Apple Apple is famous for going to absurd lengths to enforce its patents and trademarks. It recently sued Amazon for calling its app store Appstore. And it has publicly lectured competitors to “create their own original technology, not steal ours”. But the company isn't always as fastidious about respecting the ideas of others. …
These days is fashionable to claim copyright -- and even patents -- on "look and feel" issues. So, for example, if I built a gesture based interface on some random piece of hardware then I'd better make sure it differs significantly from Apple's interface. Obviously my code won't be the same as theirs -- not even remotely the same (coincidences apart) -- but that's not going to be much of a defense.
Try it.....
"Did Apple copy the source code of Wifi Sync? Probably not, since the developer didn't send it to them"
Isn't "send us teh codez" part of the approval process of Apple's App Store? The whole point of their approval process is that they "check" the code so that nothing ugly gets through ... or so Apple says.
Of course, it is very possible that Apple just built their function from scratch, so it isn't a clear-cut case even if they did get the source code. :(
When you send feedback to Apple as an ordinary user, it says:
"Please read Apple’s Unsolicited Idea Submission Policy before you send us your feedback."
And the document says
"You agree that: (1) your submissions and their contents will automatically become the property of Apple, without any compensation to you"
Oh BTW, as a "dead" Symbian owner which has no restrictions on apps as long as they aren't malicious or cause device malfunctions, here is my policy about such developers ignoring my device: I don't care and they deserve everything they get.
"Oh BTW, as a "dead" Symbian owner which has no restrictions on apps as long as they aren't malicious or cause device malfunctions, here is my policy about such developers ignoring my device: I don't care and they deserve everything they get."
Sorry, am I hearing this right, you are accusing college students and other hobbyist developers of deliberately ignoring your device?
I didn't realize I was supposed to buy an extra phone and spend months of my free time learning a different development system and porting my apps because Symbian is your favorite. My bad.
@Ammaross Danan: I remember the late Sixties then a handheld device with an tiled array of buttons with pictures and signs was invented by Texas Instruments, the famous pocket calculator.
They should sue Apple for imitating this principle and every other company using such a handheld device with an tiled array of icons. Or may be it belongs to the descendants of Thomas de Colmar who invented the Arithmometer which can be held in the hand, has an tiled array of buttons with icons and signs on them. Its had also a wireless sync mechanism implemented, it uses the human and his voice to connect to other places in the branch to exchange data.
I agree - but what he should do is appoint a (voluntary) rep in every country he can find (worldwide) and get them to obtain a distro injuction based on breach of copyright and/or use of unlicensed proprietary software in his behalf for that country. Would be interesting to see how the judicial system handles it especially since obtaining injunctions is relatively inexpensive but wholly binding on any distribtuor.
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"There is no legal case here, and I'd argue there is no moral case either."
1. "There is no legal case here" -- You're wrong.
2. "I'd argue there is no moral case either." -- You can make that argument, but you'd be wrong. Again.
Of course, this is based only on my over 20 years of successful legal practice in the United States. Other jurisdictions can vary widely, just as can our opinions.
"If he'd trademarked his icon he'd have a very strong case."
I wouldn't have thought so. I'll bet if you take a look you'll find very similar icons have been in use for fairly similar apps. Furthermore it uses two designs which are pretty much accepted standards. The two arrows in a circle have been used to donate synchronization and that little wifi logo has been standard almost since wireless networking existed.
Or in short I doubt he could trademark that icon.
Given wireless sync isn't exactly new (my Sony Palm TH55 was happily doing this sort of thing both directly to my PC (adhoc) or via a wireless router years ago), I'm genuinely surprised that this feature was missing for so long, also the icon is rather obvious (it's a wee bit predictable).
Does it look like Apple have screwed him over? yes, but I don't think he could sue Apple any more than he could sue everybody else that had similar apps.
"I'm genuinely surprised that this feature was missing for so long"
along with a lot of the features that are on a iphone, they should hve been there in the first place and when they do arrive its to a fanfare of 1000 trumpets and apple make out that they have just invented this new feature !!
Sherlock , because only he could deduce how apple have gotten away with this for so long....
You guy crack me up. Yeah the concept of wireless syncing never entered the minds of Apple engineers before this guy submitted his app.Apple will reject any app that conflicts with any of their own current or future app plans. This is old news and has already been whined about endlessly.
@tedl:
I completely agree with you, but think that you underestimate Apple's abilities; they were the original creators of the Wi-Fi Sync concept. However, a little known fact about Apple is that they've also created every other thing that exists now and that ever will exist.
</heavySarcasm>
But if they didn't do it and someone did first. Tough Luck on them, I thought of the wind up radio about 5 years before the guy that brought it to market, probably like a few others, so doe sthat mean because i thought of it I shold get the profits.... or maybe it should be the guy that actually realised it
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Craft, Design and Technology 'O' level 1982
Trevor Bayliss realised the product, comercialised the idea, and got the credit - so what?
Thomas Edison did the same with Joseph Swan's light bulb
What Apple has done is more like the actions of Alexander Bell, who stole Antoni Meucci's telephone. Another case of the rich and powerful stealing from the smaller man (or in Meucii's case pennyless). It took how many years before the US Congress finally admitted its regulatory ineptitude and restored Meucci as the rightful inventor of the telephone?
>>"What Apple has done is more like the actions of Alexander Bell, who stole Antoni Meucci's telephone."
Well, if /that's/ what Apple has done, then I must conclude that Antoni Meucci's telephone was something that was not only obvious and not ridiculously hard to make, but was already being produced by various other people long before he invented it.
If it was already in the pipeline then Apple could and should have handled this is in a much more intelligent, ethical and straightforward way. You know, they could have just told him ... What they did looks dishonest and arrogant even if it wasn't intended that way (hard to believe but not impossible).
>>"You know, they could have just told him"
Speaking as a distinct non-Apple fan, I'd have to say that even though they *could*, they're not under any obligation (even a moral one, as far as I can see) to tell some random individual what they're currently developing, particularly if part of their marketing strategy for new products or updates seems to keeping people guessing and then announcing even fairly obvious features as some kind of miraculous development only they could have thought of even if the idea was not only obvious, but long in use elsewhere.
Secrecy and hype is part of their (unfortunately apparently successful) philosophy of selling stuff to a certain subset of the population, and it's highly predictable that that secrecy would extend to keeping internal plans unpublicised.
Also, even if they *had* replied saying "Sorry, but we're already working on that idea", that wouldn't have actually helped him much (that kind of reply might even have put some people off independent publishing), and wouldn't have been likely to satisfy him (or anyone else) that the idea wasn't being ripped off unless they were shown proof at the time of the rejection that the idea really was being worked on independently, which much of the time a company may well be understandably unlikely to want to do.
Effectively, them not telling him what they were working on is consistent with both them ripping him off and them actually already working on the idea, so it doesn't have value as evidence either way.
Personally, I'd love to see a story about someone going to Apple with an idea that was so non-obvious that Apple's subsequent development could only have been ripping the idea off, but this story seems about as far from that as it's possible to get.
Sure, there's hypocrisy on Apple's part for making a fuss about 'appstore' and the like while seemingly relying on the obviousness of an idea/name/logo to justify their apparent duplication of it, but that seems to be about all they could reliably be accused of.
Well there's airdrop that totally blatant.
On the other hand, I not sure iOS developers have anything to do with the approvals process - so they probably didn't even see it. Its just the airport logo with some sync arrows around it.
Do you honestly think apple's highly paid developers and marketing department are sitting at the end off the approvals process denying yet another pull my finder app? Unlikely.
"Do you honestly think apple's highly paid developers and marketing department are sitting at the end off the approvals process denying yet another pull my finder app? Unlikely."
It is possible that you have a point. However, it does leave an impression that suggests that the company's highly paid image management people are rather falling down on the job.
"On the other hand, I not sure iOS developers have anything to do with the approvals process - so they probably didn't even see it."
From the article:
“They did say that the iPhone engineering team had looked at it and were impressed,” Hughes told El Reg. “They asked for my CV as well.”
Please read next time.
"Do you honestly think apple's highly paid developers and marketing department are sitting at the end off the approvals process denying yet another pull my finder app? Unlikely."
It is very likely that they are passed anything that looks like a money spinner. Did you not read the article? The developer received praise for his rejected app from the iPhone engineering team.
As a developer I find this sort of behaviour by Apple distressing but not entirely unexpected. They have past form and, well, it's Apple isn't it?
Uhh, if Apple never had the source code, how could the engineering team praise him for his good work before stealing it? If I draw a pretty picture and submit it to the app team will Apple's engineers call me too??!?!?!
They'd have no way of praising it unless they had seen it.
Not to mention the fact that it was for sale on a 3rd party site. I'm sure Apple can afford the $9.99 to download it and recolor the icon.
The approval process does not require or even provide a method for sending source code to Apple so theory number 1 is shot.
Idiot theory number 2 is that the engineering team cannot look at an app without having code... Uh hello.... It's called loading it onto a device and that still doesn't require source code.
Idiot theory number 3 is that they spent 10 bucks and then just dropped it into the new iOS. That is so retarded I don't even know where to begin.
The app originally got rejected for using private API's which violates the rules for app store submissions and rather than try to clean up his code and make it compliant he ran off to the Cydia store. That's his mistake.
If Apple was that impressed they would have hired him like they have done to other devs that make something interesting but the fact is the idea is not new and the icon is not new. The developer should just be happy that he made some money in the Cydia store and should stop whining so much.
And no. This isn't a fanboi point of view, it is a developer point of view. I've had ideas taken from me and I don't cry about it.
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