When two local store owners play tricks against one another to get extra business, you don’t like it, but you sort of expect it to happen from time to time. But somehow it’s believed that corporations must adhere to a higher standard, though that doesn’t seem to happen all that often. So you have situations where some drug companies might inflate claims for a new medication, and perhaps even sanitize test results, in order to get approval by the regulating authorities in a given country.

Now when that happens, people might get sick. People might die, so cheating is not just immoral, it may be illegal as well.

However, in our little corner of the world, does it really matter if one company exaggerates the advantages of a product against the competition? So what if a certain handset maker puts in code in a smartphone that makes it run faster, but only when you run certain benchmark apps. After all, does that really hurt your experience in actually using the thing? Sure, maybe you were led to believe it was a better product as a result of those speed ratings, but it’s not such a big deal — or is it?

Advertising? Well, how many of you believe ads anyway? Sure, some ads may help influence a buying decision towards a particular company or retailer, but you still have the chance to check things out for yourself. And, no, I’m not going to get into get rich quick schemes, or the latest claims about whether you must invest in gold or silver because of the coming global financial Armageddon. This isn’t the place for you to get investment advice. However, if a company is shown to be bilking people out of their money, you hope the victims will actually be able to get refunds, assuming the company is around long enough for them to collect.

When it comes to tech ads, you know about those recent TV spots where Microsoft attempts to entice you to buy a Surface tablet. Sure, it’s not going so well, witness that $900 million dollar inventory write-down to cover the cost of products that Microsoft couldn’t sell. But the ads always make the iPad seem smaller than it really is. I suppose Apple could complain, but why bother?

In addition to programming a smartphone to deliver inflated benchmarks, Samsung continues to tout features that often don’t work, or when they do work, they don’t quite function as advertised. So there’s that TV ad showing how you tilt the Galaxy S4 to make it scroll automatically. Yes, the Tilt to Scroll feature sometimes works, but scrolling speed, even at the fastest setting, is glacial.

One of our readers posted a comment the other day revealing a litany of questionable actions by Samsung or Samsung executives. So we know how a certain executive allegedly stole billions of dollars from the company’s subsidiaries, destroyed evidence and bribed government officials. There are reports of paying off shills to denigrate the competition, or perhaps even hiring an analyst firm to report false information about the company’s profitability compared to Apple’s.

Not the paragon of corporate responsibility.

It’s not that Apple isn’t above a few questionable claims over the years. So there were those famous Mac Versus PC ads mentioning hundreds of thousands of viruses on the PC, but not on the Mac. True, the Mac never had hundreds of thousands of viruses, but it had a few, so call it a gray area deception. Some also felt that, when Apple was demonstrating how PowerPC-equipped Macs were faster than Intel-equipped PCs, they cooked the benchmarks to deliver results that were inflated.

Now in those days, I actually ran some of Apple’s benchmark tests, the ones they supplied to the media, and they seemed reasonable enough. So there you go.

But don’t forget the stock options backdating brouhaha that occurred when Steve Jobs was in charge of the company. Sure, a couple of executives took the fall, and faced SEC charges as the result, but Jobs claimed plausible deniability. It didn’t hurt him or the company, and certainly not Apple’s customers. But it wasn’t a very nice thing to do.

Apple also faced a possible backlash in the U.S. Congress because of keeping tens of billions of dollars overseas to save on taxes. But that’s nothing very different from what other multinational corporations do, and it would require changes in this country’s tax laws to address such behavior. In any case, Tim Cook’s appearance at a Senate hearing resulted in even the crusty maverick Senator John McCain fawning over him.

But when it comes to corporate deception and dirty tricks, Apple’s doesn’t quite make the grade. Samsung, on the other hand, is not above pulling some stunts when it’s appropriate. And don’t forget how Microsoft would routinely seed bloggers with free note-books and other stuff to make them feel warm and fuzzy about saying good things about Windows. Only it didn’t help with Windows 8 or the Surface tablet.

Besides, it’s not as if the public cares much one way or the other.

So Samsung was estimated to be worth a billion dollars less in the wake of a Presidential veto in their latest patent skirmish with Apple. The news came down over the weekend, when U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman announced that President Obama had made a rare decision to veto an ITC ban against some models of the iPad 2 and iPhone 4. And, predictably, Apple’s net worth grew by nearly seven billion dollars as the stock price continued to rise.

In June, the ITC voted to ban those models due to the alleged violation of a single industry standard patent owned by Samsung. Had the ban remained in effect, AT&T would have been unable to sell you an iPhone 4, nor would an iPad 2 with cellular support been available. While that wouldn’t seem to be such a significant issue, given that they are older models and all, the iPhone 4 remains quite popular. So Apple was in danger of losing a lot of potential sales — and money — until the next generation iPhone arrived.

Now the ins and outs of the latest patent skirmish are complicated, and probably boring to most of you. But it seems as if it all involved a single patent involving in a single chip. Even though Apple bought the chips to use in the iPhone 4 and older models, and the purchase price presumably included the license fees the manufacturer, Infineon, had to pay to license Samsung’s technologies, Apple was expected to pay yet again.

Does that make sense to you? What if you bought a new car, with many thousands of parts, and no doubt loads of patents covering the technology, and got a bill from some unknown patent holder requesting another $750 so you could legally keep the car? After paying for license plates and insurance, that would be the unkindest cut of all, but it seems to be the same logic Samsung used in their claim before the International Trade Commission. No wonder the ruling was vetoed.

Now Samsung’s biggest weapons on their ongoing intellectual property disputes with Apple are “standard essential” patents that are supposed to be licensed under Fair, Reasonably and Nondiscriminatory rates, known as “FRAND.” What this means is that the patent holder should be making it easy for any company to license their technologies at rates that are, within reason, pretty much the same. No disputes involved. It’s just the cost of doing business.

Of course, overturning the ITC ruling won’t end the conflict. Samsung is already appealing, because demands involving three other patents weren’t approved. So the fight will no doubt continue. Apple and Samsung will be keeping their legal teams at work for years with no resolution in sight.

Now in the real world, we don’t see Ford actively suing General Motors or vice versa because of ongoing patent disputes. The car makers have found a way to compete on the alleged merits of their motor vehicles, not on who owns the patent for the automatic transmission or the brake pedal.

While I wouldn’t presume to want to analyze the ins and outs of Apple’s or Samsung’s patent portfolios, I do understand Apple’s logic. Consider that, before the iPhone arrived, Samsung’s smartphones resembled a BlackBerry. After the iPhone appeared, and proved unexpectedly successful, a Samsung smartphone closely resembled an iPhone. Maybe too close. While imitation is common in many industries, too much imitation causes the lawyers to examine a company’s patent portfolio for possible infringement.

Yet with all the back and forth legal battles, it doesn’t appear a whole lot has been accomplished. Sure, Samsung has made a few minor software workarounds to avoid stepping on a few Apple patents, but that’s about it. There has to be a better way.

And maybe there is.

Just recently, there were renewed reports that Apple and Samsung are engaged in ongoing discussions about a settlement. Certainly Apple has been there before; in recent years with Nokia and HTC. It’s friendly, it’s quiet, and the companies can go about their business selling whatever they are selling, knowing full well where the limitations lie.

Besides, you’d think Samsung and Apple have a large incentive to settle. Samsung earns billions of dollars selling parts to Apple. Period. Despite reports that Apple has sought other suppliers, it appears that Samsung is still a key supplier for some key components, such as processors and displays. Isn’t that a huge incentive to cut a deal and get on with their business?

Of course, Samsung is nothing if not a ruthless competitor, so it may be that the company isn’t above playing dirty. Consider the recent revelation that some code is present on a Galaxy S4 smartphone to enhance its benchmarks in some testing apps. Sure, Samsung denies the charge, but that only makes them look more culpable. Any company that pulls a silly stunt like that is not above slavish copying. That seems logical, but Samsung will not lose face signing a deal with Apple to stop the patent litigation once and for all. As with the Nokia and HTC deals, people will soon forget that any of it ever happened.

It would seem that it’s not really hard to accurately report about Apple. The sales numbers and financials are clearly posted on Apple’s site, and you can conveniently compare the numbers to previous quarters and previous years. You can even compare the financials to other companies, within the limits of their reporting. And there’s a generous amount of new product and OS information to be had just by checking the site. At least that’s a start.

As part of any competitive environment, it’s a sure thing that some companies will try to cheat, not by delivering false financials, which may violate the laws in the countries in which they operate, but by emphasizing the numbers that look good and deemphasizing those that might look bad, or just not including them altogether.

So we do not know how many Amazon Kindle tablets have been sold, although so-called industry analysts attempt to make educated guesses by surveying the retail channels and scrutinizing the financials. We do know that Amazon lost a few million dollars during the last financial quarter, though that’s par for the course for that company. Much of what would pass for profit in other companies is simply invested back into the company to fuel further growth. That Amazon is adding thousands of jobs as a result is a good thing. Cash flow is also great, but, as I said, Amazon only reports slim profits.

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So the story goes that the iPad became number one out of the starting gate, but that Android tablets have been fast encroaching on Apple’s space. Of course, we have peculiar ways of demonstrating such a fact, if that’s what it is. So we have the curious case of Google citing a study that indicated that the original Nexus 7 tablet outsold the iPad in Japan last year. However, that survey conveniently omitted many of the most significant sources of Apple sales, such as the Apple Store, Apple’s online storefront, and some carriers.

When the real facts came out, the iPad outsold the Nexus 7 by a huge margin, but don’t expect Google to make any such admission. These days, they are pushing a refreshed version, with a high definition or retina-like screen, for $30 more than the original. Despite having shorter battery life, it hasn’t stopped some tech pundits from having orgasms over the latest and greatest alleged iPad killer. They seem to forget the shortcomings of Google’s tablet-optimized apps, and the limitations of a 7-inch widescreen display compared to the standard aspect radio 7.9-inch iPad mini.

All right, the new Nexus 7 and the Amazon Kindle HD both offer higher screen resolutions than the iPad, and, if you see them side by side, you won’t miss the difference. But it’s clear people still love their iPads.

Now this week, we have yet another survey indicating that more Android tablets are sold than iPads. The source, Canays estimates, covered the June 2013 quarter and concludes that Apple has 42.7% of the market, which is a lot less than last year’s 71.2% share. But there are problems with such surveys, the least of which is that key manufacturers, such as Amazon and Samsung, don’t actually break out real sales figures for their tablets, so it involves a whole lot of guesswork. There’s also a sizable “Others” category, nearly as high as Samsung’s. Did I say “Other”? What, pray tell, can they be? Well, a few hundred thousand are probably Microsoft Surface tablets. The rest? Well, do they even exist?

The real problem with such figures is that the iPad accounts for 84% of tablet-based Web traffic according to recent surveys. That’s a figure Apple’s Tim Cook has cited over the past few months, since it hasn’t changed a whole lot, except that Apple might be getting a slightly greater share.

But if Android tablets have the majority of the market, who is buying them, and for what purpose are they being used? Well, an Amazon Kindle, which runs an ancient version of Android, is heavily used to consume content from Amazon, such as e-books and movies, not to mention browsing and purchasing stuff from the company’s expansive storefronts. Since the Kindle has, at best, a rudimentary browser, it’s not at all likely that many users are just surfing.

Certainly, Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones have perfectly capable browsers, and they register in the major online surveys. But what about all those tablets Samsung allegedly sold this past quarter? Is it possible most people just took them, played with them a few moments, then tossed them back into their shipping containers and set them aside? I would presume the browsing experience on a Samsung tablet, assuming the app is properly optimized for a tablet, is at least decent. Google has one of the most popular browsers on the planet.

In addition to email and messaging, you expect that most people who buy a tablet are visiting their favorite sites. So what’s really going on here? Why are so few people using those tablets to surf the net? Is there some hidden defect in an Android tablet that stops people from using them on the Internet?

Or is it just possible that all these stellar sales figures are fake? Should we just blame the companies who do those surveys, who pore over company profit and loss statements in search of the hidden information on the actual sales of specific models, or survey selected dealers and make “educated” guesses? Or is it possible that Samsung and other tech companies are scamming the industry by shipping loads of gear into the channel without the expectation that they will be sold any time soon?

I wouldn’t presume to guess the correct answer, but it is damn suspicious. If we accept the figures released by industry analysts as even vaguely accurate, we are left with a raft of defective products that people just don’t even want to use. Even if Android tablets are selling more than the iPad these days, that doesn’t mean they deliver a better experience, or even an equal one. It’s quite possible many of these tablets are just cheap junk, sold at extremely low prices in developing countries, to people who can’t or won’t buy something that actually works.

Regardless of the truth, Apple still makes the lion’s share of tablet profits. All right, we have that questionable claim that Samsung’s handset profits are somewhat higher than Apple’s, but some of us have already analyzed those fudged figures and found them dead wrong. I won’t repeat that report here.

As to those phantom Android tablets, speaking as a sci-fi writer, maybe the people who own them are surfing an Internet in another dimension, so the online traffic doesn’t register here on Earth. If you can believe that, I can get you a great deal on a certain bridge from Brooklyn, NY.