The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

Swiss railways ticked off at iOS clock knock-off

Trademarked and copyrighted clock design reproduced in iOS 6 app

Agentless Backup is Not a Myth

As hipsters and tragics queue for new iPhones, Switzerland's railway operator, SBB, has complained that Cupertino copied its design for the clock display used in iOS6.

Your rounded corners might not save you: SBB's railway clock (left)

and Apple's iOS6 clock icon (right)

While expressing "joy" that iOS6 uses what it clearly believes is a straight copy of its design, SBB says Apple did not ask its permission, in this story (Google translation chosen to make it even funnier).

SBB spokesman Christian Ginsing told the publication Tages Anzeiger that the design is copyrighted and is an SBB trademark. Tages sought comment from Apple - but you can probably predict the outcome of that request.

The "classic" design, SBB says, was created in 1944 by Hans Hilfiker.

Meanwhile, Australian and New Zealand buyers are feeling the same mapping pain as El Reg earlier reported from the UK, with an abundance of errors rendering the new iPhone mapping nearly useless.

New Zealand IT journalist Juha Saarinen said that in Auckland, the maps are so incorrect as to be useless, while iiNet's John Lindsay suggested "Move yr business to where Apple says it is. That's the Apple way." ®

What you need to know about cloud backup

Looks like a lot of clocks I've seen was my initial thought.

But if SBB have the Trademark, I do hope they take Apple to court. Sause for the goose and all that. The Apple/Samsung lookylikey battle was stupid and this would highlight Apples ridiculous stance. (The Samsung looked like most other tablets I'd seen, and I'm writing this on my iPad so I'm not totally antiApple)

53
0
Anonymous Coward

Re: "they are horrendously expensive for what you get."

Aha, another feature copied by Apple then.......

41
0

Copyright

I've got a pocket watch based on the design which I bought at an SBB ticket office. They do guard the design very carefully, and I expect them to win this one. And so they should.

41
1

More from The Register

 breaking news
Number of cops abusing Police National Computer access on the rise
Only a telegram from the Queen can get you off it
 breaking news
NSA whistleblower to tech firms, Obama: 'Grow a pair!'
Ed Snowden: Email tracking grabs 'IPs, raw data, content, headers, attachments, everything'
Google flings another £1m at online child sex abuse vid CRACKDOWN
See, see, we're trying, ad giant tells Daily Mail UK.gov
 breaking news
NSA PRISM-gate: Relax, GCHQ spooks 'keep us safe', says Cameron
Whatever they are up to, it's all above board, we're told
SCO vs. IBM battle resumes over ownership of Unix
Zombie lawsuit back and wants to suck the brains out of Linux
PRISM snitch claims NSA hacked Chinese targets since 2009
Snowden suddenly looks safer in Hong Kong after revelations
 breaking news
US chief spook: Look, we only want to spy on 6.66 BEELLLION of you
Americans assured they are not in the NSA's sights
NSA: We COULD track you by your phone ... if we WANTED to
Honestly, too much work, can't be bothered