February 1, 2007........."iPhone": Apple's game of deception

Yesterday, Apple and Cisco decided to extend the time that Apple has to respond to Cisco's lawsuit over the iPhone name, a suit in which Cisco claims Apple's new device is "deceptively and confusingly similar" to its own line of cordless Web-enabled phones from the company's Linksys division. According to Chief Operating Officer, Tim Cook, Apple is "entitled to use the name iPhone because its device operates over a cellular network, unlike Cisco's phones." So let's try to unpack that language.

It appears that what I said three weeks ago was right on. Intentionally, in my opinion, iPhone was shown at Macworld as having no iChat, Apple's VoIP software. The reason is simple; if Apple's "iPhone" had VoIP, which operates on IP networks rather than cellular networks, then Apple couldn't defend itself against Cisco's claim that it is "deceptively and confusingly similar" to the Linksys "iPhone". In other words, Apple was planning to include iChat in the iPhone, but decided to withhold it temporarily for the purposes of lawsuit maneuvering.

We can therefore expect to see the real release of iPhone, in June, to include full-blown VoIP capability. The new iChat, which of course will be deployed as software for computers as well as iPhone, is going to be one heck of a product. You can bet on it. You can also bet that the lawsuit will go away before June. Who will end up with the iPhone name? I have no clue, and neither do I care.