How Apple Kept the iPhone Secret

An anonymous reader writes "Bogus prototypes, bullying the press, stifling pillow talk — all to keep iPhone under wraps. Fortune's Peter Lewis goes inside one of the year's biggest tech launches. One of the most astonishing things about the new Apple iPhone, introduced yesterday by Steve Jobs at the annual Macworld trade show, is how Apple managed to keep it a secret for nearly two-and-a-half years of development while working with partners like Cingular, Yahoo and Google."

Comments

Re:Agreed

[blackicye]

Actually I'm currently using a smartphone that I thoroughly enjoy using.

Its a Motorola E680i, it uses standard SD Cards
and yes it does run linux.

Their two new models, the A1200 and the E6,
also run linux and use standard SD cards.

Re:Secret? What secret?

[mrchaotica]

I'd think [Apple would] get sued for trademark infringement.

I'd think Apple would have a pretty good defense: either that "i[Whatever]" tends to be automatically associated with it nowadays anyway, or that "i[Whatever]" is such a diluted term that it's un-trademark-able.

In fact, this is one case where I'd almost think Apple has grounds to sue Cisco, not the other way around. People at Cisco must have heard about the long-standing rumors of the [Apple] iPhone (even the rumors were using that name); to release a product of the same name makes them look like squatters intentionally trying to profit off Apple's mindshare.

You can tell that the word "iPhone" was always associated with Apple in several ways:

• "iPhone Apple" gets twice as many hits on Google as iPhone Cisco" (for some reason, GoogleFight gives different results, but Apple still wins)
• most of the first-page hits on Google for "iPhone" (without any company name) are about the Apple version (and half the remainder are about a third "iPhone," which is apparently a VOIP service not associated with Cisco)
• the official company website for the Cisco iPhone doesn't even appear on the first page of Google results while the Apple one is the top hit

and, most persuasive IMHO:

• the [Apple] "iPhone" Wikipedia article has existed since 29 June 2005, while the "iPhone (Linksys)" article has only existed since 19 December 2006.

Even the mere fact that the Apple article uses the generic term, while the Linksys one requires the qualifier, should be a huge clue. The bottom line is this: if anyone has a claim to the term "iPhone," it's Apple, not Cisco.