Apple Rips Off Rejected App, Says Wireless Sync Developer 549
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
in this age of corporate hypocrisy, it amazes me how any company has fanboys at all.
Corporate arrogance (Score:3, Insightful)
Sad... (Score:5, Insightful)
"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.
Re:Apple may not have ripped this off. (Score:3, Insightful)
And Microsoft believed the same of the web browser. Is bundling ok now?
Re:Apple may not have ripped this off. (Score:4, Insightful)
Not only that, but they apparently had other grounds for rejecting it as well, such as the fact that it used private APIs, from the sounds of things in the article. That alone is grounds for a rejection.
And yeah, both the name and logo were obvious, non-trademarked, and based on existing ideas. What else would you call something that syncs over Wi-Fi besides "Wi-Fi Sync"? I didn't even realize it was an official name of the service during the keynote, and just thought it was the term used to describe what it does. And using the Wi-Fi and syncing insignias only makes sense, as you point out.
Plus, they added Wi-Fi Sync as part of their effort to cut the cord, which tied in with the iCloud announcement, and it's not like iCloud was thought up yesterday, given that they had to build that massive data center in North Carolina which has been covered extensively.
oh, like apple? (Score:3, Insightful)
like how apple stole hardware tech from nokia, ericsson, etc and never paid them royalties?
Re:Oh, for the love of God! (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:Violate the TOS? (Score:5, Insightful)
No standing (Score:2, Insightful)
Let me save you a few minutes RTFA.
an app for wirelessly syncing iPhones with iTunes libraries
... is such an obvious idea that talking about "stealing" it is meaningless. It is also something that has existed for some time on other platforms - e.g. Samsung Android phones can do wireless sync of pretty much everything since Galaxy S. So he can't claim the idea.
Cupertino wasn't even subtle about the appropriation, using the precise name and a near-identical logo to market the technology
Let me clarify something here. The precise name in question is "Wi-Fi Sync". For an application that syncs your phone over wireless. Gee, that's one obscure name for this kind of app - no way Apple could have stumbled onto that by chance!
Now the logo. here [regmedia.co.uk] is the side-by-side comparison. Now, this consists of the de-facto standard "expanding wave" icon for wireless signal (on Apple's version, pretty much exactly as it's rendered in the status bar), placed inside the de-facto standard "circle of two arrows" icon for sync. The amount of creativity required to produce such an icon, given what the app does, is exactly zero - it's literally taking two stock icons for two parts of the (itself obvious) name, and merging them together. If someone asked me to sketch an icon for such an operation, this would probably be one of the first things I'd draw.
If you really want to bash Apple, a meaningful point would be that a third-party app implementing such wireless sync had to use private APIs (which is what caused its rejection from App Store) - on Android, such things are easily implemented.
Re:Wasn't this app obvious? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:OMG, no. (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Check again (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Wasn't this app obvious? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Precedent? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Check again (Score:4, Insightful)
What makes it obvious that they were working on it at the time of app submission? The idea might have been around as a "nice to have", but that doesn't mean it was implemented.
And it's likely that, since this guy had implemented it and submitted it for approval a year ago, the hardware was "powerful enough to support" the feature then. My 3GS is getting the same feature, and that's hardware from 2 years ago now. Given Apple hired the guy who created Mobile Notifier, near enough to identical to the new notifications feature, why not hire the guy who developed this one?
Re:Violate the TOS? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Apple may not have ripped this off. (Score:3, Insightful)
The smell of corruption is strong in this one
Combined with apple having proven itself time and time again to be a "do as I say, not as I do company"
It is the sort of thing that companies can get away with due to trade secrets and closed source.
The only way we can know for sure is for a disgruntled employee to spill the beans.
I can never figure out why so many people try to be innovative with Apple products knowing the high probability they will be screwed over - They should just stick with Fart Apps and have done with it.
Re:Check again (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Violate the TOS? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Way too much coincidence (Score:4, Insightful)
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!
Re:Violate the TOS? (Score:4, Insightful)
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 [wikimedia.org]
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Bonjour_(software) [wikimedia.org]
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Webkit [wikimedia.org]
Re:Violate the TOS? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Way too much coincidence (Score:5, Insightful)
That's enough. I, personally, submitted a feedback request to Apple FOUR YEARS AGO requesting Wireless Synchronization for my very first iPhone. Not to mention that practically every Apple and iPhone and industry tech blogger known to man have ALSO requested the same exact feature for years now. Google it.
Or do you think they watch Cydia, but don't read their own mail nor follow industry bloggers and journalists?
Second, as has been said, the logo is an obvious mashup of the Apple logo for iSync and the AirPort WiFi logo. iSync is eight years old. AirPort (and the WiFi application logo) are TWELVE years old. So who copied whom, here?
Third, Apple's logo is for the feature, not an app. WiFI sync is baked into the OS.
Finally, Apple rejected his app not due to some conspiracy, but because in order to sync the iTunes library you have to break the application directory sandboxing rule, and that's an automatic fail. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.
Re:Undocumented APIs == Rejection (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft were guilty of anti-competitive behaviour for allowing their apps to use undocumented APIs in Windows. It seems like Apple is doing exactly the same thing but worse because they can ban things from the App Store, which is the only non-hack way of getting apps onto the phone. In fact they got into hot water over banning apps that "duplicate functionality" (i.e. compete with them) before.
Why shouldn't there be two wireless sync apps for iOS? Maybe someone can come up with a better solution than Apple, give users a choice.
Re:Wait, so are they ripping off Android or this g (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:in this age (Score:1, Insightful)
How is that different from religious hypocrisy? The Catholic church has 1 billion fanboys, and it has done a lot more evil than Apple.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Undocumented APIs == Rejection (Score:4, Insightful)
IIRC, apps can't have access to brightness controls. Apple's iBooks has a true brightness control. iBooks does not come as part of the OS--it is an app store download, and is a feature which is used to make money selling books.
If you don't mind talking about applications which come with iOS but which fall outside of system functions, then Safari gets some attention. Safari is allowed to compile and execute code in the data segment of memory, bypassing a rather large security function. And long before multitasking was available, Apple's software could run in the background.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wait, so are they ripping off Android or this g (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Wait, so are they ripping off Android or this g (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Didn't fall for it (Score:2, Insightful)
Reading the comments so far has been heartening. I am pleased to see that most commentators are intelligent and rational enough to spot the BS and realize that this wasn't a case of Apple copying someone else's idea. That narrative just doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Apple hardly does everything right, but this was clearly a case of an obvious feature with an obvious logo design. The creator of the app wasn't the first to think of it. The only question I have is why Apple chose to wait as long as it did to implement this kind of functionality--at present, the most plausible answer is that they needed a good reason to offer it: the development of iCloud was probably what motivated it, but also, improvements in iOS sync efficiency and Wi-Fi network speeds since the introduction of the iPhone also seems to have played a role. From what I heard, the unofficial Wi-Fi sync app was/is slow.
Re:Wait, so are they ripping off Android or this g (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Way too much coincidence (Score:4, Insightful)
That's enough. I, personally, submitted a feedback request to Apple FOUR YEARS AGO requesting Wireless Synchronization for my very first iPhone. Not to mention that practically every Apple and iPhone and industry tech blogger known to man have ALSO requested the same exact feature for years now. Google it.
And yet, they didn't actually implement this feature until after this guy had submitted his app.
Or do you think it's been in development for four years?