Cisco sues Apple for iPhone Trademark
Posted by Ray @ 12:52 pmThe news is all over the place. A smattering includes: The New York Times, The LA Times, The Associated Press (”Battalion”?).
Apparently, while the two parties were in talks to share the iPhone name, neither could agree on how it was to be shared. I’m betting Cisco said “Give up VoIP!” and Apple said “Bite me”. I don’t think Apple’s claims that their iPhone is a different device from Ciscos will hold up in a Trademark dispute, but if their lawyers can do it, more power to them.
My iPhone thoughts
Posted by Ray @ 12:01 amHere is a brief preview of the iPhone from Gizmodo. Here is another hands-on from the New York Times, and another from Time magazine. Keep in mind this phone is still in testing, and will not come out in the US until June 07. Expect to see more in the coming week, weeks and months, but the gist of it is: verrah niccccce.
Apple stocks will indubitably soar like nobody’s business.
Link to Apple’s official iPhone page.
My main thoughts:
1) The iPhone might well have the best UI of all such gadgets.
It’s a touchscreen keyboard, with the keys enlarging when you put your finger down. There’s probably some smart algorithm that decides which key you’re pressing, and there is speculation that it uses the proximity sensor to “foresee” what the user is about to press. If that feature makes the cut, and if it works, the iPhone may very well have the best ever keyboard in a mobile device.
Combine this with the multi-point features, and that’s just icing on the cake.
Yes, there is no tactile feedback, but that’s also true of projected keyboards, once thought to be the next best thing in mobile computing. Somehow they didn’t catch on. As for physical buttons, well, they have always been way too small for every day use.
The ideal would be a 99.999% accurate voice-recognition input device, but that’s still a ways off.
2) The iPhone has just killed the entire ringtone and wallpaper industry.
All of you greedy companies making huge profit margins off $3 ringtones, quake in fear. Same goes for the guys who make you pay for “additional content” like games, wallpapers and screensavers. The iPhone lets you set any one of your songs in your iTunes library as the ringtone.
The iPhone has decimated your business model. Stockholders start selling now.
Oh yes, and Singapore, I don’t know who is in charge of these things, but bring iTunes here. Our local online music providers simply cannot make it. We fall so far short of the mark that any effort put into it invites only derision. Bite the bullet. Bring iTunes here. Shut up and just do it.
3) The iPhone has the potential to really shake up the telecoms industry.
Think about it. It has an OS (a modified, but incompatible, version of Mac OSX). It has wifi. Wifi + an OS means Skype (and other VoIP programs) can easily be ported to it.
Now it’s not the first handheld / palmtop to have features like this; I’m pretty sure the O2 could do it too (I can’t remember, corrections are welcome). The difference is, the iPhone is going to sell like ice cream on a hot day. It simply has too many features and is priced too competitively for anyone else to touch them. Which means it will rapidly gain market share, making it an attractive target for developers.
Imagine using Skype to make international calls on your iPhone! Singtel can commit suicide and it’ll be no loss.
Now, there is a big reason why this might not happen. Cisco owns the trademark to “iPhone”, and Cisco’s iPhone is a VoIP phone. Cisco and Apple have been in talks, and they’re likely to sign an agreement soon. The most likely outcome of this is that Apple agrees not to compete in the VoIP space. Which means bye-bye Skype.
That doesn’t mean, however, that somebody may not hack a VoIP app up for the Apple iPhone. Of course, that’s dependent on having a viable SDK (see below).
4) Poor Blackberry. Poor RiM.
The iPhone is sleeker, sharper, cooler, better, sexier… and if any patent trolls sue Apple, they can be paid off with pocket change from iPhone sales. Remember Creative getting $100 million for their suit? Come on, that’s nothing. Apple paid Creative off and then continued to destroy the competition with the iPod.
Of course, Apple has created a large patent portfolio for their iPhone as well. And they have the money to pursue the matter in court. Trolls, beware.
Also: Palm and RiM stocks plummet. Like, ouch, dude. Check out the real-time plot.
5) Games on the iPhone!
This is probably outside Jobs’ objective. At WWDC 2005, someone asked the Apple guys about games on the iPod. Apple’s response was basically that that was not an area they were interested in.
But imagine the potential of the iPhone! Anyone with a Nintendo DS knows how fun having a touch-screen can be (Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan!). In addition, the iPhone comes with accelerometers, just like the Nintendo Wiimote and the Sony SUXASSES SIXAXIS controller. Sure, it would probably suck your battery like nobody’s business, but I bet it will be fun.
Okay, now for the bad stuff.
6) Whither the SDK?
How are developers gonna make cool apps for the iPhone if you don’t release an SDK? Come on, Steve, come on! Give developers some lovin’, here. It’ll be great, we promise you. We’ll make so much cool stuff for the iPhone!
But I somehow doubt this will come true. We’ll probably get some limited programmability in the form of widgets, but no true hardware-interfacing apps. Which is kind of sad. Also, if Apple makes an SDK then they can’t control what happens, and we all know Steve is a control freak.
7) Only 2G, not 3G
I’m not sure how much staying power the iPhone can have, being a 2G product. 3G products have been out for a while now, and if the iPhone does not switch soon, it may fall behind.
But of course, if the iPhone switches to a 3G chip fast, then there’s no incentive for early adopters to buy the iPhone and make it a standard. Which means other companies have a chance to catch up to Apple.
8) Touchscreen
Okay, so I gushed about this earlier, but there are bad points too. It’s gonna get dirty! And how are you going to type stuff on that tiny screen? Well, I could, but I could do it on my iBook much faster.
Really smart speech recognition would be much better, and would be the ultimate killer app. The idea is not new. And you know what? It’s coming soon: check out this video demonstration from Nuance Communications (pinch of salt required). The iPhone will have to compete with that. Better to just buy them off, don’t you think? (Or Apple could watch Nuance go bankrupt from a voice recognition software patent infringement lawsuit brought by VoiceSignal Technologies…)
None of that changes the fact that I want an iPhone. Now, damnit!