Apple Goes Bananas Over iPod PDA Emulator

Published on March 12, 2004 By macrobaye In WinCustomize News

UK developer Starbrite Solutions has a $20 software offering called pBop that may remind you more than a little of Apple's iPod. While imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, pBop flattered the iPod too much as far as Apple's legal department was concerned.

"Apple felt pPod was being 'passed off' as an Apple iPod," Starbrite spokesman Ryan Kelly told MacCentral. "We were surprised to hear this as we have heard of no one buying a Windows powered Pocket PC application, being confused they are buying a hardware device."

While no one would mistake a Pocket PC-based PDA for an iPod, the diminutive device can run a variety of software and store a variety of files, including MP3 audio files. Starbrite developed pBop to give Pocket PC PDA users a "functional, easy to use MP3 player" that Ryan Kelly said is inspired by some of the most popular MP3 players on the market, including the iPod.

pBop's resemblance to the iPod was unmistakable, especially when the product first launched: It was originally called pPod, and featured an interface that was practically identical to third-generation iPods. The software included a navigation menu remarkably similar to the iPod's, enabling users to browse stored MP3 files by artist, track name and album. Touch buttons and a touch wheel interface even allowed users to navigate using their thumbs rather than the Pocket PC's stylus -- all in the same placement as Apple's iPod.

Kelly said that Starbrite has "cooperated fully to address Apple's concerns." The developer changed the layout of the software so the touch pad is now located between the menu and the buttons. Starbrite changed pPod's name to pBop, and also put a disclaimer on its Web site stating that the company has no connection to Apple or the iPod.

Comments (Page 2)

mrbiotech

on Mar 16, 2004

Well that does it...

I'm buying a Mac!

macrobaye

on Mar 16, 2004

Freegoo, I think the iMac sold 6 million... so maybe it was the fastest selling computer... or something... most sold in shortest amount of time...

Anyways-

Michael, Apple doesn't hire marketing firms. They have Jonathan Ive to make they're designs. The iMac was something revolutionary. Yes, there had been all-in-ones, but none that had the mass appeal like the iMac did.

This is how Apple can survive with only 3% market share. They innovate. That's the only way they can battle the M$ money machine.

bakerstreet

on Mar 16, 2004

"Because we all know that because of the iMac, everything in the world changed from boring/business/bland to modern/cool/new."

Hard to believe if Apple was such an innovator that the IMac wouldn't have lasted longer. Eye candy just isn't a replacement for functionality and software availability. Oddly enough I still see mostly dull boxes that work really well. So much for "art for art's sake".

As for the "emulation", there's nothing new about that. People love to buy something that works the way they want it to, and then make it look like something they chose not to buy. If Apple sues, it must be because people are profiting, because they sure left all our skin sites littered with "ports".

PurrBall

on Mar 16, 2004

Watch your mouth on the last line!

planetmonkey

on Mar 16, 2004

anyone manage to get a copy of this before it was removed?

Latin4567

on Mar 16, 2004

hysterical

michael havard

on Mar 16, 2004

You'd be very naive to think that Apple does all of it's own design work. While they have an internal design group they also make use of external design and marketing groups (i.e. Frog Design and others). Apple makes prolific use of NDA's in keeping a gag on 'partners' and how they may have helped or influenced design aspects of Apple products. An NDA kind of stifles the ability of a design company to put Apple on their resume of design work - hence people think that Apple designs everything internally.

Apple relies as much on loyal customers repeat sales in combination with high pricing to stay afloat. Also it's created it's own niche market (in a sense outside of the typical PC market) in which there are no other players to compete against.

There's been nothing that I've seen come out of Apple over the years that was "OOOOH wow! Now that's really innovative". Even the iPod is just a modification of a product that was already gaining in popularity. Again innovation today is just the modification of someone's idea to the next step. We see very little real innovation (i.e. the introduction of a completely new idea or device).

This just highlights one of the other Apple survival mechanisms which is to cash in on popular ideas. Sometimes they can take that popular idea and turn it into a cash cow like the iMac or the iPod and sometimes they peter out like the Cube.

macrobaye

on Mar 16, 2004

The cube was a truly innovative product, but it was just lacking in expandibility. That was its problem.

Some more innovative products from Apple:

Firewire (yes, you can thank them for that)
The First 64 Bit Personal Computer
The first truly portable laptop
iPod
Garage Band
iSight
ITMS
GUI in general
The Mouse

Now before you go off saying that Apple stole from Xerox, the true innovators, I'll say this: Apple was given the rights to use what PARC developed. So theft was not the reality. And what Xerox had was essentially unusable. Apple made it work. Now I'm not saying that Apple is the savior of computing, but it did make a huge dent on the computing world, and continues to.

Jafo

on Mar 16, 2004

Bought, borrowed, donated, stolen, bequeathed...all same difference....not OEM...

WinCAVE

on Mar 17, 2004

Some more innovative products from Apple:

Firewire (yes, you can thank them for that) - extremely imrpived idea, still they good the basics from USB and all other serial technology.
The First 64 Bit Personal Computer - arguable
The first truly portable laptop
iPod - Stolen
Garage Band - Get a big plus for that.
iSight - nothing new, just improwed web cam for christ sake.
ITMS - they didn't invent it they just were first to get all the deals ready.
GUI in general - stolen
The Mouse - stolen

Get back to the article I have used this product on my PDA, it's a total waste of time and money. Most PDA users use the hardware buttons anyway or want to take use of the screen that's about the same size as 4+ ipod screens.

freegoo

on Mar 17, 2004

The mouse an Apple innovation? That one cracked me up since it was invented in 1964. The Apple I didn't come along till more than 10 years later and the Apple Lisa which finally made use of the mouse came out in 1983 or 1984. Apple innovation indeed, but hey didn't they patent that hockey puck?

I would have to agree with Skaarjking that most of those weren't innovations, but borrowed ideas from existing products. Except the gui, they bought it and were the first to release it - works for me. Microsoft sure seemed to like it.

Garage Band I've never heard of, so can't comment except that Apple's multimedia reputation seems to hold that out as a true innovation.

Off the top of my head, I believe Apple could probably take credit for the Newton as an Apple innovation. There were others that released PDA-like products around the same time including Jeff Hawkin's (who later got it right with the Palm Pilot) Zoomer which I believe Casio sold? But the Newton was released first and actually created a market. I never had a Newton but recall a lot of users really nostalgic over it in the PalmOs 2.0-4.0 days.

As a side note, isn't calling this bPod an emulator a bit of a stretch? Unless they are using a hacked iPod ROM and fixing it to work on a PPC it seems to be more of a MP3 player with an illegal copyrighted iPod skin.

planetmonkey

on Mar 22, 2004

I'd say the word emulator is fine in this context, but maybe they could have worded the sentance better.

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