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Not even. Competitors are (as far as I know) welcome to use iTunes' xml database and files. But they are not allowed to label themselves as iPods, especially on
by jemmons 17y ago
Not even. Competitors are (as far as I know) welcome to use iTunes' xml database and files. But they are not allowed to label themselves as iPods, especially on user-facing interfaces. That's exactly what the Pre does, and it's a clear and blatant infringement on Apple's marks and trade dress.
- lacker 17y agoA device identifying itself as an iPod in a protocol is no more "blatant infringement on Apple's marks" than it is when every modern browser puts Mozilla/4.0 in its user agent.
- jemmons 17y agoPlease note "especially on user-facing interfaces" above. The Pre identifying itself as an iPod in a protocol is not an issue. The problem is that doing so ultimately advertises to the user that the Pre is an iPod via dialogs, icons, and other interface verbiage. If for Internet Explorer to ape Mozilla/4.0 compatibility, it had to momentarily change its name, icon, and all user-facing interfaces to match Firefox so that one could not distinguish between an actual instance of Firefox and the "IE-in-fox's-clothing", you can bet that the Mozilla foundation would be peeved. Aside from legal considerations, what if IE-with-firefox-dress crashed all the time and people wrongfully blamed Firefox for this sorry state of affairs?