iPhone trademark, and the future of the phone industry
Shouldn’t i-ANYTHING be more of a dictionary word? Ok, maybe that’s an overshot, but nontheless. Cisco is suing Apple for trademark infringement (News Article on CBC) and wishes for an injunction by court to stop Apple from using iPhone as the trademark for the new-age hand-held media/computing device that also happens to make phone calls they released just recently.
Another large-corporation money-grabbing opportunity and the ensuing legal skirmish. Oh well. They do have a point, as even i clearly recall the days when this ‘iPhone’ thing came out, and it was at the earlier stages of the growth of VOIP services. The brand iPhone is critical for Apple, though. The long-run marketing process using iTune and iMac are connected with this new trademark, and should be acknowledged by the public as being all part of one group, sort of. After all, integrable interfaces among different media devices has been the key (or one of them at least) for a lot of Apple’s innovative products.
I recall back in the days when Apple’s Macs seemed to be getting pushed out by PCs, and was considered more of a specialty tool for graphic editors or other type of nerds out there. Now, Macs can be seen everywhere - cafes are full of people who use Macs.
Back on topic for this issue of the lawsuit : I predict they will ultimately settle for a few dozen million dollars perhaps. Or maybe more? Cisco, after all, is a large corporation as well who can afford expensive corporate lawyers. And according to Cisco, Apple has made attempts to talk to Cisco over this issue prior to the release. They still went ahead to make a big splash with the same trademark. That means Apple is already hell-bent on using the ‘iPhone’ trademark for the new iPhone. Whatever settlement that comes out of the lawsuit is considered a business expense, as far as Apple is concerned. At least that’s my gut feeling. Perhaps it was a publicity grab as well? Get some more public splash with some controversy and some legal battles. It turns heads.
The future for Blackberries and Treos and other conventional cell phones? Geez. The only thing they can compete on now would be a cheaper price, as far as I’m concerned. The new iPhone is forecasted to be well over $500 US in retail price, so that’s quite expensive compared to many cell phones, but compared to other Blackberries or Palm Treo models, it’s not much of a difference. In fact, I recall some PDAs were attempting to sell at a even higher price at times. So the only way i would choose a Palm Treo model over an iPhone would be if the Palm Treo was about half the price. Another source of salvation, perhaps, would be the fact that the iPhone is not on CDMA yet. It’s only available for GSM based phones, which is a bummer for me - I’m with Telus, and hence, CDMA. But as the Motorola Razr did, they might come up with a CDMA model in a few months.
It’s an overpriced novelty item. In my humble opinion, a phone should send and recieve phone calls, at most, text messages.
This camera/phone/gaming station/ipod hybrid is overkill, and I would never purchase one, especially for a ticket price of around $600 USD.
I predict this will overtake the Hollywood sidekicks in 2007.
What do you mean by Hollywood sidekicks?
When you see the stars on TV or movies they are all using the sidekick phones (I have one).
http://www.sidekick.com/
I think you will see more of the iphones taking over for them in 2007.
Only 8 gigs for music?! I was considering buying it until I found that out. Come on Apple, that\’s not enough for a product that costs me so many hundreds.
8 Gigs of music is quite a bit though.. compared to conventional MP3 players. It’s 1/10 of my hard-drive on my laptop after all.
You obviously aren’t a big music fan, Jeff.