Did I send my friend a virus/malware?

Regardless of if this is a virus or not, as long as you have since deleted the email you have sent to her and do not click on the link any longer, you will not send any more of the emails through your iPhone's email program and will not spread any virus. iPhone's will likely not be affected by this if it is truly a virus.

Of course an iPhone is capable of passing along a virus through email. Any device that can send an email with a link or attachment can spread a virus by sending that link or attachment to other devices. So the answer is, yes, you could have sent them the virus through the email if the email contained a malicious link or attachments. However, your phone isn't affected and as long as you don't continue to send/forward emails with malicious links or attachments yourself, you will not continue to spread any viruses.

Yes, you can pass along malware that arrives in an email or a text message. However, if the link was actually to an Ikea site it is very unlikely that you passed along anything. Can you open the link on your iPhone?

Rethinking my comment, technically the virus was not passed along, only a URL was passed along. Since the URL directed a user to a malware site, you certainly could have been responsible.

A completely separate issue would be if you opened that weblink and inadvertently downloaded the virus. The virus would not have impacted your iPhone but I'm wondering if you could somehow pass the virus to others.

Philly_Phan wrote:

A completely separate issue would be if you opened that weblink and inadvertently downloaded the virus. The virus would not have impacted your iPhone but I'm wondering if you could somehow pass the virus to others.

In general no, because you can't download any object that doesn't have an app that can open it in iOS. If you downloaded something that could contain malware, such as a Word document, then forwarded it to someone else, and they opened it, then they could become infected. But it's a sequence of events, not just the fact that you downloaded something to your phone.

Nothing was downloaded. It was a url that you send her in an email. If it was a url to a malicious site, then she was infected by the site. If it was a url to a legitimate site then it was a coincidence.

No need to.

iPhones do not get malware. It's unlikely that your link to Ikea caused her the problem she is having.

They can not be affected by malware but can they get it and pass it on to Samsung users?

See Philly_Phan's post above yours. The question is not whether the iPhone can get a virus, but rather can you forward one to an Android phone and infect it?

Actually, it's academic because friends don't let friends own Androids!

Then you didn't forward any malware. The problem is a coincidence.