I don’t doubt that Apple make nice things. Not that I’ve felt inclined to buy any as they don’t make what I want, but that’s by the by. If they did make what I want to buy, my disinclination to give them any of my money rises each time I see examples of their bad behaviour, whether it is attempting to enforce a locked-in, expensive contract onto the consumer, or deciding what they can or cannot see on the interwebs via their iPad.
Now, today, they decide to insult the consumer by deciding that we cannot tell the differnce between their store and Amazon.
Apple is suing Amazon in a bid to stop the online retail giant from using the name Appstore.
The California-based firm, which makes iPhones and iPads, claims that the name is deliberately similar to its own App Store.
“It will confuse and mislead customers,” said Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet.
Quite apart from being arrant control freakery – again – this nasty little move is attempting to do what they did with the Beatles; control a word. As with the Beatles, they assumed that the poor, simple consumer couldn’t tell the difference between a recording studio and a computer (okay, more accurately their iTunes – but we can and always could) – today we are supposed to be so stupid we are unable to recognise when we are using the Amazon site or the Apple one. If you want me to buy your products, not insulting my intelligence would be a useful starting point. Suing people who use similar names doesn’t endear me to your company ethos, nor your products. It tells me you are arseholes, so best not to give you any of my money.
And, of course, it is driven by that basest of human desires; greed.
So, no, I won’t be buying any Apple products. No, I won’t be putting iTunes on my computer and yes, I will continue to use Amazon.
“An app store is an app store,” Russell Pangborn, Microsoft’s associate general counsel said in January.
“Like shoe store or toy store, it is a generic term that is commonly used by companies, governments and individuals that offer apps,” he continued.
Quite. I hope the courts see sense and tell Apple where to get off.
Interesting for the student of language, as well. I believe that Apple coined the term ‘app’ to describe mobile software applications, and they have been delighted as the world caught on and made the word an everyday usage. Even I use it and am happy to do so, despite a slight technophobia, as it is a clear descriptor of a new phenomenon. No-one thinks of ‘television’ as slang or jargon these days, after all.
But there is a penalty for this popularity – words are like children, and once you give birth to them, they are no longer yours to control. Language is a common resource, and is policed by those who use it, i.e. all of us. So we now own the word ‘app’, and we will decided how we use it and what it means to us, thank you very much. For Amazon to call their app store an App Store is merely using commonly-understood language to describe a store that sells apps. For Apple to suggest otherwise shows that they want to have their cake and eat it too.
Indeed so. They aren’t alone in this by any means unfortunately.
The Daily Mash has skewered them here:
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/science-%26-technology/apple-to-copyright-individual-letters-201103233655/
Very good. 😀
The reason that Apple are sueing Amazon is more to keep their claim for the name. It doesn’t matter if they loose or win, the point is to fight every use of the term. It’s more to do with trademarks and such like. Owners of them have to continually show that they are using them and fight every corner. If they don’t they lose the name/trademark/term.
Except that, as others have pointed out, it’s a generic term.