Slashdot Mirror
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.
"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.
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
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.
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.
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?
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.
"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
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!
From what I understood of his app when I took a look at it on Cydia, it writes to system files that the Apple T&Cs do not allow you to do. This is why it got rejected by apple for 'security concerns' (because it's writing to areas it shoudn't). Whether this is done by undocumented APIs or standard iOS APIs I do not know.
As for the name/logo. It's syncing over wifi. There are two very obvious names: "Wifi Sync" and "Sync Wifi" for this. And the logo is the most obvious choice for a logo: The composition of the wifi logo and the sync logo. If you'd have asked me to come up with a name/logo for this I would have come up with exactly the same thing. I do not think that Apple ripped him off - he's just trying to make noise.
And yes, Apple should have put wireless synching in with iOS 1...
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.