How Apple “Acquired” the iPhone Trademark From Cisco

Adam Lashinsky’s new book Inside Apple, which was released earlier this week, is full of juicy stories from Apple’s past. Pieces of the book have been popping up on the web over the past two weeks.

The latest excerpt we’ve come across, courtesy of our friends over at Cult of Mac, provides some insight on the details surrounding Apple’s “acquisition” of the iPhone trademark from Cisco Systems…
As most of you probably already knew, when Apple announced the iPhone back in 2007, Cisco already owned the trademark. The company, famous for networking solutions and wireless routers, had an internet-based handset of the same name.

So how did Apple earn the right to use the iPhone moniker? Lashinsky explains:

“[Cisco executive] Charles Giancarlo fielded a call directly from Steve Jobs. “Steve called in and said that he wanted it,” Giancarlo recalled. “He didn’t offer us anything for it. It was just like a promise he’d be our best friend. And we said, ‘No, we’re planning on using it.’ “Shortly after that, Apple’s legal department called to say they thought Cisco had “abandoned the brand,” meaning that in Apple’s legal opinion Cisco hadn’t adequately defended its intellectual property rights by promoting the name. To Apple’s way of thinking this meant the name iPhone was available for Apple’s use. Giancarlo, who subsequently joined the prominent Silicon Valley private-equity firm Silver Lake partners, said Cisco threatened litigation before the launch. Then, the day after Apple announced its iPhone, Cisco filed suit.

The negotiation displayed some classic Steve Jobs negotiating tactics. Giancarlo said Jobs called him at home at dinnertime on Valentine’s Day, as the two sides were haggling. Jobs talked for a while, Giancarlo related. “And then he said to me, ‘Can you get email at home?’” Giancarlo was taken aback. This was 2007, after all, when broadband Internet was ubiquitous in homes in the US, let alone that of a Silicon Valley executive who had worked for years on advanced Internet technology. “And he’s asking me if I’m able to get email at home. You know he’s just trying to press my buttons—in the nicest possible way.” Cisco gave up the fight shortly after that. The two sides reached a vague agreement to cooperate on areas of mutual interest.”

Wow. For more interesting first-hand accounts like the one above, you can grab Lashinsky’s Inside Apple from the iBook Store for $12.99.

What’s your take on the story?

RIM Looking into BlackBerry Messenger for Other Platforms

RIM’s new CEO Thorsten Heins may have inherited a sinking ship, but he seems determined to explore all avenues in his attempt to find an escape route for the ailing Canadian firm.

Having previously been very keen to keep its BlackBerry Messenger crown jewel as a key feature that is exclusive to its hardware, BlackBerry smartphones may not be the only ones to support it some time in the future. RIM’s new CEO outlined his company’s openness to such a move during an interview with CrackBerry.

If RIM was to license its SMS-like instant messaging system to third parties then it could stript the firm’s handsets of arguably their biggest feature…
Heins believes that the company should be open to the possibility of allowing third parties to use BBM, but he also clearly believes that while it is something RIM may consider in the future, the time is not quite right just yet.

“We’re constantly exploring our room to maneuver and our room to explore other businesses so I wouldn’t say categorically no to it,” Heins explained. “There is a time where this might make sense, and I have a team looking into this… I’m open for licensing if it makes sense.”

BBM was once a unique selling point for RIM, but with iMessage on iOS and various other BBM clones now available, and instant messaging apps prevalent on smartphones, it’s arguable that BBM does not carry the weight it once did.

The fact that RIM would even consider allowing BlackBerry Messenger onto non-BlackBerry handsets is something of a departure for the company, but with a marketshare falling, Heins knows the company needs to do something to survive.

Perhaps moving to being a services company rather than a hardware one is something they could end up looking at more closely.


Is Apple Unwittingly Exchanging Stolen iPhones?

If you’ve ever taken a broken iPhone back to an Apple Store for repair or replacement, then you’ll be well aware at just how easy the company makes it. You take your iPhone in, Apple checks its warranty by referencing its serial number and you walk out with a replacement.

But that “customer comes first” approach may also be making it easier for thieves to chop in stolen iPhones and then receive a replacement free of charge. While that may seem pointless initially, when you remember that stolen handsets can be blocked from carriers based on their IMEI number, then the whole thing makes a lot of sense.

The revelation that Apple may be unwittingly exchanging stolen goods comes via security firm McAfee, which blames Apple’s “honor system” for giving thieves an easy way to get rid of hot goods…
The ease of trading in stolen iPhones and selling their replacements makes them nearly as tempting as grabbing cash. In cities from coast-to-coast, reports of iPhone thefts are common. While some thieves sell the phones through the traditional channels of fencing stolen goods, examples abound of stolen iPhones being brought back to Apple, as if broken, for either replacement or a discount on a new unit. ”Apple seems to have not considered stolen devices and instead is relying on the honor system,” says Robert Siciliano, a consultant for Intel Corp’s technology security unit McAfee and an identity theft expert. “The honor system is devised with the mindset that we are all sheep and there are no wolves.” Siciliano says he has known of this problem for a while, but doesn’t see any immediate solution.”

The aim of the game is a simple one: take in an iPhone before it gets blocked from working on a carrier, and then receive a new one which never will be. Simple.

While McAffee’s Robert Siciliano is crying out for Apple to fix this potential issue, we can’t help but think that the only outcome here is that we, honest customers, get affected. How long before Apple starts requiring receipts for such warranty replacements? While not exactly a great hardship, such a requirement would take some of the shine off Apple’s biggest selling point – its excellent customer service.

Tim Cook Responds to Supply Chain Workers Mistreatment Allegations

Yesterday the New York Times published a comprehensive piece detailing Apple’s failure to effectively pursue safer working conditions in its overseas manufacturing plants.

Although the article could apply to virtually every tech company – most of them work with Foxconn – Apple was the main target, probably because it’s a company with such strong values, that you would expect more from them.

To reply to the allegations, Tim Cook sent an email to his troops, ensuring that Apple cares about every worker in its supply chain…
Team,

As a company and as individuals, we are defined by our values. Unfortunately some people are questioning Apple’s values today, and I’d like to address this with you directly. We care about every worker in our worldwide supply chain. Any accident is deeply troubling, and any issue with working conditions is cause for concern. Any suggestion that we don’t care is patently false and offensive to us. As you know better than anyone, accusations like these are contrary to our values. It’s not who we are.

For the many hundreds of you who are based at our suppliers’ manufacturing sites around the world, or spend long stretches working there away from your families, I know you are as outraged by this as I am. For the people who aren’t as close to the supply chain, you have a right to know the facts.

Every year we inspect more factories, raising the bar for our partners and going deeper into the supply chain. As we reported earlier this month, we’ve made a great deal of progress and improved conditions for hundreds of thousands of workers. We know of no one in our industry doing as much as we are, in as many places, touching as many people.

At the same time, no one has been more up front about the challenges we face. We are attacking problems aggressively with the help of the world’s foremost authorities on safety, the environment, and fair labor. It would be easy to look for problems in fewer places and report prettier results, but those would not be the actions of a leader.

Earlier this month we opened our supply chain for independent evaluations by the Fair Labor Association. Apple was in a unique position to lead the industry by taking this step, and we did it without hesitation. This will lead to more frequent and more transparent reporting on our supply chain, which we welcome. These are the kinds of actions our customers expect from Apple, and we will take more of them in the future.

We are focused on educating workers about their rights, so they are empowered to speak up when they see unsafe conditions or unfair treatment. As you know, more than a million people have been trained by our program.

We will continue to dig deeper, and we will undoubtedly find more issues. What we will not do — and never have done — is stand still or turn a blind eye to problems in our supply chain. On this you have my word. You can follow our progress at apple.com/supplierresponsibility.

To those within Apple who are tackling these issues every day, you have our thanks and admiration. Your work is significant and it is changing people’s lives. We are all proud to work alongside you.

Tim

I really commend Tim Cook for this reply. It’s something we would have never seen under Steve Jobs’ reign. Tim’s answer was very well laid out. It was clear, honest, and it shows the willingness to make things better, and not just sit back hoping people will forget about this tomorrow.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you think Apple is doing enough? What can they do to make this better?

Lingual: Translate Text and Phrases to Over 30 Languages Using Siri

And the Siri tweaks just keep rolling in. Lingual is one of the first 3rd party extensions for the awesome AssistantExtensions tweak that we covered earlier. It allows you to translate phrases or text into a variety of languages from the comforts of the Siri interface, and it’s awesome for language learners and travelers.

It really is amazing what some developers have been able to do in the short period that the iPhone 4S has been jailbroken, and this one is nothing short of spectacular.
Lingual supports over 30 languages, including the following: Arabic, Czech, Danish, German, Estonian, Finnish, French, Dutch, Greek, Hebrew, Haitian, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Lithuanian, Latvian, Norwegian, polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Russian, Slovak, Slovene, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukranian, Vietnamese, and Simplified and Traditional Chinese.

After installing it, all you need to do is Say, “translate [phrase] to [language]” or, “what’s [phrase] in [language]“, and let Siri handle the rest.

You will need the AssistantExtensions tweak installed for Lingual to work, as it piggybacks that tweak as one of the first extensions to take advantage of the platform.

CodeThemed, the developers of the tweak, really outdid themselves, and although the tweak isn’t yet perfect, it’s impressive how well it works at this stage. What’s even sweeter is that they plan to release it for free.

Lingual should be available in the near future, and we’ll be sure to update you once it touches down on Cydia.

Are you impressed? Could you see yourself using this?

AssistantExtensions: A New Jailbreak Tweak That Pushes Siri’s Limits

If there is one good reason to get an iPhone 4S, it’s Siri, the iPhone’s witty virtual assistant that can help you do various tasks such as searching the web, scheduling appointments, send messages, etc by simply using voice commands. Siri can do many things, but there are also many things Siri can’t do.

Sure you can set up a Siri proxy and and install plugins to have Siri do things she’s not supposed to – like starting a car – but for most people, the technical hustle to get this going is not even an option. It’s just not practical.

Enters AssistantExtensions, a free MobileSubstrate tweak that aims at extending Siri’s capabilities in a very simple way.
AssistantExtensions comes with a few built-in commands, including:

■System commands: tweet, launch applications, set brightness, etc…
■Toggle commands: taking full advantage of SBSettings, those will allow you to list and turn on/off any SBSettings toggle installed on your iPhone
■Chat box: have a deep conversation with Siri, beyond the scope of what Siri currently does
This is great, but it gets even better! AssistantExtensions offers a simple framework for people to create their own extensions. With some basic knowledge of Objective-C, you can come up with your own extension for virtually anything you want.

So far, and besides the built-in ones, there is only one extension available, which allows you to search YouTube and shows results with thumbnails. This is just the tip of the iceberg, though. There is no doubt these extensions are going to pop up all over Cydia within the next few days.

As I mentioned above, AssistantExtensions is currently free on Cydia, via the BigBoss repo. At this price tag, and considering what it does, I highly suggest you give it a try.

I’m sure Jeff will have a detailed video demo soon, so don’t go too far, and check back iDB later tonight for our full on walkthrough.

In the meantime, you can earn some major brownie points by coming up with an iDB extension that lets you search the site using Siri. Just saying.

Belfry Lets You Install Stock iPhone Apps on Your iPad

Back when the iPad launched in 2010, many people complained that it didn’t have any of the native apps found on the iPhone and iPod touch. However, a new jailbreak tweak by Ryan Petrich called Belfry is about to change that.

Belfry is a simple tweak that will install 6 stock apps on your iPad: Clock, Calculator, Compass, Voice Vemos, Stocks, and Weather…
Stocks and Clock apps work in native resolution, while the rest are stuck in the infamous “2x” mode.
This tweak was released with great timing, especially now since the untethered jailbreak for iPad 2 was released last week. If you’re interested in installing Belfry on your iPad, you can get it from the Big Boss repo for free.

Upcoming Jailbreak Tweak Lets You Tweet With Siri

It was only a matter of time, but the inevitable has finally happened. You can now tweet with Siri courtesy of an upcoming jailbreak tweak.

The yet to be named tweak is making its way around the blogosphere, and should be released to the public in the very near future.

We’re pretty impressed by how accurate tweeting with Siri actually is, but that should be expected since Siri is very precise when it comes to dictation.

Although the text response still needs some ironing out — Siri clearly contradicts herself by saying “Sorry Jeff, I can’t help you with Twitter” — tweets are still sent out immediately, and she verbally acknowledges the fact shortly thereafter.

I think it’s obvious that Apple eventually plans to incorporate things like verbal status updates and verbal tweets into iOS, but the future is now if you have a jailbroken iPhone 4S, or another jailbroken device running Spire for that matter.

I for one can’t wait until the final product is released, I can see myself using this quite often. What about you?

Microsoft Releases MSN UK iPad App That Looks Just Like Pulse

Microsoft’s latest iPad app comes in the form of the new MSN UK app, which was made available today.

The app allows UK users to keep up to date on MSN UK news articles, as well as watch video and even stream them to an AirPlay-enabled device such as an Apple TV.

If the whole thing looks eerily familiar then there’s a very good reason – the MSN UK iPad app bears a striking resemblance to the Pulse news reader app which has been around for some time now…
By using the same horizontal tile interface as Pulse, Microsoft has potentially left itself open to cries of foul play, but the question should perhaps be whether there really are that many different ways to present news items on a tablet device. Will all news apps look similar just because their layout happens to be the most intuitive?

“The MSN experience is now enhanced on iPad – easily swipe to find your favourite news, sport and entertainment articles and videos. Excited about something you read on MSN for iPad? Just tap and share with your friends on Facebook and Twitter (or e-mail a link to the article).”

Microsoft says it does not yet have any announcement to make about bringing the MSN app to other territories, with the UK version currently the only one available for download. We can’t see any real reason why the app wouldn’t eventually make an appearance internationally, though.


Apple Has an Actual Unboxing Room to Test Product Packaging

Apple’s engineers and designers are world-renowned for their attention to details, but to what extent? Well according to Adam Lashinsky’s new Inside Apple book, the iPhone-makers have their own unboxing room — yeah, unboxing room.

Bits and pieces of Lashinksy’s book have been surfacing on the web over the past two weeks. The leaks have provided some interesting insight into the Cupertino company, and this next excerpt continues that trend…
Per the book, Apple is said to have its own secrete packaging room. And inside this room is a packaging designer that tests hundreds of different packaging variations for each of Apple’s products. Lashinksy writes:

“One after another, the designer created and tested an endless series of arrows, colors, and tapes for a tiny tab designed to show the consumer where to pull back the invisible, full-bleed sticker adhered to the top of the clear iPod box. Getting it just right was this particular desinger’s obsession. What’s more, it wasn’t just about one box. The tabs were placed so that when Apple’s factory packed multiple boxes for shipping to retail stores, there was a natural negative space between the boxes that protected and preserved the tab.”

Of course, none of this should surprise anyone who’s ever opened an iPhone box, or other Apple product. It’s no coincidence that the search term “iPhone unboxing” yields nearly 90,000 hits on YouTube.

As Steve Jobs used to say, “it’s all in the details.”


Add AirPlay to any TV with a $35 Mini Computer

AirPlay is possibly one of the unsung heroes of the iOS world, and if you own an iOS device and an Apple TV, then you really should be taking advantage of it. If you don’t have an Apple TV then there may just be another option on the table.

Using a Raspberry Pi computer, it is actually possible to create your very own HDMI-enabled AirPlay-receiving machine which is so small you’ll almost forget it’s there.

RIM’s Co-CEOs Step Down, Former COO Takes the Helm

Breaking news out of Waterloo, Canada tonight. Research In Motion’s Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie have stepped down from their co-CEO roles. The company’s former COO, Thorsten Heins, has been tapped as their replacement.

RIM’s board of directors and major stock holders have been calling for the move for quite some time now. The company, which was once a major player in the smartphone industry, is now holding on to a dismal 6% of the market.

Photo Booth Ported to the iPhone 4S

When Apple released the iPad 2 last year, the company boasted its new dual-core processor and front and rear-facing cameras. These improvements to the iPad 2 meant that App Store developers could release more elaborate and intensive applications for the tablet. Apple also took advantage of the opportunity themselves by launching a native Photo Booth application for the iPad 2.

Despite having nearly the same specifications as the iPad 2, including a dual-core processor and higher megapixel cameras, Apple chose not to include an iPhone version of Photo Booth on the iPhone 4S. But, that’s all about to change…
iOS hacker @appled3v has posted a video of Apple’s official Photo Booth app ported onto his jailbroken iPhone 4S, albeit half completed. Photo Booth, which originally debuted on Mac several years ago, allows for you to take pictures with your device’s camera and apply photographic filters and effects to them.

SiriToggles: Launch Apps, Control Brightness, and Toggle Settings Via Siri

It has barely been a day, and we’ve already seen a plethora of new jailbreak tweaks to take advantage of Siri in new ways. The latest is SiriToggles, and it looks like it could be one of the most promising thus far.

SiriToggles is like SBSettings for voice. You can literally control most of the vital aspects of your iPhone that you normally adjust on a day-to-day basis. Things like brightness, Wi-Fi, 3G, Bluetooth, and more can all be controlled using Siri commands.

Even better, Siri Toggles allows you to launch apps; and when we say launch apps, we mean every app, jailbreak or otherwise. Folks, you do not want to miss our preview of this jailbreak tweak if you’re in possession of an iPhone 4S. This is going to make your lives a whole lot easier.