Microsoft Fights Apple Trademark On 'App Store' 425
angry tapir writes "Microsoft is asking the US Patent and Trademark Office to deny Apple a trademark on the name 'App Store,' saying the term is generic and competitors should be able to use it. Apple applied for the trademark in 2008 for goods and services including 'retail store services featuring computer software provided via the internet and other computer and electronic communication networks' and other related offerings."
Windows (Score:5, Insightful)
Not quite as generic as "Windows" though, eh Microsoft?
Re:Windows (Score:5, Funny)
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Office, Internet Explorer, SQL Server...
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Office, Internet Explorer, SQL Server...
If you ask Microsoft what the "SQL" stands for in "SQL Server", the official answer is that it doesn't stand for anything, it's just "SQL". Otherwise they couldn't trademark it (since they didn't develop the language and it is an ANSI standard).
Re:Windows (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.microsoft.com/About/Legal/EN/US/IntellectualProperty/Trademarks/EN-US.aspx [microsoft.com]
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Microsoft could always call theirs the Exetaria.
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It's actually "Microsoft Windows", not "Windows".
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Microsoft would disagree...
http://www.microsoft.com/About/Legal/EN/US/IntellectualProperty/Trademarks/EN-US.aspx
"Microsoft" and "Windows" are two separate registered trademarks.
Re:Windows (Score:4, Informative)
You're wrong. The US Patent and Trademarks Office doesn't let me link directly to it, so here's a cut and paste of Microsoft's Windows trademark.
Word Mark WINDOWS
Goods and Services IC 009. US 038. G & S: computer programs and manuals sold as a unit; namely, graphical operating environment programs for microcomputers. FIRST USE: 19831018. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19831018
Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING
Serial Number 74090419
Filing Date August 20, 1990
Current Filing Basis 1A
Original Filing Basis 1A
Published for Opposition June 21, 1994
Registration Number 1872264
Registration Date January 10, 1995
Owner (REGISTRANT) Microsoft Corporation CORPORATION DELAWARE One Microsoft Way Redmond WASHINGTON 980526399
Assignment Recorded ASSIGNMENT RECORDED
Attorney of Record William O. Ferron, Jr.
Type of Mark TRADEMARK
Register PRINCIPAL-2(F)
Affidavit Text SECT 15. SECT 8 (6-YR). SECTION 8(10-YR) 20050407.
Renewal 1ST RENEWAL 20050407
Live/Dead Indicator LIVE
Re:Windows (Score:5, Informative)
"Settled out of court" translated to normal English really means "We would win against evil Microsoft if we had the funds to take this to the end, but sadly their lawyers are bleeding us dry with continual delays so we accepted their offer to settle."
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Hey, maybe Microsoft could call their version the "Lapp Store".
Oh no, that won't work...
Re:Windows (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sure Apple would not object to "Crapp Store" :)
Re:Windows (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Windows (Score:5, Informative)
That's not how genericity of a trademark works. If Microsoft were in the business of selling large crystal panes that you can attach to walls to see through them, then yes, it couldn't call them "windows", because you're using the generic word for that product.
They don't sell "Windows: n. 1. transparent glass panes", but "Windows: n. 2. Primary graphical representations in a windowed GUI system".
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> Yes but there also was no Windowed GUI system in common use before Windows came out
Are you kidding? Microsoft pretty much sat on it's hands for 10 years after GUIs became commonplace on every other platform.
Re:Windows (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Windows (Score:5, Informative)
Windows 1.0 came out in 1985.
It's predated by Xerox Star, the Apple Macintosh, Sun's SunView, the W Window System from Stanford, and early releases of the X indow System. Probably a bunch more too - Symbolics comes to mind. Of those, the Mac and SunView at the very least were widely used.
Microsoft, as usual, were late to the party.
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> Microsoft, as usual, were late to the party.
That is because they had to wait for the Mac to come out so they could see how it was done, decompile the OS etc etc. so they could produce their own rip-off version. I think this is widely known. Microsoft is late to every damn party, it is hard wired in their DNA from the day they ripped of CP/M via QDOS.
Other windows systems around the same time were GEM (1983) and Siemens Collage (for Unix - mid to late 80s similar to GEM). The term commonly used was WIMP
I call prior art... (Score:3)
Damn. I should keep better records. I'm pretty sure that I was selling my own application called "Windows" for the Commodore Pet somewhere around 1981. It sold many copies.
Of course, by "selling" I mean knocking out hand-copied tapes for pocket money at the local computer store, "Application" means a farty little 6502 code utility to clear or scroll selected areas on the screen and "many" refers to the widely used "one, two, many, lots" number system.
I should totally go through the attic to see if I have
Re:Windows (Score:5, Insightful)
As one of those ubernerds (I guess - I've never felt particularly uber), I worked with perhaps a dozen 'window systems' between 1978 and 1987. The entire 'workstation' market was based on window-based systems. I wrote a couple of toy ones myself. I recall that Microsoft's success in trademarking 'Windows' was both offensive to everyone in the industry, and an example of the stupidity of the people in charge of trademarks - similar to the software patents debacle. Prior to Microsoft, everyone distinguished their windowing system with a prefix such as X-Windows, etc. To this day, I persist in using 'MS Windows' when describing the Redmond Virus.
Re:Windows (Score:5, Insightful)
So, what do you call these generic rectangle user interfaces containing buttons such as Close, Minimize, and Maximize, and a title bar, client area, and grips used to resize such generic rectangle UI? I have an idea of what I would call it, but according to you I would owe Microsoft money for the use of the word.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Windows (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Windows (Score:5, Informative)
The frames around an application's UI, that you can move around and such? Those were called "windows" in the trade press before Microsoft wrote their OS. A bit ago Microsoft sued Lindows claiming "Lindows" was too close to their "Windows" trademark. They dropped the suit when the judge said that the Lindows legal team had introduced enough evidence to call into question Microsoft's claim on the Windows trademark, and opted instead to buy the Lindows trademark for $20 million (the Lindows software is now called Linspire).
Still feeling quite so sure of your superiority to the OP?
Re:Windows (Score:4, Insightful)
Back when Windows was trademarked, Microsoft's product was an application framework that let you create applications that ran in windows. Windows was as generic a term in computing then as it is in house construction now. It seemed absolutely ludicrous that Microsoft could trademark it. It might now seem so weird now, because we've got so used to it.
If "Windows" did, then "App Store" certainly will, if judgements are consistent.
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Re:genericity (Score:2)
Since 2000, I've been maintaining GraphApp, an open source GUI portability library. Although named GraphApp on the web site, it was always supposed to be part of a larger portability library providing other services, which is why its header file is named app.h, why it compiles to libapp.a under Linux and app.lib under Windows, why the FAQ mentions "App" as the name of the intended work, and why one of the first things you do when making a program with my library is you create an App struct using the new_app
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X Windows predated Windows 1.0 by at least a year. And previous systems (like "W" - which was the basis for the name of the "X" Window System) were around a couple years before that.
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Is that what they are shortening? I always thought App Store was short for Apple Store...
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Windows fails the genericity test because they did not invent the Windowi GUI and the term "window" was coined to describe the interface long before Microsoft entered that marketplace. If you followed the Lindows story closely, you would know those details and how the settlement over "Lindows" resulted from a counter-claim seeking to remove Microsoft's trademark of the word "Windows." All predictions were that Microsoft would lose it and they quickly settled with the company they were suing over the use o
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How about I cite one?
Re:Windows (Score:4, Interesting)
In fact, there is a much evidence that App is a shortening of Apple as it is application
Nope, it was widely used for NeXT machine applications - even to the extent of using the .app extension to define a directory containing an application's code and other files. We used to talk about what would be the NeXT's "killer app" back in the day. But then NeXT ended up as part of Apple, so where does that put the question? :D
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"Windows" refers to the most generic thing in a GUI, the window. Also, "app" isn't the primary generic term for programs. "Programs" and "applications" are. In fact, a lot of geeks got tweaked by the cutesy shortening of the word "applications" into "apps", as popularized by Apple.
Re:Windows (Score:4, Insightful)
"Killer App" was a common term years before "App Store". Geeks used this term all the time, even in the bulletin board days.
Re:Windows (Score:5, Informative)
Is it? Then show me what mobile device company was using "App Store" before Apple did.
e.g. Nokia used "Software Marketplace"
Microsoft used marketplace too. "Windows Mobile Marketplace" etc.
Android uses "Android Market".
App Store seems like the obvious thing to call it now, because Apple have been so successful with it. But other companies were not wanting to use it till Apple got there first.
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Well yes, but no. App store is obvious because it's a store that sells apps. If you'd asked people before there was an "App store" what an app store is, they would have nailed it.
Re:Windows (Score:4, Informative)
"application (app)" - Dictionary of Business Terms, Barron's Educational Series, Inc.; 3rd edition (May 1, 2000)
"Google Apps" - August 2006
Re:Windows (Score:5, Interesting)
True. It's a bit like asking Google to change it's name cause it's a generic term for googling something and competitors should be able to use it.
That actually happens [wikipedia.org], which is why Google actively prevents spreading of the verb "to google".
Re:Windows (Score:4, Funny)
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Indeed. Archetypical case was Aspirin, originally a Bayer trademark. ... oops, the reasoning I was going to use seems to not be valid in this case. I originally thought it was because they did not defend the trademark from generic use, but the real answer - at least according to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] - is a fascinating bit of history so I am posting it for the general amusement.
As part of war reparations specified in the 1919 Treaty of Versailles following Germany's surrender after World War I, Aspirin (along with heroin) lost its status as a registered trademark in France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, where it became a generic name. Today, "aspirin" is a generic word in Australia, France, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Jamaica, the Philippines, South Africa, United Kingdom and the United States. Aspirin, with a capital "A", remains a registered trademark of Bayer in Germany, Canada, Mexico, and in over 80 other countries, where the trademark is owned by Bayer, using acetylsalicylic acid in all markets, but using different packaging and physical aspects for each.
Microsoft App[le] Store (Score:2, Interesting)
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Really? You're saying there was a 100 years gap between Windows 95 and OS X?
It was 6 years. Of course that wasn't because Microsoft wasn't slow to get there. It's that Apple (when Jobs wasn't around) was even slower. Jobs own NeXT operating system had pre-emptive multi-tasking 7 years before Windows did.
So whilst in that particular technological point Microsoft wasn't playing catch up to Apple, they were certainly playing catch-up to Steve Jobs.
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Really? You're saying there was a 100 years gap between Windows 95 and OS X?
It was 6 years. Of course that wasn't because Microsoft wasn't slow to get there. It's that Apple (when Jobs wasn't around) was even slower. Jobs own NeXT operating system had pre-emptive multi-tasking 7 years before Windows did.
So whilst in that particular technological point Microsoft wasn't playing catch up to Apple, they were certainly playing catch-up to Steve Jobs.
You mean NT (not 95, which was released later and didnt have anything that could truly be called preemptive multitasking (due to various limitations in drivers, holdover DOS calls, Win16 calls, VxDs, memory management subsystems kludged together, and so on that made the "preemptive" part either "sorta" or "in theory"), but otherwise, yeah. Not quite 100 years since NT. Not even close.
Re:Microsoft App[le] Store (Score:4)
I just want to expound on the Win95 thing. First, it called DOS to set up PSPs for full 32 bit apps. It heavily relied upon (at initial release and up until Win98 or OSR2) DOS drivers for many devices. Many apps (heck, including even the Windows Installer - right up into the Windows XP days) still had legacy 16bit code that called 16bit Windows functions that did not pre-emptively multitask. The VxD model released in Win95 was horrendous and had a terrible penalty for calling any of the needed 16bit services or API. Numerous of the older Win32 API calls (v1.25 and below) were poorly (or not at all) implemented in a fashion suitable for pre-emptive multitasking. Since conventional memory and REAL MODE DOS was used for PSPs for every app, 32bit or not, limitations were imposed on even true 32bit apps. The "task switcher" mechanism was one of the worst ever written and was just barely outside of the cooperative multitasking category causing the inability to do any true time-sensitive multitasking on anything resource intensive. Thread management was abysmal and incurred penalties that also prevented time-critical multitasking. I could go on and on.
In THEORY Windows 95 was a true preemptive multitasking OS. But the theory did not fit the reality. It took years since the original Windows 93 plan (and it's actual release as Windows 95) to get "almost there" (WinME's release, as terrible as that was in other respects).
Also in all fairness, the problem decreased with each new release and with updated apps and drivers (and less dependence on DOS Win16 calls, and ancient Win32 calls by such). But on the other hand, a bunch of 16bit code persisted right into the XP age (as mentioned earlier, the Windows Installer as one example). Of course, since XP handled running such code differently, it did not suffer the same penalties.
Somewhere out there (and possibly as evidence in the DOJ case) is a CompUSA teleconference with the... morons... errr, sorry... lying thieves... oops, that's not what I meant... programming and management team for Win95, where they refuse to dispute, that "theory" aside, due to those limitations, it's really for all intents and purposes, Windows on top of DOS and is not a true preemptive multitasking OS, (and admit that they dont care because their customers won't know the difference). And Microsoft themselves, published various... notes? notices? (cant think of the right word), advising users to basically do the impossible (in order to have a preemptive multitasking environment), namely use only true 32bit Win95 drivers, fully 32bit apps (even though various of MS's own apps were not), dont boot into safe mode (which certain games and other apps required) and a few other suggestion. Of course, most or all of those were impossible during the days of Win95. And they knew it.
It's kinda like making a car (for road driving) that you claim can reach 250mph. Sure it can. In theory. But did you remember to mention it has to be secured on rails and run jet fuel, and a variety of other criteria not possible by 99% of the people who buy it? Theories are great. The reality was Win95 was semi-preemptively multitasking under all but idiotically rare scenarios. With each subsequent Win9x/ME release slowly improving.
Not that I was Microsoft's and CompUSA's chosen Win95 support technician for CompUSA Vienna 281 during the alpha, beta, RC and release phases (and beyond) or anything.
It's kinda like how (in theory) the initial release of Windows Phone 7 multitasks... with the caveat that in reality, what it multitasks is absolutely nothing... followed just recently by it finally multitasking Zune. Theories are nice. Reality is better.
This is not intended as a rant. It is intended to be educational, since many people simply do not know the history of PCs, OS's for them and so on; and what information out there of late seems more focused on theoreticals than it is on reality and implementation.
Stores are often named for what they sell (Score:2)
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CompUSA?
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he said "obvious" not, "Shattered old relic from times long past and gone by."
Re:Stores are often named for what they sell (Score:4, Informative)
Huh? Department stores don't sell departments. And WTF is a toilet store?
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A APP PLACE (cue Grammar Nazi)
APPS FOR LIFE
AUTO APP MART
APPS LIB
SMARTAPP
THE LAST KILLER APP
SEX APP SHOP ("Yeah, Baby!")
PREMIER APP SHOP
AT&T APPCENTER
THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT
APP MASTERS
DOTAPP
APP WORLD
.APP etc.
Re:Stores are often named for what they sell (Score:5, Funny)
Huh? Department stores don't sell departments. And WTF is a toilet store?
Best Buy.
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Microsoft(r) Windows(tm) Live Store?
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You can also try any of these replacing App with Soft, Software, Program, Executable (a bit geeky there) and any other App synonym you can think off.
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Appothecary
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Clothing store, department store, toilet store. What would be the obvious name for a store that sells apps?
"Package Manager"
Microsoft, and most of the posters here, are missing a few really clever things about the name.
Apple actually coined a new word: "App" – Steve Jobs made this clear when he introduced the App Store in his discussion of Applications vs. Apps. It's a marketing trick... obviously, both are computer programs of a sort... but applications run on your full computer, and apps are simpler, not full applications, but more like Apple's dashboard widgets. No one would confuse, say, Photoshop wi
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You would be hard-pressed to find a place that's actually called "The Clothing Store" or "The Department Store", because they are almost certainly not trademarkable names: a competition could open right next door and call themselves "The Clothing Store" and the original store wouldn't be able to do anything about it.
You've never heard of The Container Store?
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Huh? Department stores don't sell departments. And WTF is a toilet store?
You've never heard of The Container Store?
...or the "The Clothing Center".
... or "The Dump" [thedump.com].
They sell what "Toilet Store" discards.
Re:Stores are often named for what they sell (Score:4, Insightful)
You've honestly never heard the term "killer app"? It predates the iPhone by years.
Re:Stores are often named for what they sell (Score:4, Informative)
And "applet" has been around as long as java has.
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Just because somebody claims that something is one way doesn't make it true, "App Store" is clearly derived from expressions like "killer app", though I can understand why Jobs would want to make the counterargument (but not why anybody would see it as more than a conceited play on words).
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other on line shoping sites had software downloads (Score:2)
other on line shopping sites had software downloads before apple had the app store.
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They're not claiming a patent on app stores, just a trademark on app stores called App Store. You can have a McDonalds Shoe Store and trademark it to prevent another shoe store from calling itself McDonalds, even if there have been other shoe stores and other McDonaldses for decades.
However this trademark is quite likely invalid, 'cause you probably can't trademark a shoe store called Shoe Store.
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However this trademark is quite likely invalid, 'cause you probably can't trademark a shoe store called Shoe Store.
Ahh but you can trademark a shoe store named "S Store", just like it is possible to trademark an application store named "App Store". It is possible to trademark a modified version of a common name for an object as long as that modified version has "distinctive character" [wikipedia.org].
Honestly, for most other markets the software was called "programs". It's mostly on the Apple side that they called the software "applications". It's really only the popularity of the "App Store" that has made the word "app" more popular w
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other on line shopping sites had software downloads before apple had the app store.
This is not a patent fight, it's a trademark fight. None of those software download stores decided to brand themselves App Store. Heck, I never heard anyone refer to software as Apps until the iPhone made the term popular. Everyone called it Software or Programs before.
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Wow, I must be getting old... I've heard them called that (and done the same myself) for decades. Or EXEs, executables, programs, COM files (for that class of executables), and of course applications.
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Funny thing is it's never Apple or Apple fans that make this claim, just Apple detractors.
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That's because Apple fans have their mouth too full of Steve Jobs' cock to say much. :)
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That's because Apple 'fans' ignore the facts?
What's Next? (Score:2, Funny)
Apple was not first user of name 'App Store' (Score:5, Informative)
Pretty sure Sales Force [programmableweb.com] came first.
Back in 2006, when the iPhone was but a gleam in Steve Jobs' eye. And now there are lots of 'app stores'; including Apple's, but also including the Android app store, and others.
So... where is Apple's eligibility for using this descriptive non-creative name as a trademark, if they do not have exclusive use, first use, or even most famous use in commerce?
As far as I'm concerned, Apple's product is the iTunes App Store, which is specific and famous, but App Store is generic, and used by many organization's before and after Apple.
Actually.. when I think of "App Store", the first thing that comes to mind for most people is the Android App Store. If anyone should be awarded the trademark (and they should not), it should be Google.
Re:Apple was not first user of name 'App Store' (Score:4, Interesting)
If users call it the "Android App Store", it's precisely because Apple popularized the "App Store" terminology. It would have to be, because Google doesn't call it that. Google calls it the "Android Marketplace".
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>
Back in 2006, when the iPhone was but a gleam in Steve Jobs' eye.
Way back as far as then huh? Way to make a not quite middle age yet guy feel OLD. Man, it must be time for my midlife crisis. Bring on the bimbo and the sports car.
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The Android App Store?? Since when? I've never heard it called that, at least officially, in any trade press, IT journals, etc. Android [android.com] calls it (and always has) the Android Market. The Microsoft Zune has the Zune Marketplace. So I'm sorry but I don't see why Apple can't use App Store, especially when Microsoft gets to hold separate trademarks for Office, Word, Windows (note, the Microsoft and the other word each are separate trademarks).
Re:Apple was not first user of name 'App Store' (Score:5, Informative)
Almost the same. "AppStore" rather than App Store.
But here's the thing, Sales Force DID trademark it, but it was listed as a dead patent by 2008, presumably because their "vision" didn't turn into something actual or successful. Also, before them Sage had the trademark in 2000, but that was listed as dead within the year.
Where's Apple's eligibility? Well they are the ones that applied to use a trademark which wasn't currently in use by anyone else. Same reason Sales Force could trademark it.
And what's this nonsense about not even the most famous use? Of course Apple's use of "App Store" is the most famous.
And the Android thing is "Android Marketplace", not app store. Even if it was App Store, how the hell would that mean Google would get the trademark rather than Apple, given that Apple's App Store was already open when Android's marketplace came along. You're talking complete shit.
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Cite your sources, mortal.
He did, basement boy.
I don't know who to pull for. (Score:5, Funny)
I'm a former Mac user, so I hate Apple.
I actually give a damn about stability, so I hate Microsoft.
It's like watching zombies and vampires fight. No matter who loses, I cheer.
LK
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It's like watching zombies and vampires fight. No matter who loses, I cheer.
No matter who loses, I run.
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You should cheer for whichever is right, regardless of who you love/hate. To do otherwise sets a dangerous precedent.
In this case, cheer for Microsoft.
Re:I don't know who to pull for. (Score:4, Funny)
I was about to insult your analogy because Zombies are totally not an equal to Vampires... then I thought about the properties of each...
Vampire (Apple)
- sexy
- intelligent
- chrismatic
- thinks nothing of charming you only to suck you dry of blood/money
Zombies (Microsoft)
- slow
- stupid
- flakey
- only has power in numbers
Further evidence for the Microsoft zombie theory can be found during the Windows Mobile 7 release party [youtube.com].
To be fair (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm no Apple fan, but to be fair, when I hear "app store", I think of Apple. When I hear of another company's service being referred to as an "app store", I think of Apple. Apple has made the term "app store" what it is. I don't think Microsoft would be too pleased about Apple beinging out their new Windows interface for iDevices.
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I'm no Apple fan, but to be fair, when I hear "app store", I think of Apple. When I hear of another company's service being referred to as an "app store", I think of Apple. Apple has made the term "app store" what it is. I don't think Microsoft would be too pleased about Apple beinging out their new Windows interface for iDevices.
That's funny... When I hear "app store" i think: $_ =~ s/app(lication)? store/repository/;
I've been using software repositories with Unix and Linux long before Apple decided to put a repo on a phone.
Point being: I guess association depends on what name it was introduced to you as, and on what device/platform when you first encountered the idea of software repositories.
'cmon, we all know Apple is trademark happy -- snapping up all i*, and *pod names, including established names like podcast -- No, I don't th
Re:To be fair (Score:5, Informative)
"Apple is trademark happy -- snapping up all i*, and *pod names, including established names like podcast "
Isn't podcast derived from iPod? A downloadable broadcast that people listen to on their iPod. That would give Apple a good claim to the term.
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After all, OS X introduced the .app extension. Microsoft's store should be called Exe Store.
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when I hear "app store", I think of Apple
I actually thought that they might just have been having a bit of a play on words, with "app" also being the first 3 letters of "apple".
Microsoft just needs a new name (Score:2)
How about Kwik-E-Mart? Sounds like an App Store to me . . .
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How about Kwik-E-Mart? Sounds like an App Store to me . . .
Nah, the "Let's stick an E in front" phase is out -- Instead of e-mail, e-sign, e-tcetera, we're i-prefix happy.
Perhaps iMart, iStore, iTcetera.
The problem is that MS has already tried to combine both prefixes, much to the chagrin of the entire web developer community -- I dare not speak its name aloud.
Microsoft may already have lost (Score:2)
Ctrl-Alt-Del Store (TM) (Score:2)
Name Suggestions? (Score:3)
Lets help 'ol MS out, lets suggest some names for their Windows Software Store.
- WinStore
- SquirtCentral
- BetaMart or BetaShop
- SoftBazaar
- SoftStore
- SoftShop
- MicroMart
- WinMart
- SteveMart (take that Jobs!)
- SolutionCentral (heh.. hooo... hah, too funny)
- KinShop
Any others?
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"iAppStore" is available. However two separate entries appear for "APPSTORE" -- both have status of "DEAD"
US Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) [uspto.gov]
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..in this case, as in: "All Your Apps are Approved By Steve",
Nope, the "App" in Apple's "App Store" doesn't stand for approval -- I can't purchase approval from Apple, fortunately Google's repository gives me the benefit of the doubt...
You are required to purchase approval from MS to distribute a 64 bit driver for their new OSs, so if "app" stands for approval, of course they're pissed off -- MS practically builds their entire product line around charging for approval.
(Know why you can't run a decent sever on MS Windows Home? You have to "upgrade" because MS added
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Sued him into the ground? He used his name plus Soft, specifically in order to sound like Microsoft, on purpose. Microsoft offered to pay the $10 it cost him to register the domain name. He asked for $10000, which was fairly preposterous. The settlement was Microsoft paying the $10, plus giving him some software, an xbox, and a vacation.
Meanwhile, Apple is using the most obvious generic term for a store that sells apps, App Store, as a trademark. The only defense (IANAL; I'm talking about common sense
Re:Applications (Score:4, Insightful)
I used to name one of my partitions "Apps". Mainly because "Applications" didn't fit.
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Before iPhone, the term 'app' was not really known or used by commonfolk. Now that it is a widely known term, I'd be willing to bet that a large portion of the population thinks it stands for 'Apple'.
Say what? Depends on what you mean by "common" and "folk". The folk I associate with commonly use "app" to mean "application". Eg: "This web app seems slow", and have done so long before Apple began selling phones.
Is Apple just trademarking common words like "podcast" and "app" to make up for some type of insecurity?
Is it tacked on like Kongie's Dong?
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I've seen quite a few web apps over the years. Long before the iPhone was invented.
Re:Program Files Store (Score:5, Funny)
Too confusing. Make it "My Program Files Store" and it's a deal, though.
I prefer C:\PROGRA~1\STORE