Cisco Sues Apple Over iPhone Trademark
January 11th, 2007 by Stephen
Since Apple moved to OS X and built a solid Unix core at the heart of their products, I have been in love with their systems. I currently have three Macs with a fourth due sometime in the spring.
I have an iPod video too, and believe that Apple’s attention to detail, aesthetics and technology are a great boon to the IT industry.
I have been a long time Linux user, and before that I have used other Unix systems since the 1980s, but Apple computers are the first Unix machines I have been able to recommend to non technical friends and family (and with great success. I am slowly converting everyone I know to Macs).
So it was with joy that I saw the iPhone announced the other day. This phone (running OS X) is the future of telephony in my opinion.
But my joy turned to dismay at the news that Apple had once again decided that rather than settle a trademark dispute, they would try to continue to use someone else’s trademark and railroad them into submission. This time it is Cisco’s iPhone trademark that Apple are ignoring.
This is not a new departure for Apple, who have already succesfully beaten off Apple Corps, the Beatles label, in violation of an earlier agreement to share the trademark, where Apple Corps had the rights to the name in the field of music.
There have been some less obvious claimants that Apple has defeated over trademarks. The fact of the matter is that, for all their better products, their cool hardware, their open source operating system and their attention to detail – Apple is still an old fashioned company in the mould of Microsoft.
I still love Apple kit, and I’ll still recommend it. But each time Apple acts like a big corporate monstrosity, I become a little less enthusiastic.
And in the meantime, Ubuntu Linux is almost as good as Apple for usability. Mix that with a range of hardware that really works, and Apple computers will not be the only Unix boxes I would recommend to my mother.
