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Apple Rips Off Rejected App, Says Wireless Sync Developer

Posted by timothy on from the excuse-me-were-you-using-that-app-and-logo dept.

Haedrian writes "Apple is famous for going to absurd lengths to enforce its patents and trademarks. It recently sued Amazon for calling its app store Appstore. And it has publicly lectured competitors to 'create their own original technology, not steal ours.' Last year, UK developer Greg Hughes submitted an app for wirelessly syncing iPhones with iTunes libraries, which was rejected from the official App Store. Fast forward to Monday, when Apple unveiled a set of new features for the upcoming iOS 5, including the same wireless-syncing functionality. Cupertino wasn't even subtle about the appropriation, using the precise name and a near-identical logo to market the technology."

2 of 549 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Violate the TOS? by msauve · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Didn't Microsoft lose an anti-trust suit (2002) for using undocumented Windows APIs to their own advantage against independent developers? Why should Apple be different?

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
  2. Re:Corporate arrogance by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    They did ask for his resume when they rejected his app.

    The whole thing is ridiculous. I'm a huge Apple hater but only because usually it's Apple claiming this nonsense *cough app store* but it's clearly an obvious idea that iPhones competitors already do. And his logo is just a composition of the universal icons for Sync and Wifi. (Then again his logo is substantially more legible, so bravo to him)

    And I'm sure he used some interesting and impressive hacks to trick the iphone into wirelessly syncing. Apple has no need to do that, they can just add APIs directly to the OS so there is no need to steal his code.

    Furthermore, even the developer doesn't seem to care.