I commented yesterday on the absence of any mention of VoIP in the iPhone launch. Today, Cisco/Linksys sued Apple for infringing their iPhone trademark. Very interesting how this is playing out.
What Cisco/Linksys said: "Today's iPhone is not tomorrow's iPhone. The potential for convergence of the home phone, cell phone, work phone and PC is limitless, which is why it is so important for us to protect our brand,"
Apple's response on CNBC (paraphrasing): Their trademark is for IPhone as in IP(internet protocol)hone and they sell a VoIP phone. However, our product is a cell phone and it is called iPhone (as in iPod). We think the lawsuit is meritless.
Analysis: You can see that the companies didn't settle. Unless Apple relents and calls it the Apple phone or something else, there will be no VoIP clients on the iphone.
edit: my apologies for mistakenly calling it a launch. the product of course won't be available for at least six months
The 770 is now superceded by a superior product. iPhone.
I want to see how fast can Apple come up with applications you want to see ported.... where in the 770 is open source.... Remeber this is going to be a lock device meaning you wont be able to install your own applications only the ones apple or cingular wants you too... let me rephrase that.. "widgets"
?!?
Nahhh I am ok ill pass
What Cisco/Linksys said: "Today's iPhone is not tomorrow's iPhone. The potential for convergence of the home phone, cell phone, work phone and PC is limitless, which is why it is so important for us to protect our brand,"
Apple's response on CNBC (paraphrasing): Their trademark is for IPhone as in IP(internet protocol)hone and they sell a VoIP phone. However, our product is a cell phone and it is called iPhone (as in iPod). We think the lawsuit is meritless.
This is classic! Didn't apple just threaten to sue a company for making a device that has the name pod in it - yet has nothing to do with playing music/video etc...? Why yes they did:
I've seen news reports that Cisco and Apple worked out an agreement already. Jobs isn't an idiot.
Aha. Yes. But they'd already worked out an agreement and it fell through. Maybe Apple will refuse and lose their lawsuit! That would make me so happy. They'd have to change the name of the device.... and all the marketing...and... and.... *takes deep breath*...it would be amazing.
Go figure. Both these companies are acting like ******s. Apple for wanting rights to an utterly unimaginative and lame-*** name like iphone, and cisco for the means by which they acquired the rights to the name, sat on it (for years) and then released a run of the mill product haphazardly just before the launch of the apple product. The cisco move seems to smack a tad bit like cybersquatting to me, but whatever. Who really cares.
BTW, I would have called the thing iPWN. Even that would have been a better name. infact Apple may have to resolve to calling it iPWND if cisco has its way.
