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Apple Rips Off Rejected App, Says Wireless Sync Developer
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."
in this age of corporate hypocrisy, it amazes me how any company has fanboys at all.
Apple may have been working on this functionality for iOS 5, when Hughes released his version, but that doesn't excuse the arrogant behavior. At the very least, they could have brought him in as a consultant or paid him for his efforts.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Firstly, Apple may have rejected the app precisely because they were already developing the technology for iOS5 and knew that a syncing app would be redundant when iOS5 came out (and may have got into more trouble by allowing the app and then bringing out wireless sync technology in iOS5 when an app already provided the functionality.) Also, a third party app is not the place for this technology: it should be embedded in iOS5 as Apple are doing. Secondly, the logo combines the wireless logo (which is standard and is not an invention of this student) with the sync logo (two arrows round a circle) which is again standard and predates this student's app. Combining the two in the obvious way makes sense and it is hard to think of a better way of doing it. Again, Apple may have been developing this in house before this app and thus were right to reject it as they would an app that duplicates current built in functionality of iOS.
John_Chalisque
"Since the official rejection, Hughes's app has become one of the most popular offered in the Cydia store, with more than 50,000 sold in the past 13 months. Throughout that time, Wi-Fi Sync has cost $9.99, not including occasional promotional discounts."
I wish I could come up with a rejection that earned me a few hundred grand. He must be crying while rolling around in all that money.
I like big butts and I cannot lie.
He goes on to say that they specifically told him that the Apple dev team looked at his app and were impressed.
Last I checked, that would make this a derivative work.
Learn about Photography Basics.
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
like how apple stole hardware tech from nokia, ericsson, etc and never paid them royalties?
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
For the love of God, the name of the app is "WiFi Sync". What the fuck else are they going to call an app that syncs over WiFi?
For the love of God, the name of the store is "Amazon Appstore". What the fuck else are Amazon going to call their store that sells apps?
For one, because they don't have a monopoly on "smart" phones. Having a legally recognized monopoly is not illegal. But it does restrict actions which a monopolist can take in the market place. Since Apple doesn't have 100% of the market, they clearly don't have a monopoly. So the range of actions they can take is wider than a range of actions a monopolist would.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
It's more the hypocrisy being showcased than anything. Apple are more than happy to go after a generic name that they just happened to use, and so did Amazon--yet, at the same time, they're doing the same damn thing with this. If they hadn't taken Amazon to task for using App Store, this bit would be pretty much non-issue (likewise, if they had chosen a variation on the name...maybe, 'Wireless Sync', or perhaps 'iSync' even)--then it would be simply a matter of whether or not Apple already had this in the pipe when it was submitted, and if not, if they took the idea of their own...and to a lesser degree, if they were already working on this or something like it, was it right to prevent a third-party from having their app out there being as they had no suitable solution in place themselves at the time.
I don't post AC. I like my -1, Flamebaits. Trump/Sheen 2012 on the Batshit Insane ticket!
Both Logos are a combination of the universal wifi symbol, and the universal sync symbol.
Not to mention they are both called 'WiFi Sync'...so they've taken a bunch of obvious features and packaged them together, I agree there's nothing wrong with that but I do seem to remember them suing a company for doing exactly that.
So we add another reason an app will be rejected; namely that the developer dared to write an app that competes with a future feature set.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I would never put any apps that I designed on the app store. You become just to dependent on how Apple feels and the payout aren't that good compared to what Apple gets.
One exception could be in the sole purpose of getting free publicity, but never as a source of revenue. Now, the guy has got all the publicity he deserved anyway.
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
Last I checked, that would make this a derivative work.
Not if Apple were working on theirs first, which they obviously were.
There is such a thing as a truly parallel effort. Syncing over WiFi is an obviously desirable feature and Apple can be working on a feature years before release to get it just right or wait for hardware to become powerful enough to support something.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I mean if all the Apple Haters out there think that Apple's use of the term "App Store" is too generic because it describes what it is and therefore not trademarkable, then doesn't that also apply to an app that does wi-fi sync which is called "Wi-Fi Sync?"
Why is it that anyone who disagrees with something that Apple does is branded an 'Apple Hater'? I think App Store and Wi-Fi Sync are both too generic to be trademarked, but I also have an iPad and quite like it. Just because you disagree with Apple's position on something doesn't mean you hate the whole company.
So if a wi-fi syncing app called Wi-Fi Sync is obvious, therefore Apple can steal...er...appropriate it for its own use without repercussions, then I would assume by the same token that a store selling apps called App Store is obvious, therefore anyone can appropriate the name for their own use as well. Apple, what say you?
[...] or perhaps 'iSync' even)
They're already using "iSync", they have been using that name for a long time. Interestingly enough the logo for iSync is the whole "spinning arrows" bit around the standard wifi symbol that this app author uses.
Yes, I'm implying that he basically combined the commonly used image for syncing with the commonly used image for wifi and bitched about how Apple "stole" his logo design like it was somehow unique and special...
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
In economics, a monopoly (from Greek monos / (alone or single) + polein / (to sell)) exists when a specific individual or an enterprise has sufficient control over a particular product or service to determine significantly the terms on which other individuals shall have access to it.
The main issue is leverage. Can anyone argue that Apple *doesn't* have leverage?
"The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well."
I agree, that's why I do not develop anything apple centric although I have looked at the possibility.
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
But in this case the important market statistic is not the number of *smartphones* sold, it's the number of smartphone *apps* sold. The monopoly in question is developer access to the platform, not customer access.
Besides, who really give a crap about market share by units? Market share by profit margin is all that really matters. Apple makes a metric crapload of money on each device (the Android manufacturers make a lot less, and Google makes almost nothing).
And more relevant to this thread, Apple has almost 70% of the smartphone app market by number of apps, and over 90% of the market by sales. Statistics over the last year have clearly shown Android users just don't like paying for apps the way iPhone users do. That's more than enough leverage over app developers.
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?
Because Microsoft had a monopoly on the operating system market, Apple doesn't have a monopoly on the smarphone market.
I don't think you fully understand the definition of a monopoly. It's not simply the market share.
I don't think you're fully capable of comprehending what is clearly written, I never once even made any mention of market share.
"I don't think you fully understand the definition of a monopoly. It's not simply the market share."
No, he doesn't. Not only is it not just market share, but it's not just the smartphone market. Apple has a dominant position in digital music distribution. More importantly, it's not a matter of monopoly, but antitrust behavior. Illegal antitrust behavior does not require a monopoly position - merely restraint of trade or an "attempt to monopolize." Refusing a competitor access to a sole market sure seems to be that.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I'm with you on the App Store thing, although to be fair, if you look at Google Trends for the terms 'app' and 'app store' you can see that while the term "app" was certainly in use before the iPhone, indication is that its use, and the use of the term 'app store' took off significantly after Apple announced that they'd be opening the App Store via iTunes. While I think an 'app store' is just a store for apps, I can see why Apple's legal team feels they have a leg to stand on.
Hypocrisy cuts both ways. The people who reacted most strongly to the Apple vs. Amazon thing are likely the people who are doing their best to call out Apple for this "theft".
The CB App. What's your 20?
That's BS. It's the exact same functionality with the exact same name and damn near the exact same logo. If it were one or two of those things, I might be willing to chalk it up to coincidence or obviousness. But the whole trifecta? After Apple engineers have had exclusive access to his app and acknowledged that they were impressed by it? And after it's been highly visible on Cydia? (If you don't think Apple engineers are looking at Cydia apps, I've got a bridge I'd like to sell you...) To pretend like it's all just some big coinkidink?
No sir, I don't buy it, not for a damn minute. I think they were impressed with his app so much that they decided to add it to their own feature list to be implemented, turn it down to deny him money and reputation he should have been earning, saw it doing well on Cydia, and pushed it out as an "upgrade" so that everyone will be zealously adoring of how smart they are for something they should have had working from day one and that someone else smarter than them figured out before they could.
This was blatant abuse of their power as gatekeeper of the one and only official app store. It's disgusting, and while I'm usually not a fan of IP lawsuits, I hope this guy wins a million or three in damages for what Apple denied to him. He has provable damages and has them dead to rights for wholesale stealing his work. In the US, this would be an obvious violation of copyright and probably trademark too. Hopefully in the UK they have similar enough laws that it would be there, too.
And what the hell difference does it make if they asked him for his résumé? Did they offer him a job? Apparently not. If anything, that sounds patronizing to me, kind of like, "Let's dote some praise on the guy whose work we're going to steal. Maybe he'll just stupidly go away and not bother us."
And yeah, it pisses me off even more that these are the same bastards that go after people who have the unmitigated gall to call something iWhatever or offer to sell apps in a--gasp!--app store!
And I'm sure he used some interesting and impressive hacks to trick the iphone into wirelessly syncing.
Well **IF** he went the undocumented API route then there would be no conspiracy regarding the app rejection. Undocumented APIs are an automatic rejection, it may even be part of the automated prescreening process -- completely automated, no human judgement call.
Why should Apple be different?
Because the situation is completely different.
MS used undocumented OS features in Office, leveraging their OS to advantage in selling a separate expensive app suite which was in direct competition with third party products in a standard category of user app software.
In this case, the app, which broke stated rules in using a private API, clearly was treading in areas relating to core OS functionality. Users must not be subjected to modifications that may break when the OS is updated. A syncing utility can strongly affect network traffic, device speed, bandwidth costs, battery life, local or remote data loss or corruption... (error handling must account for many possible situations). Clearly such sensitive areas are appropriately controlled by Apple in order to uniformly achieve optimal performance.
Apple is not selling a competing app.
Some of the things Apple has developed or enhanced have been made open source in the interests of advancing the art, and can actually be used by competitors.
I believe a couple of those technologies would be called on by a well written syncing utility. Bonjour a service discovery protocol, and launchd a unified, service management framework for starting, stopping and managing daemons, applications, processes, and scripts. Obviously Apple started working with syncing many years ago.
Apple has promoted open-standards and has put a great deal of effort into Webkit, an open source browser technology that is widely used (in Apple's Safari, and also on Android)
There are people that look for excuses to bash Apple. This isn't a situation where that is appropriate. Someone submitted an app that broke rules, and now some whine about the consequences. It's destructive and distracting enough when political parties banter over nonsense. Shouldn't people with some technological understanding attempt to rise above that sort of thing? Time to move along...
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Launchd
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Bonjour_(software)
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Webkit
Hmmm no. You don't have to have 100% marketshare to be a monopolist, but enough to negatively effect both customers and competitors.
Which Microsoft obviously had in spades.
Riiiight. Just like Nintendo has a "monopoly" on Wii's and Ford has a "monopoly" on Mustangs.
You're using that word, "monopoly", it it doesn't mean whatever it is you think it means.
To be fair, we DID have THE best machine compared to anything else at the time (and for a few years after!).
Waiting for an amusing sig.
> FWIW, silly policy rejecting apps that duplicate iOS function, but it is in the rules. I am not surprised the app was rejected.
I think you missed the point. The function is not available in iOS.
What? How are those things in any way opposed? Can Apple not copy two things at once? I thought their mobile developers could handle multitasking these days.
The app was out a year before this feature was included in iOS. To make matters even more insulting, they've copied the design of the icon this guy created for his own app. They're spitting in his face. Try RTFA instead of trying to pretend to yourself like Apple are always good guys.
which is totally what she said
I think you missed the entire point of TFA, which was an entire year before they announced their "feature" this guy had ALREADY submitted an app which they shamelessly ripped off for their OS, right down to the logo.
Now this is one time when I can honestly say I hope some land shark of an attorney really tears into them and costs them shitloads of money. I mean seriously, how much would it have cost just to buy the guy out? Not much I wager, instead they rip off the little guy and give him nothing but the finger. Well i hope that attitude costs them a nice boatload of money and this guy gets to sit back in the sun sipping his beer and lighting cigars with $100 bills by the time this is over. Talk about sorry!
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
The Catholic Church has a nearly 2,000 year history, has been the state religion in much of the world for most of the time it's been present in various regions, and ironically, the Catholic Church fully recognizes the imperfection of its own members and clerics.
I'd also add that the Pope is probably also zen-like in his humility compared to Steve Jobs. Which is ironic since he's allegedly the Vicar of Christ which essentially means he's Jesus' regent on Earth and when he speaks for the Catholic Church, he's allegedly infallible.
I think you missed the entire point of TFA, which was an entire year before they announced their "feature" this guy had ALREADY submitted an app which they shamelessly ripped off for their OS, right down to the logo.
I'm not a developer but software like this isn't created in a week is it? I'm sure Apple has many plans for new features to it's software in the works and frameworks that are being built on the next upcoming release (iOS 5.0) that will enable future features that many could guess are coming but either the software or hardware just isn't there yet.
This is not a new or innovative function. I've been doing this with my Palm Tungsten E since I got a bluetooth signal for my PC way back when. Also did he copy the syncing arrows off of Palm? Cause that's what theirs looks like as well. Add in the universal symbol for wireless and you have a pretty standard icon for what many would come up with for wireless syncing.
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To make matters even more insulting, they've copied the design of the icon this guy created for his own app.
In all fairness, the guy named his app "Wi-Fi Sync", which is pretty functional as far as naming goes - definitely not much creativity went into the name. His logo is the Apple toolbar wireless icon surrounded by the Apple toolbar sync icon, stylized a bit into an oval rather than a perfect circle. Again, pretty functional and not much to "steal". It doesn't surprise me that Apple would pick the same name, nor that their art department would come up with a similar logo given the name.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
This is hilarious. Do you need me to provide links for Apple Mail accidentally deleting mail, or the OS X Finder accidentally deleting files? And what about the bug-ridden iOS Mail program?
Looks to me like it was the guy who copied Apple's icons in the first place - it's an exact copy of the WiFi icon plus a copy of the Time Machine icon. WOW! He deserves to be a millionaire!
May 5th 2010 to June 6th 2011 is hardly a week.
That's not really relevant though. I see no issue with Apple copying something obvious and useful. But blocking third-parties from implementing it and then a year later announcing precisely the same thing seems clearly anticompetitive to me.