ipod
10/18/2005, 10:05am, EDT
Tuesday, October 18th
Apple pressure shuts down iPod etailer in UK
Apple's aggressive moves to protect its iPod trademark and collect royalties from some iPod accessory makers has put at least one business out of business. Macworld UK reports that Everything iPod, which has been distributing iPod peripherals since 2002, will close down because of Apple's pressure, following recent Apple activity in which the company has been demanding that company's selling peripherals for its music playing products should cease using the 'iPod' trademark in their trading names and URLs." Apple also confirmed that it has begun enforcing an iPod tax on some iPod accessory manufacturers who produce accessories that plug into the "dock connector" at the bottom of the music player. CNET News.com quotes Phill Schiller as saying that the "electrical connection has specifications around that and licensing around that, and the way you get that assistance and information and licensing is through the 'Made for iPod' program."
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If you open that port up to the world, free to use, then you open it up for everybody to make that port too. That means all the other MP3 players on the market could have the same connector!
That connector protects the iPod from being stripped of it's market share as everybody and their brother would come out with a CHEAP, Inexpensive and badly made player that would work with everything the iPod does (just like Mac clones did in the mid 90s).
This is just Apple protecting itself and they have every right to do so. If they didn't, really cool iPods would cease.
If you think this is greedy, then why don't you ask Microsoft to make their source code available so everybody could write software that easily integrates with all their layers?
Charging 10% royalties for making something that can use it is a cash cow.
This smells of typical Apple shortsightedness, taxing or killing off your partners who are spending money helping you to promote your product.
As for charging, its their perogative. You people make it sound like its everyone's right to give away their assets for free. Well, the iPod is an apple asset, one in which Apple has strived to make it synonomous with portable music players, let alone the current hip device out there. People who make money selling iPod peripherals are making money from the iPod, Apple's branding, Apple's marketing, etc. Apple gets NOTHING from this. No one buys an iPod because griffin makes a kick-ass car dock. They buy the car dock because its kick-ass and works with their ipod (OK, I have no idea its kick-ass, let's just assume it is for the time being). So, since griffin is sponging off of the iPod to rake in millions, why shouldn't Apple get a cut of that, for these products wouldn't exist without the iPod?
BTW, if apple uses this money to fund R&D and produce newer and better iPods, wouldn't that then help generate more iPod sales, which then lead to more sales of thrid-party products? Its the circle of life.
Also, note that nobody is forced to make an iPod product that works with the dock. They could just make something that simply connects to the headphone jack and not pay apple any money. But you don't get to say "Compatible with the iPod" without paying out some money.
Oh, please, I've complained about their computer hardware for years (they're line-up is so weak in so many areas, its sad - although I bet Mike Dell thinks its really funny). But truth is truth. You have a product, you want to make sure you get as much out of it as possible. That's what business is about. Nothing forces any company to make iPod accessories. Tell 'em to make some kick-ass Creative accessories if they want.
Oh, and you do realize that Apple could just as easily kill this program, then just raise their prices, so they get their money one way or the other (I know, it wouldn't be like apple to overcharge for a product!).
>making money from the iPod, Apple's branding, Apple's
>marketing, etc. Apple gets NOTHING from this.
Wrong, Apple gains from all the marketing that these companies do. Every time they run an ad they feature an iPod (because that's the market they are selling to). That helps Apple become more visible and helps it sell more iPods. I've no idea why people by iPods, but I'm sure that at least some of them do so because it works... and you can get a neat third-party case too.
What you are suggesting is kind of like all the software companies paying a tax to Apple to have their apps be Mac compatible.
No Apple, no software. No software, no Apple.