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App Store Updates: iPad Swiping, Chinese Yuan, Kindle Fire Added to Amazon Lawsuit
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Apps -> value add plus lock-in
Apps make your iPhone vastly more valuable than a phone that only ran built-in apps. But they also give Apple some healthy lock-in power as well. Too hard and/or expensive to switch platforms if you have a significant investment in apps.
Coincidentally, that's why Steve Jobs was so anti-DRM. Apple benefited hugely from convincing the recording industry to allow DRM-free music. No proprietary lock-in with bizarre formats (Sony ATRAC, etc.) The competition's customers weren't forced to stay, and most ended up with iPods.
Oh, and that kind of ignorance is why Android is popular. "If I can't get a real iPhone, just give me the droid that looks the most like an iPhone."
Apps make your iPhone vastly more valuable than a phone that only ran built-in apps. But they also give Apple some healthy lock-in power as well. Too hard and/or expensive to switch platforms if you have a significant investment in apps.
Coincidentally, that's why Steve Jobs was so anti-DRM. Apple benefited hugely from convincing the recording industry to allow DRM-free music. No proprietary lock-in with bizarre formats (Sony ATRAC, etc.) The competition's customers weren't forced to stay, and most ended up with iPods.
Oh, and that kind of ignorance is why Android is popular. "If I can't get a real iPhone, just give me the droid that looks the most like an iPhone."
Just going to point out in for Kleenex and Bounty the companies made a point of providing a generic term for their product and using that generic term when describing others.
Apple on the other hand failed to do both those. They used the term app store generically multiple times. You have keynots from their CEO Steve Jobs using "app store" to describe Google's Market, Blackberry's Appword and Microsoft's Marketplace.
That kind of kills a good chunk of Apple's arguments of the term is not generic. It hard to argue that when ones own CEO used it that way in public keynotts. This does not include it being used by the press that way time and time again.
Even if Apple somehow wins the trademark they still have to win again in court that the term is not generic. Getting the trademark is going to be the easier for the two battles for Apple. Amazon only has to win one of them. Apple has to win them both and both are going to be a huge up hill battle for Apple.
"App" has existed for decades, as we've demonstrated over and over again here. Adding "Store" to the end of the thing you buy there has been done for centuries, I imagine, allowing for language change. Claiming to own "App Store" is as ridiculous as if they called their Apple Stores "Computer Stores" and claimed it was a trademarkable term.
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Again, "app" has been in use for decades. Apple may have made it more common, but that's not creation, and that doesn't provide ownership.
You are confusing generic with popular.
Generic does not mean everyone in the public uses it. It could be limited to a single industry. All Apple did was take a generic term and cause the general public to know about it but does not change the fact that it was generic before hand. I can think of several terms from different industries that are generic but I also know most of the public has never heard those terms and I would and have gotten strange looks from people when I started using them in a convocations with someone else.
Apple needs exactly one lawsuit for every infringement of its intellectual property rights...not one less nor one more!
There has been very little in the way of proven, actual infringement of Apple's IP rights. Lots of allegations, mind you.
Repatriation of Apple's Foreign Cash
The mention of Apple accepting payments in yuan makes me wonder how the decision to accept currencies plays into Apple's overseas cash. Several companies, including Apple, have been lobbying for a kind tax holiday in which they could move their foreign-held cash back to the U.S. without paying as high taxes on it.
While accepting yuan in this huge market could only stand to increase Apple's foreign currency reserves, this may also be one of the few places where that's not an issue; if Apple can turn those yuan around to pay their Chinese manufacturing partners, they may have a large deficit in the amount of yuan needed to pay those suppliers.
(This also makes me wonder if Apple could structure things so as to pay Chinese suppliers with excess cash from other countries without being taxed by China, thereby never having the cash touch the U.S. and become taxable.)
Just curious...
The mention of Apple accepting payments in yuan makes me wonder how the decision to accept currencies plays into Apple's overseas cash. Several companies, including Apple, have been lobbying for a kind tax holiday in which they could move their foreign-held cash back to the U.S. without paying as high taxes on it.
While accepting yuan in this huge market could only stand to increase Apple's foreign currency reserves, this may also be one of the few places where that's not an issue; if Apple can turn those yuan around to pay their Chinese manufacturing partners, they may have a large deficit in the amount of yuan needed to pay those suppliers.
(This also makes me wonder if Apple could structure things so as to pay Chinese suppliers with excess cash from other countries without being taxed by China, thereby never having the cash touch the U.S. and become taxable.)
Just curious...
If you want groceries you go to the grocery store
If you want a pet you go to the pet store
If you want apps you go to the app store
The term app has been around a lot longer than Apple has, give it up.
Frivolous lawsuit indeed.
If you want a pet you go to the pet store
If you want apps you go to the app store
The term app has been around a lot longer than Apple has, give it up.
Frivolous lawsuit indeed.
I thought Apple invented the grocery store and the pet store too.
Apple didn't "invent" them, but Apple patented someone elses' inventions....
As usual....
For those interested, in 2002 Sony Ericsson released their P800 smart phone device - below shown sporting Doom3D.
In 2003, this device came was blissed with what was called an Application Shop. Said shop existed both online, and client-side. The client side shop was basically a catalogue, with screenshots, reviews, descriptions etc. Further, it was neatly categorized depending on the nature of the application. Payments were processed by the application itself, making app purchases safe and easy.
Apple is generic but non-descriptive; Apple are not dealing in Apples - thus, they are fine.
Apps are generic and descriptive; App Stores are dealing in Apps - thus, they are not fine.
As for the Cloud, as i recall it Apple has been shown to have "copied" its logo in first place. Second, if one uses a generic, descriptive icon to represent "the cloud", one makes sense in calling foul when others do the same. Same argument as with App Stores really.
Its a cloud representing the cloud - deal with it.
p.s.
Apple did not come up with the word Pad. Not sure exactly who did, but i know for a fact that Mark Weiser (PARC) used it in his classification of various-sized computers, back in the 80's. In 1991, he wrote:
So yeah, they wouldnt have a case there either, if Samsung started selling the GalaxyPad (rather than GalaxyTab).
In 2003, this device came was blissed with what was called an Application Shop. Said shop existed both online, and client-side. The client side shop was basically a catalogue, with screenshots, reviews, descriptions etc. Further, it was neatly categorized depending on the nature of the application. Payments were processed by the application itself, making app purchases safe and easy.
Apple is generic but non-descriptive; Apple are not dealing in Apples - thus, they are fine.
Apps are generic and descriptive; App Stores are dealing in Apps - thus, they are not fine.
As for the Cloud, as i recall it Apple has been shown to have "copied" its logo in first place. Second, if one uses a generic, descriptive icon to represent "the cloud", one makes sense in calling foul when others do the same. Same argument as with App Stores really.
Its a cloud representing the cloud - deal with it.
p.s.
Apple did not come up with the word Pad. Not sure exactly who did, but i know for a fact that Mark Weiser (PARC) used it in his classification of various-sized computers, back in the 80's. In 1991, he wrote:
The next step up in size [after Tabs] is the pad, something of a cross between a sheet of paper and current laptop and palmtop computers . . .
So yeah, they wouldnt have a case there either, if Samsung started selling the GalaxyPad (rather than GalaxyTab).
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