Despite the many problems Apple has been facing with the iPhone 4, people seem to still be buying the phone in large numbers. But with every problem comes a lesson and Apple may have learned a lot from the situation. The company is also stuck with offering free cases for every iPhone 4 user because of the faulty antenna design and reception issues some users have been complaining about. This most likely forced Apple to re-evaluate the quality of its products as well as the quality of the accessories other manufacturers are making for the iPhone. The result is not very good since Apple has recently decided it will sue several accessory makers based. The company believes that many of the products “are of inferior quality and reliability, raising significant concerns over compatibility with and damage to Apple’s products.”
The accessories in question include chargers, speakers and cables for the iPod, iPhone and iPad tablet computer. According to Bloomberg a user even complained about a charger from one of the companies that drained his Ipod’s battery instead of charging it. Before companies can sell a product for any of Apple’s devices, they must obviously gain approval from Apple who even has a program named ‘Made for Apple’ that offers manufacturers a license to sell accessories for any of the iProducts. Reportedly this allows the Cupertino-based company to collect a royalty somewhere in between 20 to 25 percent for each product sold.
Apple’s complaint was filed on July the 22th in federal court of San Francisco and currently includes six sellers from California as well as one from Washington. The companies mentioned are : Accstation, Boxware Corporation, Crazyondigital, Eforcity Corporation, Everydaysource, Itrimming, and United Integral. More than 20 other companies could also be included on the list. Of course, the company that brought us the iPhone and Macbook has a tendency of over controlling its devices, users and anything else it can control.
Before jailbreaking became legal, Apple announced it was bothered by the idea that iPhone users could download any application that might not be authorized by the company. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but as soon as you buy a mobile phone you should be able to use it in any way that you want. Just as Apple shouldn’t control which people we can talk to or what sites we can visit, it makes no sense that they get to say which applications can be used on the phone and which can’t.
Apple also has the habit of changing the specification requirements for its latest phones and music players. This obviously forces vendors to keep changing their products if they want to keep offering iPhone and iPod compatible accessories. “There is a very fine line” between maintaining control over its gadgets and anticompetitive behavior, Mark Kesslen, chairman of the intellectual property group of a law firm in New York. “You have to be very careful.”
