I don't feel ashamed at all. The iPhone is literally a better and more pleasant phone to use/develop for in my opinion. That's why I buy it, and probably will continue to buy it.
A lot of companies sue over dumb shit - Samsung included. That's the nature of the corporate battleground. I really don't care as long as they aren't suing end users for things that I do with a phone (which includes pretty much every thing you can do with a phone).
I just don't see what's wrong with it. Evaluating a competitor's product and improving on/comparing with your own is what any company should be doing... Especially since a lot of the comparisons are pretty much statements of the obvious, too.
I'd bet Samsung didn't really have a well developed UX design group behind their software/UI initially. Then they were brought to their senses by a competitor and did a thorough analysis and comparison to improve their products and compete. I just can't see what's wrong with that.
You have to be careful when evaluating your product vs a competitor, when you're talking about HCI - especially when you know that your competitor (Apple) has sued over look and feel before.
I'd bet that had Samsung done an analysis of the iPhone that was evaluating the first-principles and then had a separate team work from those first-principles to design a clean UI they would have been much better off. Really though, having emails and presentations that say "we need to make our phone more like the iPhone" is pretty damning. It seems like they've done a better job recently when they just go and do their own thing.
I'm glad that the laws reward those who invest time and money to be first to market with new ideas. These laws also force the competition to not merely copy, but to actually compete with new ideas.
You feel "sorry" for a multi-billion dollar family owned conglomerate that's existed since 1938?
Though I don't believe anything "intellectual" should be property, I buy products because they are good, period. As long as Apple continues to make better products, I'll continue to buy them without any sense of shame whatsoever.
Yes, Samsung made products that looked kind of similar to Apple ones. Big whoop. Competition over litigation, I say.