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iPod Shuffle Lookalike Hits CeBIT
An anonymous reader writes "It shouldn't be long before Apple's legal team goes after this one. LuxPro out of Taiwan introduced the Super Shuffle at CeBit, a look-a-like portable that is identical to the iPod Shuffle right down to the sihouette ads, but with the addition of an FM tuner and voice recording."
I saw this a week or so ago, and the first thing what wandered through my mind was not 'They are going to get sued' but 'So this is the OEM version of the Shuffle eh?'.
There has been a lot of speculation that Apple never designed the Shuffle but bought it in from outside, guess we will find out if and when Apple sue over it.
This lawsuit-bait would almost be worth considering if it had an AM radio. I wonder why these things include FM radio only. Perhaps the AM radio hardware is much more expensive. Regardless, it is much less useful without it. An FM radio is sort of redundant. I use FM radio for music, and there are already music files on the player. I use AM radio for news, and there aren't news MP3's.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Exactly what I think, when cd players first arrived, they all looked the same, round shape, same controls, etc... but it didn't matter, since it was serving a purpose.
If you think you need to worry because someone else's product looks like yours, you have a problem. This means your whole sales concept is based on a look. I would be far more worried about a product that has more functionnalities, or cheaper.
I don't know about you, but my mp3 player is always in my pocket, so how it looks doesn't really matter. On the other hand, maybe most people buy the shuffle for it's look. Odd world.
So how much are they? can they undercut apple but a significant amount?
even if they're a blatant ripoff, I'd buy one if they were cheap.
I am here at CeBit and have been a bit amazed at a couple of look a like iPod mini's and iPod's as well. Apple will easily stop this in the US under "trade dress" litigation.
I also wondered, what are they (the manufacturers that knock off almost exact copies) thinking!?
Real men don't need signitures!!!
This thing most likely uses the same GUTS even as the iPod shuffle, the chip in the shuffle already supports FM radio, Apple (like any sensible company) didn't provide it out of clean UI design.
They probably make them in the factory next door to the clone factory they make the iPod Shuffle in.
r -m p3-player.aspt g/detail/-/B000 08AJSO/002-0805304-2818432?v=glance
When Steve Jobs got on stage in 2004 and poo-poohed flash music players, concentrating on the high end, I was livid. He was talking about flash music players as if the big bulky high-end were the only possible competition. I immediately went to Apple's site and sent in a suggestion that if they thought flash music players were $200 behemoths they ought to have a look at the music player I'd bought for my daughter back in late 2002 or early 2003. It cost me $70 and it had the minimum features imaginable... no screen, no way to select specific songs, you just plugged it in like a flash drive and copied MP3 files over... and it played them in whatever random order they landed in memory.
I had even figured out the way to use iTunes with this player to get the equivalent of what they later called their "Autofill" function using their Party Shuffle. Sure, it only held a couple CDs worth of songs, but you could reload them when you recharged the battery overnight... so who cared?
Apart from the "reshuffle" ability, and the memory size (after all, this was 3 years ago), it was functionally identical to what Apple released a year later as the iPod Shuffle. It was a little bigger than the shuffle, but not much, and even hung from a lanyard like the Shuffle does. Oh, Apple's definitely done their usual wonderful job of [re]design... but all in all the Shuffle is just a few tweaks applied to the Magic Star "Gray Whale" MP3 player:
http://pc-memory-upgrade.co.uk/memory/magic-sta
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/
The killer feature of the Shuffle, for me, is that the 512M Shuffle is cheaper than the 512M "Gray Whale"! This may be the first time in memory that an Apple product was less expensive than the third-party equivalent... but it's got a lot less of Apple in it than most people seem to think.
Only in the case that it is in fact a trademark. As Apple does not display a (R) logo for a registered mark or even a (T) logo for a trademark then I assumed that they did not assert one.
It appears that they've applied for a registered mark on their logo (but not the word itself, from what I grok), but haven't yet been granted a registered trademark on the SHUFFLE logo as of now.
This kind of ripoff is actually quite common. I see Rbok and Nke shoes all of the time and they are cheaply made direct copies of the originals. In fact, many Chinese factories that make the original will also do the ripoffs using the same equipment, just different grades of electronics, plastices and other items. It even goes as far as cars. I read a article in Time where knock offs cost not just the computer industry, but almost every industry on the planet. Callaway golf clubs, Yamaha Motorcycles, Nikon cameras, etc etc....
I bet this Super Shuffle does not even work with Apple's DRM'd files.
Gorkman
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Is the Shuffle made in Taiwan as well?
Gorkman
Shuffle is the name of a standard function on music players. Saying that Apple's trademark is violated is the same as me calling my CD burning software "Multi-session" and then objecting to someone else using the same word in their product. If Apple wanted strong protection, they should have went with a less generic name.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2005/03/super _shuffle_f.html
....
The Shuffle wasn't the only thing they copied
Could it be that the reason the supply of shuffles is so inelastic to demand is that Apple and its OEM are having a cat-fight, and this is a power play by Lux?
Have not seen this dicsussed yet but I ordered a shuffle 7 days after it's debut from mac mall and have yet to recieve it. I checked around and all re-sellers are out or have cryptic notices like we dont gaurentee in stock at time of order. Mac mall says they have 4000 orders they cant fill.
On the other hand if you go to apple's store they are delivering with 1-3 day ship delays. Obiously they in a position where demand outstrips supply and as a result are taking the sales premium for themselves (that is they pocket the profit thed lose at the MSRP by letting someone else sell it.).
So my guess is that Lux is the OEM for these and is squeezing apple by only producing the contracted number. THey have excess capacity or are holding back expanding in return for some concession form apple like letting them re-sel their own version. Apple cant bit the hand till the find another maker.
Or so I wildly speculate.
So do you have an ipod on order from other than apple. Where sis you order it from and how long did you wait. I perhaps foolishly in hindsight, ordered from mac mall because the ipod shuffle came with a load of freebies ( senhieser headphones, a second set of ear buds, and some base station speakers from logictech.) A good deal if I could just get it delivered before ski season ends....
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
It might be pointed out that one of the chief negatives against the entire iPod line is that it possess lower audio quality than competing manufacturers.
This is the first time reading someone being concerned over the iPods' audio quality. I've read reports on the contrary, where audiophiles could not find problems with it. I wonder what the Consumer Reports report had to say, which the web page author refers to.
Apple certainly do not deserve to be ripped off. There is nothing stopping this company from producing shuffle like device in a different color and slightly differnet shape than the iPod shuffle. That they haven't done that, and made it visually identical with identical advertising is both illegal AND immoral.
Try new Anonymous Coward Lite! Opinionated, and low in facts!
Apple has actually spanked MS a number of times in the last ten years, lawsuit-wise. The problem is that as soon as it begins to look like Apple is winning, MS immediately settles. One of the settlement conditions is always that neither of the principals will discuss the settlement, so it takes a little digging to get the information, but there are always some leaks.
For example, there was the company that MS paid a rather surprising amount of money to get a copy of Apple's QuickTime source code from. At the time, MS's video player was less than half the speed of Apple's, on Windows. So they just appropriated huge chunks of code wholesale from Apple's software. And, when Apple took them to court, they settled out of court. According to the best scuttlebutt available, the large MS investment in Apple in the late 90s, and the agreement to continue developing MS Office for the Mac, were part of the settlement.
-fred
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