Is it time for another apple related shit storm yet ????

[blue2blue]

 

I can certainly understand why one could be bothered by a policy or a decision that a company makes. But hating a whole company? I don't get it either. Best, Geoff

 

Some of you guys seem to be failing to recognize the 800 pound correlation in the room: there's been an explosion in the number of Apple products in people's hands -- many people who had only regarded Apple from afar now have Apple phones, computers and such. And there has been a corresponding rise in the amount of critical comments.

 

Familiarity breeds... you know.

 

 

Economic Times: Apple most criticised brand in blogosphere

 

 

 

With regard to net standards, open software development and other geek issues -- that may deeply bother development oriented folks like Lee and me -- but that's a tiny sliver.

 

(And, for the record, I don't hate Apple and I'm quite sure Lee doesn't either. I definitely am quite critical of some of their policies and some of their strategies seem disruptive to the marketplace and shortsighted -- but, you know, I'm always ticked off at one or more big companies who are doing things I consider deleterious to geekdom and western civilization in general. Heck, ask me how I feel about Oracle -- one of the most notoriously draconian companies in the tech sector who have now strategically gained control of some of the most important core products in the open source software world. They scare the hell out of me.)

[Bookumdano2]

If you're not picky about the type of "storm", here's one -

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/iPod-iPhone-Accessories-Asia-Law,11094.html

[the stranger]

From '08, but I never caught wind of it:

 

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2008/04/apple_vs_apple#

 

At issue is the emblem for New York City's GreeNYC campaign, which has started to appear around the city on bus shelters, hybrid gasoline-electric taxicabs and even Whole Foods shopping bags. The GreeNYC logo shows a stylized apple with a stalk and a leaf. It bears a resemblance to Apple's famous logo -- a resemblance Apple says infringes on its trademark. The city has applied for a trademark on the logo, but Apple has filed a formal opposition (.pdf) obtained by Wired.com. The Cupertino, California, company calls for the trademark to be denied, claiming the city's logo will confuse people and "seriously injure the reputation which [Apple] has established for its goods and services." Read More http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2008/04/apple_vs_apple##ixzz0wtbVhHNV

 

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Absolutely ridiculous if you ask me. I mean, come on...New York was using the apple long before Jobs:

 

The Big Apple is a nickname for New York City. It was first popularized in the 1920s by John J. Fitz Gerald, a sports writer for the New York Morning Telegraph. Its popularity since the 1970s is due to a promotional campaign by the New York Convention and Visitors Bureau, known now as NYC & Company. - wiki

 

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What's funny is here was the real story:

 

Unlike all those previous Apple trademark disputes, this isn't a true lawsuit, and Apple hasn't sued anyone -- the city of New York has filed a trademark application for the GreeNYC apple-shaped logo with the Patent and Trademark Office, and Apple has filed its opposition to that application. That's an important part of the trademark registration process, actually: every single trademark application has to go through a 30-day opposition period during which interested third parties can raise their objections. We'd say it's pretty obvious that Apple's got an interest in other apple-shaped trademarks, so it's not particularly surprising that it's taking the first available opportunity to speak up about this one. After the trademark applicant responds to the objection in writing (what some people have been wrongly calling NYC's "counterclaim"), the Trademark Trial and Appeals Board gathers evidence and makes a decision. We'd almost be willing to bet that never happens, though -- after all the lawyers are done strutting around and promising victory, it's likely that Apple and NYC simply come to an amicable licensing agreement. Bottom line? This is exactly how the system is supposed to work, and Apple is just protecting its billion-dollar brand as best it can -- thousands of these oppositions are filed by all sorts of companies each year. http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/03/apple-vs-nyc-whats-really-going-on/

 

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So, I guess the moral of the story is:

 

1. The legal system is completely insane.

2. Never believe anything until you exhaust all possible avenues of research to determine what the real story is, minus the spin.

3. Apple are still jerks.