal search is back in 4.1 in a non-infringing way.
>> Google significantly revamped search in Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) by introducing their new search product, Google Now. The persistent search bar stayed, but it now pulled up Google Now with its fancy prediction and useful cards. It now intelligently pulls in weather, driving directions, sports scores, and more without the user even asking. They also tweaked the way it searched both the web and the device, side-stepping Apple's patent. In addition, they countered Apple's Siri by offering a similar (but often faster) voice search and actions within Google Now.
Sometimes admitting you were wrong is the right way to go.
>> So when you said "that remains to be seen". You actually meant "that does not remains to be seen -- but remains to stay that way before the end of times"?
Long run to me means 3-4 years, not "end of times". I think Google and Apple will come to a licensing deal in a shorter time period, because it's in both of their interests to do so.
Because of this, I don't think that the consumer is hurt in the long run, so it does remain to be seen if the statement I replied to will happen.