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Apple Faces Lawsuit Over Continuity Camera Patent and Antitrust Claims
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CapitalIdea
macrumors 6502a
To be fair, business/resource interests and political influence are present in any government and economic system.
ProbablyDylan
macrumors 68040
A list of ongoing litigation against Apple would be super convenient actually!
jlc1978
macrumors 604
I can see Apple doing that for products they aren't developing and then later deciding to add similar features. That doesn't mean the copied, or did not copy, IP. Some of the IP may be obvious and thus not protected, or Apple could have simply made a clean implementation without their team seeing any camo code. Or they could have copied it. I have no idea what the truth is in this case.
OTOH, Apple is big enough they may have patents that Camo violates, the old "IBM - go ahead and sue. We'll just look through our vast set of patents and fine the ones you violate; so let's talk."
While I'd prefer Apple buy such a product and incorporate it into the OS, there simply are too many programs, many of which probably violate someone's IP. Just becasue a company claims it's their IP doesn't make that a fact.
Any developer of utilities must be prepared to be Sherlocked, it's simply a fact of doing business in Apple's (or many others) eco-systems.
In our case, they just decided to stop paying license fees, claiming that they now used their own SW in the then-current iPhone. But reverse engineering showed conclusively that they were actually using our original SW. The details of the financial settlement were mandated by Apple to be confidential (of course!).
Is anyone here saying Apple didn't do it, or just that Apple might not have done it? As I wrote in a different comment, we should withhold judgment (either way) until the case is settled or otherwise resolved. Even then we likely won't know what really happened.
I7guy
macrumors Westmere
There are two extremes. The other side are those who believe Apple is automatically guilty.
My partner uses Camo - which is a great product - and wasabsolutely was first out of the gate with this.
Continuity Camera owes a pretty a big debt to it imho. Apple should've licensed the tech from them.
If you're a developer and actually like Apple in 2026, I would say that you have Stockholm Syndrome.
Continuity Camera owes a pretty a big debt to it imho. Apple should've licensed the tech from them.
If you're a developer and actually like Apple in 2026, I would say that you have Stockholm Syndrome.
zarmanto
macrumors 65816
Not saying I agree or disagree... but this was totally a missed opportunity: you should have said Sherlock Syndrome.
SanderEvers
macrumors 6502a
The_Gream
macrumors 6502
Is this something I think people at Apple could have done? 100%
Now if my memory serves me well. A $99 paid Apple developer account has access to work with Apple engineers to assist developers to make great software. What I don’t remember the agreement saying is that Apple cannot take your idea and spin up a version of their own. Specially if both companies worked very closely together to test things.
Also, who is to say, tell it might show up in court, that Apple wasn’t already working on Continuity camera function, seeing a Continuity already was a thing by that point with other functions (copy-paste across devices etc)
Two options; make sure your 3rd party product is better than the 1st party product, or sue.
Now if my memory serves me well. A $99 paid Apple developer account has access to work with Apple engineers to assist developers to make great software. What I don’t remember the agreement saying is that Apple cannot take your idea and spin up a version of their own. Specially if both companies worked very closely together to test things.
Also, who is to say, tell it might show up in court, that Apple wasn’t already working on Continuity camera function, seeing a Continuity already was a thing by that point with other functions (copy-paste across devices etc)
Two options; make sure your 3rd party product is better than the 1st party product, or sue.
jlc1978
macrumors 604
In other words, someone who doesn't share your opinion has a psychiatric disorder.
I mean, if the company is to be believed. Just like the folks that said they did nothing wrong, why did Apple remove our developer account, then it turns out they did indeed do something wrong. 🙂
Yeah, having a good idea and access to hundreds of millions of customers that like to pay for things can be life changing.
macfacts
macrumors 603
Are you thinking of EpocCam? Because that’s what came to my mind. The original version of that software appears to go back to at least 2011.
I use my GoPro as a second camera on Mac-based ZOOM sessions, so does Reincubate feel that too would be an infringement?
MacAddict1978
macrumors 68000
Hmm. So on a Mac, you have had the ability to connect a third party camera for... well, since FireWire days and webcams were invented. Apple allows a camera in a device to be used as a webcam... same way I can use my Canon Camera or DJI cameras or any cameras, just wirelessly.
This is a bit of a stretch. They'll really have to prove Apple infringed upon some proprietary tech, and since Continuity camera uses... wait for it... Bluetooth and Wi-Fi for these connections that's a hard stretch. Maybe they could claim it's APple using iCloud to connect devices... something they already did and feasible could have done before their product existed???
This isn't to say maybe Apple didn't get the idea from the developer - which was not really an original ideal exactly. But also knowing that most new features are in a piple line 2-5 years before they become releases, I'm even more skeptical.
This is a bit of a stretch. They'll really have to prove Apple infringed upon some proprietary tech, and since Continuity camera uses... wait for it... Bluetooth and Wi-Fi for these connections that's a hard stretch. Maybe they could claim it's APple using iCloud to connect devices... something they already did and feasible could have done before their product existed???
This isn't to say maybe Apple didn't get the idea from the developer - which was not really an original ideal exactly. But also knowing that most new features are in a piple line 2-5 years before they become releases, I'm even more skeptical.
I have experienced the same issues with CC … occasionally, it does work. I am probably holding it wrong.
So, the claim here is that Apple copied tech from Camo and the tech doesn't work. It sounds like high damage claims are going to be difficult to establish.