# I'm so conflicted about Apple/iProducts **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 19, 2012, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-so-conflicted-about-apple-iproducts/635212 "2012-09-19T21:16:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-so-conflicted-about-apple-iproducts/635212/21 "2012-09-21T20:10:55Z")
> [@echoreply](#): > > Yeah, I know. I guess anything that dilutes George Lucas’ trademarks can’t be all bad. What makes you think any of this would dilute Lucas’s trademark rights? ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-so-conflicted-about-apple-iproducts/635212/22 "2012-09-21T20:18:43Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > What makes you think any of this would dilute Lucas’s trademark rights? Droid is better known today as a phone/operating system than the robots from Star Wars. Over time, the idea of a trademark on the word will seem silly. ---
**Author:** ![kushiel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbce88/32.png) [@kushiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kushiel)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-so-conflicted-about-apple-iproducts/635212/23 "2012-09-21T20:21:58Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > Really? > > The iOS Gmail integration is pretty terrible. To begin with, if you go to set up a Gmail account and just click on the “Gmail” wizard to set it up, you don’t get mail pushed to you. Your phone has to poll the server, which is either less responsive or less power efficient (or both). > > [Here’s how you set it up for sync/push email](https://support.google.com/mobile/bin/answer.py?hl=en&topic=14252&answer=138740). Hmm, set up Gmail account by selecting Microsoft Exchange. Makes sense. > > Having done that, iOS’s mail app (which I’m going to call iMail, though that’s not really its name) doesn’t use the same model of mail that Gmail does. Gmail uses labels and encourages you to archive mail regularly. But, once I archive something, it’s gone from iMail. I can’t even bring it up with search. Searching also takes a really long time before not returning anything. > > I have, at this time, two folders in iMail named “Sent Items”, and one named “Sent Messages”. None of them seems to actually contain either all the messages I’ve sent from my phone, or all the messages I’ve sent from my Gmail account in general. Not sure what’s going on there. > > There are other things, but they’re more minor. Gmail’s iOS app now has push notifications. And because it isn’t using Mail, you get to have labels and everything. I don’t use it too much because I don’t need to check my work email outside work (which is always in front of a computer), but it seems pretty spiffy. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-so-conflicted-about-apple-iproducts/635212/24 "2012-09-21T20:25:15Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > Droid is better known today as a phone/operating system than the robots from Star Wars. Over time, the idea of a trademark on the word will seem silly. That’s not actually how trademark law works. 1. Any word can conceivably become a trademark, including all the words in this sentence. It depends on what the actual use is. 2. Thus, what exactly does Lucas claim as the scope of his trademark(s) related to the word “Droid”? If other uses don’t cross those bounds, his rights are not affected. In other words, if Lucas claims rights in the word “Droid” with respect to humanoid machines that appear as fictional characters then the use of “Droid” with respect to a telephone operating system doesn’t interfere at all. 3. The word “dilution” has a specific meaning in trademark law. I suspect what you mean to say is that Lucas might eventually abandon his rights or that the term “Droid” might become generic. 4. If, as Dewey Finn says, the use of the word “Droid” for operating system is pursuant to a license from Lucas, this use will not affect his rights, because it’s as if he were making this use himself. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-so-conflicted-about-apple-iproducts/635212/25 "2012-09-21T20:32:08Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > That’s not actually how trademark law works. I know that’s not exactly how it works, but in practice, that’s what will happen. You can go for the common “lowercase” examples like kleenex, xerox, and frisbee or you can go for something odder like “Superhero.” The trademark for “Superhero” is jointly owned by DC and Marvel, but they have tried to enforce it’s correct usage on the general media because the idea that anyone can hold a trademark on the word “Superhero” is preposterous. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-so-conflicted-about-apple-iproducts/635212/26 "2012-09-21T20:39:27Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > I know that’s not exactly how it works, but in practice, that’s what will happen. You can go for the common “lowercase” examples like kleenex, xerox, and frisbee or you can go for something odder like “Superhero.” The trademark for “Superhero” is jointly owned by DC and Marvel, but they have tried to enforce it’s correct usage on the general media because the idea that anyone can hold a trademark on the word “Superhero” is preposterous. This seems like a non sequitur as a response to my post. Did you even read beyond the first sentence? What exactly do you mean by referring to “kleenex,” “xerox,” and “frisbee”? Those are actually all still enforceable trademarks. And your reference to “Superhero” also doesn’t make sense. Trademark law doesn’t give a trademark holder any right to “enforce [its] correct usage on the general media.” And the end also seems like a non sequitur to what you have already written. To the extent that anything is “preposterous,” how does that have any relevance to who actually wholds any enforceable rights in the term “Superhero,” whether such rights have anything to do with what the “general media” and how any of that is relevant to terms like kleenex, xerox, and frisbee. And how that has any bearing on whatever rights Lucas might have in the term “Droid”? ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-so-conflicted-about-apple-iproducts/635212/27 "2012-09-21T22:49:17Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > This seems like a non sequitur as a response to my post. Did you even read beyond the first sentence? Exactly. “Droid” in the context of “robots in space” can be a trademark, and so can “Droid” in the context of “mobile phone”. No overlap. Just the same as “Apple” was a trademark for a record company, and also a trademark for a computer company. Once again, no conflict, because why would a computer company ever get into the music business? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lisa_Simpson)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2012, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-so-conflicted-about-apple-iproducts/635212/28 "2012-09-22T02:52:46Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > You can’t take your dishwasher to the coffeeshop so everyone can see how hip and cool you are with your half caff upside down non-fat mocha no whip and hipster glasses. That’s why, Colophon. I love this post so much, I want to have a first date with it at Starbucks, I want to be in a "its complicated with [this post] status on Facebook, I want to tweet to the world #lovethispost, I want to invent memes with the most interesting man alive about it… sorry olives, not trying to derail your thread… ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2012, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-so-conflicted-about-apple-iproducts/635212/29 "2012-09-22T07:31:26Z")
> [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](#): > > I love this post so much, I want to have a first date with it at Starbucks, I want to be in a "its complicated with [this post] status on Facebook, I want to tweet to the world #lovethispost, I want to invent memes with the most interesting man alive about it… > > sorry olives, not trying to derail your thread… I don’t see why. Surely the “mobile phone as hip gadget” meme died off in about 2003, once the whole world had one. Does anybody really notice what phone anyone else is using these days? ---
**Author:** ![peterkelly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9dc877/32.png) [@peterkelly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peterkelly)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2012, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-so-conflicted-about-apple-iproducts/635212/30 "2012-09-22T08:17:05Z")
I can definitely understand how you feel. I put off getting an iPad for a very long time for these reasons, and in fact the only reason I eventually bought one was because I wanted to develop for it; I still find myself using my laptop for most of my real work (except for writing; see below). It’s been my observation that a lot of developers haven’t really taken the iPad seriously as a “proper computer”, in the sense of being able to do all the work-related tasks you can do on a laptop. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the hardware or operating system (except for a lack of a user-visible filesystem, but that’s a topic for another post). The problem is the apps. Most productivity apps you see are simply crippled versions of what you have on the desktop. They appeal to the masses, particularly in marketing terms, because they have flashy websites and make it look like you can do everything you need. But when people actually buy these apps and try to use them, they find out that the app only contains a fraction of the functionality of its desktop counterpart. I think there’s a huge opportunity for developers to take the platform more seriously and produce fully-featured apps that make the iPad competitive with a desktop system. One positive example I’ve seen of this is OmniGraffle for iPad. I’ve used OmniGraffle on the mac for many years, and when I tried the iPad version, as far as I could tell it had _every_ single editing feature that the desktop version had. Multiple canvases, layers, templates, all the formatting options - everything. In contrast, do a detailed comparison of any of the popular iPad word processors and MS Word/OpenOffice on the desktop and you’ll see a _huge_ gap in functionality - though this distinction will only be apparent to those who use some of the more advanced features of Word, like styles and cross-references. I do a lot of writing myself (I’m a CS researcher) and when I discovered how bad the situation in the word processing market was, I realised there was an opportunity to fix it. If I’m writing a research paper or book, I need a table of contents, automatic numbering, bibliographic citations, cross-referencing, etc. None of the existing word processors provide this. About a year ago I started work on my own app for doing these things, which I released on the app store a couple of months ago (it’s called UX Write - see [http://www.uxproductivity.com](http://www.uxproductivity.com) for more info). The app isn’t fully “there” yet, in terms of having everything you get on a desktop, but it’s already pretty capable and I’m working hard to add additional features like change tracking, citations, equation editing, and so forth. In the year since I started this I haven’t seen any serious competition appear on the iPad. IMHO this is the kind of direction the app ecosystem needs to go in if the iPad is going to be useful for work and not just play. Computationally it’s just as powerful as the high-end workstations we had on our desks just a few years ago, so there’s no technical reason that this can’t be achieved. It’s just a matter of developers taking the effort to produce truly feature-rich apps, just like they would for a desktop OS. ---
**Author:** ![Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lisa_Simpson)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2012, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-so-conflicted-about-apple-iproducts/635212/31 "2012-09-22T09:15:31Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > I don’t see why. Surely the “mobile phone as hip gadget” meme died off in about 2003, once the whole world had one. Does anybody really notice what phone anyone else is using these days? You would be surprised. My husband has a 20 year old daughter. Not only did I spend several days helping her research a phone in June, but she is at it again. She just moved to Vancouver from a very small remote town a week ago. What did she want to do first? Not go to the mall, not check out the clubs, nor the beach, the mountains, nor the the music scene. She spent 4 days on line researching the best cell phone to get, and the best plan. So she can skype message her friends back home about her adventures in the big city. then when she finally did that… her next big “omg omg got to do this! was to buy a cellphone case.” ---
**Author:** ![Student\_Driver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3da27b/32.png) [@Student\_Driver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Student_Driver)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2012, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-so-conflicted-about-apple-iproducts/635212/32 "2012-09-22T13:16:31Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > I don’t see why. Surely the “mobile phone as hip gadget” meme died off in about 2003, once the whole world had one. Does anybody really notice what phone anyone else is using these days? Lately, I’ve been noticing people ribbing friends and coworkers if they pull out a flip phone. When I got my iPhone 4, for several months I was asked about it every time I had it out in public. I even had a professor ask about it in the middle of class when I had it out on my desk to read lecture-specific PDFs. And everyone at work has been asking me for the last several months if I was getting the 5. I imagine when I go back after this coming week’s vacation, there’ll be people asking for it. (ETA: leaving that weird wording of “asking for it” because it’s kinda humorous, but I meant “asking about it.”) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-so-conflicted-about-apple-iproducts/635212.md?page=1)