Apple iPhone to Cingular GSM Network
Apple Computer unveiled the iPhone, a new entry into the cellular market. The iPhone will be featured on the Cingular GSM network. The phone features a 3.5-inch color touchscreen and two-megapixel camera. Users can access a touchscreen QWERTY keyboard to compose e-mails and messages.
Although music phones aren't all the rage (all phones have MP3 capabilties nowadays, some with iTunes applications.) Also, the new iPhone doesn’t support Cingular’s W-CDMA/HSDPA network—an odd omission for a new multimedia phone—but offers Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE network connections. And Jobs is targeting high-end users by including smartphone functionality including contacts, calendar and the ability to synch with either Macs and PCs.
Some other criticisms include high learning curve, essentially not your entry level phone. Also tech savvy people will be able to 'grasp' the complex iPhone, or at least some complain it to be so.
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January 11th, 2007 at 11:24 pm
Cisco Systems and Apple are in a million dollar battle to see who will walk away owner of the name "IPhone.'' In a lawsuit, Cisco asked a judge to forbid Apple from using the name "IPhone,'' a Cisco trademark since 2000. The case hinges in part on whether Apple's phone could confuse shoppers looking to buy Cisco's IPhones.
Expect to see Apple sit around court and battle it out. They clearly knew about the Cisco phone beforehand and merely calculated the risk of litigation vs. profits of the phone. I can't see the iPhone turning up huge though, it's so expensive.
Last spring, Cisco began selling a line of bulky but inexpensive IPhones that make free long-distance calls over the Internet. Why you do'nt use Skype is beyond me.
Cisco's trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office describes "computer hardware and software for providing integrated telephone communication with computerized global information networks.''
Cisco is asking Apple to pay Cisco's legal fees and relinquish all profits eventually made on the IPhone. Cisco also demands Apple destroy all labels, signs, packaging and other promotional material that includes the word "IPhone,'' a product it cost Apple millions to develop.
Apple first asked Cisco in 2001 to acquire or licence rights to the name. When Cisco declined, Apple embarked on a campaign of "confusion, mistake and deception'' in its effort to secure the rights, the lawsuit claims.
Apple went so far as to create a phoney company -- called Ocean Telecom Services LLC _ to get around Cisco's trademark, Cisco alleges.
In an application to the U.S. Patent and Trade Office in March, Ocean Telecom billed itself as a foreign company doing business in Trinidad and Tobago. The company listed its attorney as James Johnson. His contact information was an e-mail address from Google's free web-based Gmail service. Haha, classic.
Despite harsh words in the lawsuit, Cisco spokesman John Noh said Cisco's attorneys are still willing to negotiate with Apple. He emphasized that Cisco never wanted Apple to pay cash for naming rights.
Rather, Noh said, Cisco executives wanted to let Apple use the word "IPhone'' on the condition that both companies' phones could communicate with each other. He would not provide technical details.
"Cellphones, work phones, home phones, personal computers -- they're all converging. The value of that convergence is limitless, and the key to that is industrywide interoperability. It's a core tenets to our business.''
Apple may argue that the word "IPhone'' is so generic and broad it should not be trademarked at all. (Apple has aggressively defended the word "IPod,'' sending threatening legal notices to people who use the word to mean any type of digital music player.)
January 27th, 2007 at 10:05 pm
total waste of cash for something that doesn't do much.
February 3rd, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Apple and Cisco Systems have agreed to restart negotiations over Apple’s use of the trademark “iPhone,” which Cisco claims it owns. The issue stems from Apple’s unveiling of its forthcoming iPhone cellphone, and Cisco’s subsequent trademark lawsuit.
Just one day after Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced the iPhone, Cisco filed suit over the iPhone trademark, which it said it acquired in 2000.
Industry insiders and technology enthusiasts had expected the move by Cisco, which secured the trademark when it bought Infogear, a manufacturer of iPhone-branded products. Infogear originally filed for the iPhone trademark in 1996, Cisco claimed. Cisco has been shipping Voice over IP products under the iPhone brand for a year.
It appears Apple is willing to return to the bargaining table in order to secure the right to the iPhone trademark without aggravation from Cisco.