The Unexpected iPhone

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For at least the past year, Mac mavens have been clamoring for Apple to release a combination iPod/cell phone portable device. The wait was finally rewarded this month -- but Apple was also beaten to the punch. In mid-December 2006, we feasted our eyes on an iPhone – but it wasn’t from Apple.

To judge from the way many of the news outlets treated the story when Cisco division Linksys announced it, the biggest news about the iPhone was who made it, or more precisely who didn't make it. As it turns out, Infogear owned the rights to the iPhone back in 1996, and in 1997 it showed an Internet appliance at the Consumer Electronics Show bearing that name. Cisco bought Infogear in 2000, and thus inherited the rights to the name.

When Gizmodo teased its readers with the iPhone announcement, it apparently upset a lot of Mac fans expecting something else. It's likely that Linksys may end up with some unhappy customers who expect one thing and receive another, especially judging from the comments; at least one media source quoted a Mac fan saying that "All this does is make Cisco's new phone look like a cheap Apple imitation product, one that hasn't even been released! It's incredible, people are copying Apple's products before they've even been announced!"

Still, Cisco seems to be capitalizing on the press in the meantime though, and who can blame them? The move helps it defend its trademark. Despite its arrogant talk, Apple may have to pick a different name for its cell phone, or possibly purchase the iPhone name from Cisco. The courts will decide this.

My guess is that Apple will eventually pick something different, and more creative. But putting the issue of the name itself aside, even Apple's iPhone may find Cisco's iPhone to be tough competition. Cisco's product is not a cell phone, it's a VoIP phone - and it's not even one iPhone, it's a whole line of them currently made up of seven iPhones, ranging in price from $80 to more than $300. Belkin and Netgear already have portable VoIP/Skype-ready phones. What can you get from Cisco's offering?

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