2/1/2K: I was blown away to see MacOS Rumors publish the following
story (reprinted under MOSR's Open Content License):
Apple developing "iPhone"? [13:14 1/27]
According to Network Solutions, Apple registered the domain
"iPhone.org" in mid-December. www.iphone.org now redirects, as with
all inactive Apple domains, to Apple.com.
iPhone.com is a long-dead page protesting the "unfair" access of
computer users to free audio communication around the world while
those who don't own computers must still pay long-distance, and
iPhone.net redirects to InfoGear, an information appliances company
who was registered the "iPhone" trademark.
What are Apple's intentions with this domain, when another
company already claims ownership of the trademark? Ask around in
Cupertino, and you'll get a fair number of blank stares.
Those few who were familiar with the project that Apple hopes to
ship as "iPhone" reported that the project is an Internet "phone"
that utilizes QuickTime's A/V capabilities to transmit and receive
streaming multimedia to any other iPhone user. For an operating
system to ship with the ability to real-time conference over the
Web at no additional cost is revolutionary enough, but with
QuickTime's superior image and audio compression algorithms, this
could be a very big deal indeed.
The real question is, while Apple is developing a software
product rather than a hardware device, and it does have a long
track record of prefixing its product names with a lower-case "i,"
is it really worth the legal struggle to ship this product as
"iPhone"? At the time of this post, Apple sources had no
answers.
Stay tuned; we'll be covering this story closely in the coming
days!
Wasn't it just five or six weeks ago I wrote iPhone Includes Video here on The Rumor
Mill? I wrote about a video phone built around the Mac OS,
one optimized for the internet but also able to function over
standard phone lines.
MOSR seems to think Apple is working on a software-only
solution. I wouldn't bet on it. Expect the iPhone to be
hardware that handles streaming QuickTime via a codec, not just
software.
And with a USB gamepad, it could lead to a whole new level of
internet gaming!
- Anne Onymus
