Samsung has taken a rather unusual step. The company dropped local search capabilities from its flagship Galaxy S III smartphone in the latest update.

The reason behind this unpopular move is of course Apple. Samsung doesn’t want to be dragged into court over the feature and it seems Apple lawyers are becoming so good at what they do that they don’t even have to bother putting on a tie in the morning.

However, to be honest Samsung obviously nicked  Apple’s patented approach to unified search. Apple already managed to win an injunction against the Galaxy Nexus on similar grounds earlier this year.

As a result, local search is pretty much gone from the Galaxy Nexus, S III and LG’s Optimus 4X. HTC’s One X still features local search, but we wouldn’t be surprised if it is forced to drop it in the future.

The whole issue must be a source of embarrassment for Google - the search giant can’t implement local search, Apple got their first.

More here.