xtunes Forced to Change Name, Appearance by Apple Lawyers

A user writes, "xTunes was an Open Source project that replicated much of the interface, functionality, and ease of use of iTunes. Apple's army of lawyers has forced them to change their name and redesign the interface." The new name of the project is sumi.

Comments

Sumi? Sosumi!

[Xenex]

Hell, even their 'witty' name is ripping off the name Apple Computer came up with for a system sound after predicting a lawsuit from Apple Records.

These guys at from the app-formerly-known-as-xtunes project need to learn a thing or two about originality!

Re:Ugh

[babbage]

1. Apple comes out with cool software product

This isn't entirely correct. Yes, iTunes is Apple's product, and I don't doubt that they've put a good deal of work into it. However, the foundation isn't theirs, they just bought it off the people that developed the MP3 player SoundJam. I can't find a link with the details at the moment, but this will do for now:

By the way, if iTunes sounds a lot like SoundJam (reviewed here in October 1999), it is. SoundJam has some additional features -- a graphic equalizer, custom "themes" (a.k.a. "skins"), more visual effects, and better sound quality. But it also costs $50 and doesn't have iTunes' cool browser or fast search features. Frankly, I think iTunes is all the MP3 player most people will ever want or need. (For what it's worth, the same programmers wrote both iTunes and SoundJam.)

Ahh, of couse, also see SoundJam.com:

Important Information for Our Customers

Casady & Greene, Inc. ceased publication of SoundJam MP on June 1, 2001 at the request of its developers. We believe that SoundJam MP will continue to give our customers long and useful service, and, in keeping with our philosophy of putting our customers first, Casady & Greene will continue to offer tech support to SoundJam MP owners. The SoundJam development team is now working for Apple on their popular iTunes jukebox software, and will continue to work on exciting and innovative products for Mac users.

Anyway, I thought there may have been a Windows version of SoundJam, but at the moment I'm not turning anything up, Mac or otherwise....

Answers.

[Anonymous Coward]

'X' is 10. I don't think it's called the Ten Window System. Ten11 is a silly name too.

'eMac' is 'education Mac'. Besides, 'eMac' is different then 'emacs'. Everyone knows that any decent UNIX is case sensitive (I run OS X on UFS).

'Xserve' is obviously short for 'Mac OS X Server'. Don't expect me to explain why it's not pronounced "TenServe" though.

As for iCal, Apple created the i[insert name here] format of naming. They have a supreme right over it.

Any more questions? :P

Where's the "forced" part?

[droleary]

It sounds like they got a simple cease-and-desist saying "It seem like a lot of what you have is derived from our product and we'd like you to make changes." They agreed and made changes. It's not like they defended the thing in court and lost. Apple may have been the bully, but these guys are the ones who just gave them their lunch money instead of making them fight for it.

Notes and Rhythms

[toddhisattva]

I have never understood how Apple's Look-and-Feel lawsuits are substantially different from, for instance, a musician suing over Notes-and-Rhythms. The look and feel of software can take more work than the code and data (especially with GUIs), and are just as much parts of the product.

Indeed, the objections to L&F suits stem from a Command Line Mentality, from a world without look and feel. Of course the critics think UI is trivial because they've never thought about it. stdin, stdout, stderr are all anyone really needs, right?

It was the late 80s, and CLI was still the mainstay. It's obvious that the evil judge Vaughan Walker was stuck in the CLI mentality. Truly an exemplar of the saying, "what do you call a lawyer with an IQ of 80? 'Your Honor.'"