What should be noted by both the makers and buyers of all kinds of mobile phones is just how hard it is to make a smartphone that people enjoy owning, as compared to basic calling and texting devices.

The ACSI gets its results from calling consumers at home and asking them a variety of questions about any mobile phone they’ve purchased in the last two years. The main points the survey covers are customization — how well does a product suit the owner’s individual needs — and reliability — how often something goes wrong while using the product.

David Van Amburg, managing director of the ACSI, said adding smartphones to the mix this year revealed that customers who just buy plain old feature phones for calling and texting are generally happier with the product than their smartphone-owning counterparts. He said in an interview:

On one hand, smartphones have more features and have more to them, so you’d think that would be a better experience. But that’s as along as everything’s working correctly. When you add more layers of complexity, you create more opportunities for things to go wrong. For a basic phone for calling, the only thing [that generally goes wrong] is dropped calls or lack of signal. You add texting, there’s another layer, but … When you add in data you add in how fast is the download and upload speed. There are many more issues.

While smartphones score better in the ACSI in terms of customization, their reliability marks can drag them down. Many more things can go awry with a smartphone compared to a feature phone besides data or signal issues common to all phones: apps can be wonky, syncing content can be confusing, mapping or navigation can be hard to use, etc.

That is why smartphones overall score somewhat lower than basic phones, according to Van Amburg. “So when you look at our data, it makes Apple’s ability to be as high as they are that much more impressive,” he said.

After Apple, the leader among all mobile phones with 83, comes HTC, LG and Nokia tied with a score of 75, Motorola and “others” both coming in with 73, Samsung with 71 and RIM with 69.

The comparisons are not entirely parallel: Apple and RIM only make smartphones. The rest dabble in a mix of both feature and smartphones. But as smartphones continue to outgrow feature phones in popularity, the need to continually improve and upgrade the product and customer experience for these almost indispensible devices should be very apparent to these manufacturers.

And how do they improve their customer satisfaction rating? The obvious ways: make more reliable products that are easy to use and that people feel are representative of their needs. But that’s harder to do for some than others, says Van Amburg.

“It’s easier to move the needle from 65 to 70 than 85 to 90,” he said. “If you’re RIM, the ability to move from 69 to 74, that shouldn’t be that difficult for them with product improvements and so on. But it’s more challenging for Apple.”

Image courtesy of Flickr user Ron Bennetts

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Update: In a statement, Apple said, ”This is the same case Motorola already brought against another Apple entity and the court’s decision does not impact product availability. Our customers in Germany should have no problem finding the iPad or iPhone they want. However, we disagree with the court’s decision and plan to appeal the ruling.”

Motorola sued Apple over the way iCloud and its predecessor MobileMe send “push” emails, claiming the method used is a violation of “multiple pager status synchronization system and method patents” — basically technology Motorola once used in pagers. Apple said following the initial ruling that Motorola’s “old pager patent is invalid.” But a judge disagreed and forced Apple to come up with a workaround in early February. Apple did that: The overall services of MobileMe and iCloud still work in Germany, but users have to check their email manually, rather than it being automatically pushed to them.

While it’s a win for Motorola, it’s just one battle in the all-out mobile patent war that has engulfed most of the world’s major mobile device and software makers. For a visualization of who’s suing whom, don’t miss this helpful graphic illustrating the global patent suit mess.

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According to Bloomberg, Apple will still be allowed to sell iPhones and iPads in Germany while the court hears its appeal of an injunction involving what’s known as a standards-essential patent, which are treated differently than other patents because of their proximity to technical standards. In December Motorola won an injunction against Apple involving one of these patents, but has since been criticized for seeking what many believe to be an exorbitant rate for a license to that patent.

After Apple made a counteroffer for a licensing deal, the court ruled that Motorola “would violate its duties under antitrust rules” if it rejected the offer and enforced the injunction, according to Bloomberg’s translation of German court documents. U.S. and European regulators have had a careful eye on Motorola over this issue of “fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory” licensing policies for standards-essential patents, clearing Google’s proposed acquisition of Motorola but warning the two companies to play fair with these patents or face increased scrutiny.

So, in short, Apple can still sell its iOS devices in Germany but still has to convince the court to overturn the initial ruling. While it may have a strong argument in this case given the standards-essential label attached to that particular patent, it faces a separate problem unaffected by this ruling: the ban on iCloud push e-mail related to a different Motorola patent that is not subject to the standards-essential rules.

The “patent peace” that Google’s Andy Rubin hoped for last year clearly won’t arrive any time soon. In most cases, the lawyers are the only winners in patent disputes.

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Patents blog FOSS Patents explains:

The judge explained that the court does not hold Apple to infringe claim 9 of EP1053613 on a ‘method and system for generating a complex pseudonoise sequence for processing a code division multiple access [CDMA] signal’. In the court’s opinion, MMI failed to present conclusive evidence for its infringement contention.

Motorola had argued that the patent named above was “essential,” meaning that someone — in this case, Apple — would have to use technology covered by the patent if they’re using an industry-standard practice. The problem is, the judge didn’t see it that way and says Motorola didn’t present a convincing case that the patent was essential.

Just a week ago, Motorola claimed victory on two separate rulings related to its ongoing intellectual property battle with Apple. In the first, an injunction was granted against older iPhone and iPad models that infringed on a GPRS-related patent. And in the second, Motorola won an injunction against Apple devices that receive push email notifications from its iCloud system in Germany. Apple said it would appeal both.

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Patent blog FOSS Patents says the two actions are unrelated, and that Apple removing some older products comes because Motorola moved to enforce an important patent victory it won back in December. It was then that a judge ruled that Motorola had a patent on a ”method for performing a countdown function during a mobile-originated transfer for a packet radio system.”

The result is that only older devices like the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and 3G iPads were removed. Why not the iPhone 4S? It could be because the iPhone 4S has a chip from Qualcomm. The affected models have Infineon chips. Qualcomm chips could be safe for Apple in this case, according to FOSS Patents, if we assume “that Motorola and Qualcomm have a cross-license agreement in place (just like Samsung and Qualcomm do)” which would mean that “Apple is covered by extension, as a result of what is called patent exhaustion (a patent owner gets paid only once for the same use of a patent in a product).”

Perhaps more worrisome for some Apple customers who own the iPhone 4S in Germany right now is an injunction that affects iCloud users who want push notifications on their phones. The ruling affects any Apple devices that can receive push email notifications from iCloud or the earlier version, MobileMe. While neither service will get shut down as a result of the ruling, Apple will likely have to come up with a workaround for its iCloud/MobileMe customers there.

Apple won’t be letting this one go. As a company representative told PaidContent in a bit of subtle snarkiness on Friday, “Apple believes this old pager patent is invalid and we’re appealing the court’s decision.”

Update: It looks like the same German court may have suspended the injunction on the older 3G iPhones and iPads and they will be on sale again in “a matter of hours.” Apple told AllThingsD just now: “All iPad and iPhone models will be back on sale through Apple’s online store in Germany shortly. Apple appealed this ruling because Motorola repeatedly refuses to license this patent to Apple on reasonable terms, despite having declared it an industry standard patent seven years ago.”

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The ruling includes an injunction that is “preliminarily enforceable” against Apple Sales International, Apple’s Ireland-based EU wholesale subsidiary. The injunction covers a wide range of products, including all iPhones as well as 3G-enabled iPads, since it deals with European patent 1010336 (B1), which describes a “method for performing countdown function during a mobile-originated transfer for a packet radio system.”

It’s a significant ruling, because although Motorola previously secured a similar injunction against Apple in Germany, that one was based on a default judgment, meaning that Apple never presented a defense in the case. For Friday’s ruling, the court ruled after both sides had the opportunity to present their full arguments.

Apple will no doubt appeal this ruling to the Karlsruhe Higher Regional Court, seeking a stay of the injunction. If it fails in that effort, the Mannheim Regional Court has attached a €100 million ($134 million) bond (much lower than the $2.7 billion Apple was seeking) to the decision, which Motorola would be liable to pay in the event the injunction against Apple is enforced and a later appeal overturns the injunction awarded on Friday.

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Apple told the Mannheim, Germany, court that if it were to rule in Motorola’s favor and grant a temporary German ban on the sale of Apple products violating Motorola’s email syncing patent (devices that use MobileMe and iCloud, like the iPhone and iPad), $2.7 billion is the amount of money Apple could lose as a result. Florian Mueller, who has covered the case extensively at FOSS Patents, explains:

The purpose of such a bail is to ensure that an alleged infringer will be compensated if the enforced injunction is later overturned by an appellate court.

He also notes that the judge was a little skeptical about where Apple got that number and suspected the company was rounding a little high:

The court was wondering whether that hefty amount truly reflects the economic damages Apple would suffer from enforcement, given that the iCloud is only one Apple offering and doesn’t correspond to the entire value of its products. But Apple’s lawyers insisted that an enforcement against its product sales in Germany could result in damages of that magnitude.

An Apple representative declined to comment on the case.

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On the iPhone 4S launch day, I lined up with about 14 other people outside our Verizon store, my Motorola Droid in hand, checking the time until the store opened. I had never owned an iPhone before, which might come as a surprise from an Apple blogger. When I got the Droid in October of 2009, AT&T was the only carrier to have the 3GS, and rumors of the iPhone coming to Verizon were still just rumors. Two years later, almost to the day, the iPhone 4S came out on my network of choice, and here we are.

Since there are likely a lot of Android users who are considering making the leap thanks to Apple’s new iPhone 4S hardware and the improvements that come with iOS 5, I thought I’d list the things I miss and don’t miss about the Android experience after making the switch to help others determine if this is the right move for them.

Things I miss about Android

Customization

Android proponents are big on pointing out the degree to which the user can customize the OS. You can use different keyboards, lock screens, launchers, even install different ROMs, right from the device. The geek in me loved tinkering around with Android, and that part of me will miss it a lot. Sure, you can jailbreak iOS and get some of the same customizations, but not to the same extent, and it requires going against Apple policies.

Notification light

On nearly all Android phones, there’s an LED that blinks when you have unread notifications. This came in handy since if I got a new notification, I could tell immediately. With the iPhone, I have to press a button to make sure there aren’t any new notifications. It’s a small difference, but the added convenience of the notification light really makes its effects felt over time.

Global sharing menu

In Android, you can share something with any service that has its app installed. I could upload a picture from the Gallery app to any Twitter client, not just the official app. Apple has made headway into making sharing better by integrating Twitter into iOS, but it’s not as good as the Android share menu. I’d be happy if Apple just added Facebook integration, though.

Free turn-by-turn navigation

Google’s free navigation app is a big advantage for Android. I’ve used it often to find obscure restaurants and other destinations while I’m driving. I have yet to find any consistently reliable, free or cheap alternatives in the App Store (but feel free to suggest something in the comments).

File system and downloads

Being able to download a file to my SD card and manipulate it with a file manager was useful. The inability to do this on my iPhone annoyed me when I wanted to download a wallpaper that only came in a ZIP archive, which of course I couldn’t download or open. I ended up transferring it over from my Mac via Photo Stream.

Things I don’t miss about Android

Laggy UI

The first thing I noticed coming to iOS from Android is just how smooth and fluid iOS is in comparison. It tracks my taps and swipes without any noticeable lag, lending to the feeling that you’re actually manipulating an object. Android has never felt the same way. Scrolling isn’t as smooth; pinch to zoom lags and stutters; and sometimes, taps take longer than they should to register. This could all be attributed to the Droid’s old hardware, of course, but reviews of even current gen devices sometimes cite similar problems.

Widgets

I feel about Android widgets the same way I feel about OS X’s Dashboard widgets: They’re a neat novelty, but not very practical. If I want to read the news, I don’t want to just stare at a news widget while headlines go by, one at a time. Call me old-fashioned, but I’d rather just launch an app.

“Real” multitasking

In Android, apps can run in the background when you’re not using them, like on a PC. In iOS, apps are suspended when they aren’t active, but are allowed to do certain things in the background. Android’s approach uses more RAM and battery life. Apple’s uses less of both while providing nearly the same experience. I’m just fine with “fake” multitasking if it uses fewer resources to accomplish the same thing.

The Android market

There’s no arguing that iOS has a wider and better selection of apps. There isn’t a single third-party Android app I’ve used that doesn’t have a better iOS alternative. Couple that with the increased presence of malware on the Android Market, and I feel pretty good about living in a walled garden.

Google integration

With iCloud, I don’t need Google integration anymore. iCloud takes care of everything important that Google did, and does it without forcing me to use a clunky web app (except in the case of uploading documents from the Mac). This is why iCloud is such a huge deal for Apple: It takes away one of Android’s core advantages and improves on it in a way that Google can’t.

Final thoughts

One of the strongest assets Apple has is its ecosystem, and that’s more apparant to me now than ever. All my mobile devices — my computer, my tablet, and my phone — are made by Apple. The tight integration between them is all part of the design: The more Apple products I use, the better my experience becomes. With my Android phone, I couldn’t really use Apple’s ecosystem to its full potential. But with my new trifecta, I can play games on my Apple TV via mirroring, take a photo and have it appear instantly on my iPad and Mac, sync with iTunes without ever having to touch a cable, and easily locate any of my devices if I ever lose one.

Sure, I could do some of those things on Android, but the experience just wasn’t as good. Some will argue that that’s representative of Apple bullying users into buying only its devices, but for me it just represents greater convenience.

Have you recently made the switch from Android to iOS? Tell us about your experience in the comments.

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Note that this isn’t an exhaustive list of any and all acquisitions made by the companies, but it is a good lay of land in recent years. (Click to enlarge)

Infographic courtesy of G+.

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TheAppleBlog reported in October that Apple was the target of a Motorola lawsuit for infringement on 18 patents, including various smartphone issues, including antenna design. Holding to the idea that “the best defense is a good offense,” Apple not only isn’t taking that filing lightly, but is fighting back with a lawsuit of its own.

In a nine-page filing with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin on Friday, Apple asked for action in response to the violation of various patents surrounding the iPhone’s touch screen and user interface. Apple identified, among others, the Droid, Cliq, and Backflip handsets as culprits in the infringement. It states in the filed documents, “Motorola’s actions have caused and will continue to cause irreparable harm, for which it has no adequate remedy at law, unless their infringing activities are enjoined.”

To consumers, given the great number of lawsuits thrown around between technology companies of this size, the recent filings may not seem significant.  Usually, court rulings simply ask the defendant to pay a certain sum to the plaintiff, and the amount is generally quite small when measured against the profit margins of these companies.

As phones grow increasingly similar in design and user interface, and the tech related to them grows more refined, you have to wonder if the legal system will continue to allow companies to use such closely related designs for small penalties, or will instead more strongly defend the rights of patent holders.

With Apple’s recent move to number four on the global mobile-phone manufacturer list, and Motorola’s fall to number seven, it’s apparent both have great deal at stake in the market. Accordingly, the legal battles between the two (and among others) will likely continue to heat up as companies fight to secure IP that could give them the upper hand.

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