We're not gonna read too much into this just yet, but when everyone's favorite fruit-flavored consumer electronics company files to protect its trademark as it relates to a wide range of gaming devices, well, we feel you'd want to know. The USPTO sleuths over at Trademork just gave us the heads up on this recently-filed application from Cupertino, which requests protection of the word "APPLE" for products that classify as "toys, games and playthings, namely, hand-held units for playing electronic games; hand-held units for playing video games; stand alone video game machines; electronic games other than those adapted for use with television receivers only; LCD game machines; electronic educational game machines; toys, namely battery-powered computer games." And come to think of it, we did see Apple file for a
videogame-related patent not too long ago, so who knows: perhaps the iPod, iPhone, and Apple TV will soon have even more friends among the company's ever-expanding non-PC ecosystem. Then again, we've heard this rumor in one form or another countless times before, and right now pining for a
resurrected Gizmondo is already giving us enough headaches.
[Via
Trademork]
posted February 10th 2008 2:45PM
Apple have to get serious on the gaming front at some point, really.
This is great! Portable PhotoShop!
I love your avatar!
Thank you, I think it really captures the inner "me".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B-ekl_cEWk
This is exactly what I think of when I hear Apple and Gaming.
Its like honesty and politicians.
A good reasonably priced gaming device would the DS form factor with a widescreen WVGA display.
You can have a third cheaper display on the outside too I suppose if you're playing a team game of some sort where you need to show off what you're doing (assuming the info doesnt want to take up space on other people's display).
Let me sum this up in one word: BOOM!!!!!!
Would it not be difficult to trademark the name Apple for any electronic toys etc., when products like this:-
http://www.amazon.com/VTech-Alphabet-Electronic-Fundamentals-Reading/dp/B00000IRU2/ref=sr_1_60?ie=UTF8&s=toys-and-games&qid=1202674497&sr=1-60
already exist?
at least they have EA on their side...
Shouldn't that be a "non-user replaceable battery-powered computer games"?
I do NOT want a click wheel for my dpad. Or a D, E, or F button.
wait, you WANT Gizmondo back?
iPippy is what's it's gonna be called. Apple already made such a device based on the 603e processor. It was called a Pippin and was pretty cool. But, Amiga's CD32 was way better. Pippin bombed along with the Newton.
But Apple will now make iNewt and iPippy. I knew this was coming. Wonder if it will be better than the PSP w/ touch screen, and more ... please.
If anything, they're just covering their asses if they want to put games on an iPhone/iPod Touch etc., because then since they're more multi-function devices than specifically media players or phones, they'll have protection on their device as a gaming device as well.
It would be INCREDIBLY stupid for Apple to enter the portable gaming market with a dedicated device. Besides the fact that the market is saturated right now with 2 such devices, the dedicated unit is a dying breed as people start to carry fewer devices and do the same thing on their cell phones, which barely deserve to be called as such anymore now that they play music, games, let you surf the (baby or otherwise) web, and communicate in ways other than talking (aka texting).
Unless Apple is going to do it better than anyone else... but even there the market really still would belong to Nintendo.
I have been hearing that people are going to stop carrying more than one device any day now for almost a decade! The iPod seems to still be selling reasonably well, and surely you have heard of these DS and PSP things that seem to move a couple units too. What are there, 70 million or so DSs, and 80 million or so GBAs? I'm not saying this is an argument that Apple should get into the portable gaming market, but the whole "people are only going to carry one device" is right up there with "the PC is dead," "all applications will be internet applications," "physical media is dead," and "hydrogen fuel cells will replace gasoline," in the pantheon of predictions that are "in the next 5 years" for several decades.
Comments [100,000]
Oh, I can't wait for the knock-off market to start showing up...I
give it 15 days from today's date and wee will see the first
re-labeled emulator game MP4 PMP. In 45 days another with a reversed apple
logo on it...
This is just going to be Pippin all over again.
It's the iPwn !!!
besides having a ton of critically acclaimed games, the PSP has web, rss, video, radio, locationfree, flash, music, skype, photos, etcetera
I would go for an apple gaming device if it was portable like a ds. When I travel for work, I bring my ipod, cell phone, and DS to keep me entertained. Sometimes the laptop comes with too if i have a dvd i want to watch that i do not have on my ipod. I prefer to keep my cell seperate from my other devices, so the iphone does not really appeal to me, but this may if it comes around. I have often wished my DS would sync to itunes.
As much as people like to argue, there is no denying that apple does a lot of things right. I think if apple were to release a portable gaming device, it would be very well recieved by the masses (not engadget readers, necessarily) and be successful.
And for the record, the only apple product i own is an 80g ipod classic. I went with apple because of its strong aftermarket following, and the ease of online information regarding conversion processes and such. And, for my use, the itunes software works great.
Yes, we all want a perfect handheld that does not have a user-replaceable battery. Heck, you don't need to replace the battery when you could just buy a whole new one for more.
Iplay everything
Hey guys before macworld i told you apple is doing a handheld game but no one believed me. Now you can start believing me lol
Steve Jobs in his keynote speech:
our new iWii will let you play the coolest games. Here's minesweeper. BOOM! Damn it.
I'm sorry but I don't associate the words "videogaming" and "apple", together. Not to say that people don't play WOW on their Macbook Pro's but I doubt Apple would go into the whole gaming route. The only reason for this trademark protection is so that they can come up with any ideas that they want, i.e. the crazy patents that we saw filed under Apple during the summer.
What if they are going to anounce a portable game system sometime this month with the iPhone SDK
of course, when job's announces this thing. he'll proudly proclaim that HE invented handheld gaming.
Well...you all can talk this down....but the sad thing is it will probably sell....after all it is an Apple product. Apple has the Steve Jobs Distortion Field.
As for me.....I LOVE the NDSLite. It, hands down, is the best portable gaming system on the market. The PSP can't even hold a candle to it.
That is why it actually is the #1 selling gaming platform on the Earth.....it has sold more units then the PS1. That is an amazing feat.
Yeah, like the AppleTV. Those are just flying off the shelves. Of course maybe they will do as well as their computers do, and they will get 5% or 6% of the gaming market, or they will do as well as the iPhone, and not quite get 1% of the market in their first year.
You know, not every, or for that matter any, other product Apple makes does as well as the iPod.
hehe just think the next DS update engadget posts will probably be labeled something like "nintendo's apple igame ripoff" considering engadgets love/lust for the company
"everyone's favorite fruit-flavored consumer electronics company"
Speak for yourself dude, I don't like that fruit-flavored consumer electronics company.....
Yeah I prefer Tomato personally. Even if they love to KIRF.
I wonder if Apple has the strength to be a force in the videogame industry. One weak area of Macs have always been the lack of games compared to PC games. While this has improved in recent years, it is interesting if Apple could create a platform that somehow ties to the Mac OS and create some interesting interoperability based on that.
the sad thing is that these pattents probably will never be used for a product, it cuts off the idea from being developed by other people and keeps some good ideas from ever being used... such ashame, all these cases on pattent infringement you see these days, they are all just people who wanna get rich like the core 2 Duo or the dualshock controller... if these companys ever decided to cancel development based on an existing pattents then these products would likely never exist because people who owned the pattent would rather wait for them to step their turf and sue em then try to get it developed, and that's mostly because they are lazy. A-HOLES!
I mean seriously, if you patten it then develop it!
It will look sexy
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It will be over-priced
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People will wait in line weeks before it even comes out
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What's this thing supposed to do?
I forgot, Peris Hilton is just a dumb b*tch
Their biggest launch title?
Marathon IV.
Actually, that could be cool if they did it right, and if they can get Bungie back from Microsoft. Which I highly doubt.
What name will Apple choose; i-game? i-box, i-failure or i-sucks. My money is on i-sucks. Just like every pathetic sub-culture piece of "I" technology sh!t they put out.
It'll have the exact same slot the DS has, but it won't play DS games. It'll have inferior battery life, audio quality, and video quality. It will initially cost $400, but will drop to $300 in 6 months so that the new one that fixes all the problems of the first one can be brought out at $450.
And Engadget will have 7 articles about it on its release day, with 6 leading up to it.
apple isn't exactly notorious for putting an unnecessary amount of power into their handhelds so i'll keep my pants on for now.
I've been dying for a gaming device with horrid ergonomics and a no-repacing-without-serious-surgery internal battery.
At last!
LOL!!
Yea because mac gaming has always been amazing LOL LOL LOL
Screw you, Stubbs was awesome.
Is Halo coming to this system?
I wonder if they will reprise the Newton name? Anybody remember the Newton? Yeah I didn't think so.
God... ANOTHER one?? I've already got myself a PSP and that's already too many portable game systems. Sure, add the sexy, but game systems have to play well if they're gonna survive. I dunno where that pic came from, but if the real thing ever uses a touch-based "d-pad" instead of a real, moving, tactile d-pad, I'm 100% uninterested.
ZOMG I WANT ONE!!