A digital hearing aid company has filed suit against Apple, claiming that the EarPod headphones the iPhone maker sells violate the trademark of a similarly named product: HearPods.
As The Next Web reported on Monday, Randolph Divisions filed suit in the Hawaii District Court in Honolulu last week, claiming that the EarPods' name is too close to that of Randolph's own HearPods digital hearing aids. Randolph owns the HearPod corporation, which is based out of Nevada, and filed for the "HearPod" trademark in late 2005, receiving a subsequent registration in 2007. Randolph Divisions' suit seeks a permanent injunction based on "trademark infringement, unfair competition and dilution." It calls for the matter to be decided by a jury with a goal of destroying all Apple materials associated with the EarPod mark.Apple introduced the EarPods in September of last year alongside the company's newest iPhone and iPod models. The $29 headphones also include a remote to control an iOS device and a microphone. Apple owns US trademarks for "EarPods" and "Apple EarPods," both of which were registered in 2013. Prior to revealing the devices, though, Apple failed to secure the domain names for earpod.com and earpods.com. Earpod.com currently redirects to MyHearPod.com, a site for Randolph's HearPods.
According to the well-connected John Gruber, iOS users will see a difference in the operating system's UI when iOS 7 is released presumably alongside the next-generation iPhone, but Apple is struggling to implement the changes on time.
Gruber, who runs Apple blog Daring Fireball, said Senior Vice President of Industrial Design and new head of Human Interface Jony Ive has apparently made noticeable visual tweaks to Apple's mobile platform. So much so, that "word on the street" has it that iOS engineers are required to put a polarizing filter over their iPhone displays to prevent onlookers from getting a glimpse of the new UI. The rumor was revealed in a Branch discussion regarding the latest Apple talk, with a number of well-known bloggers airing out their thoughts on what the company has in store for 2013.Rene Ritchie of iMore, another well-informed blogger, chimed in, saying, "Ive's work is apparently making many people really happy, but will also apparently make rich-texture-loving designers sad." The quip is in regard to the skeuomorphic designs seen in iOS 6, such as the stitching elements found in Apple's Find My Friends app.Gruber claims that iOS 7 development is "running behind," prompting OS X 10.9 engineers to be pulled from their work to lend a hand in getting the mobile OS ready in time for launch.
Hours after media outlets caught wind of a potential search issue relating to direct iTunes App Store links, Google has issued a statement saying the problem has to do with fetching pages from iTunes' web servers.
As noted by Search Engine Land, a Google search restricted to Apple's iTunes server for "WhatsApp" returns regional results separately.
The search giant told The Verge late Tuesday that a server issue is to blame for a problem in which searches for iOS apps buried direct iTunes links in pages of results.Google's statement:
We've been having some issues fetching pages from the iTunes web servers, and as a result some people may have had problems finding iTunes apps in search easily. We're working with the team there to ensure search users can find what they're looking for.
According to Danny Sullivan from Search Engine Land, the issue could be a "duplicate content problem" on Apple's side. "With duplicate content, you have two or more pages that are virtually identical to each other," Sullivan said. "That can confuse search engines and sometimes have the effect of 'splitting the vote' when it comes to ranking, so that neither page wins."However, the fault may not entirely lie with Apple, as an identical search on Microsoft's Bing returns no duplicate content. Ouriel Ohayon, co-founder of AppsFire, first discovered the anomaly earlier on Tuesday after noticing a direct iTunes link to his WhatsApp messaging app was difficult to find when doing a basic Google search.
In an update to its Investor Releations webpage on Monday, Apple announced that its next quarterly conference call will take place on April 23, and is expected to cover the company's second quarter performance including profits and sales numbers.
As usual, Apple's conference call will discuss the financial results for the company's fiscal quarter two, which spans from January to March. Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer will likely be on the line to explain the results and offer a forecast for the next quarter. During the company's last quarterly conference call, it was announced that iPhone sales reached 47.8 million units over the holidays, a 29 percent boost from the same period a year ago. iPad sales were also strong, growing 48 percent year over year to 22.9 million units, but lower margins on the iPad mini held revenue growth for the tablet lineup to 22 percent from the year ago quarter.Apple's conference call for the second quarter of 2013 is scheduled for Tuesday, April 23, at 2 p.m. Pacific / 5 p.m. Eastern. AppleInsider will be covering the call live, while an audio webcast is also to be made available.
At the VentureBeat Mobile Summit in Sausalito, Calif., on Monday, AT&T Senior Vice President Kris Rinne announced that the second-largest U.S. carrier will roll out support for HD Voice over its 4G LTE network sometime this year.
Rinne, who is in charge of network technologies at AT&T, said wideband audio, better known as HD Voice, will see deployment as the telecom moves voice calling over to its LTE network, reportsAllThingsD. Apple's iPhone 5 boasts hardware capable of delivering the high-quality audio, but in order to work, telecoms must also support the protocol. “HD Voice is part of our voice over LTE strategy,” Rinne said.AT&T has been derided for its sub-par performance regarding the audio quality of its phone calls, with one informal test finding Sprint to have the best sound compared to AT&T and Verizon. As the "Big Four" U.S. carriers slowly move to next-generation wireless technologies, the networks' selling points appear to be moving from less dropped calls and signal strength to fastest data speeds and best sounding voice calls.T-Mobile announced less than one week ago that it will be the first U.S. carrier to support the high-fidelity communications technology when it finally launches the iPhone 5 on April 12. Sprint has also sounded off about its own HD Voice offering, but the service has yet to materialize.
