Could Acer Be Any More Blatant in Ripping off Apple?
By Ed Oswald | Monday, January 9, 2012 at 3:15 am
In the tech business, there are always accusations of somebody copying Apple in one form or another, whether it’s Apple itself leveling the accusations or its legions of supporters. This time, Acer has taken that to another level with the introduction of AcerCloud at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show. From the names of the components to the promotional imagery, Acer seems to have set out to clone Apple’s iCloud as precisely as possible.
Here’s Apple’s slide from WWDC 2011 that explains how iCloud works:
Now compare this to Acer’s graphic explaining how AcerCloud works:
You’ve got to be kidding me.
It doesn’t stop there. Like Photo Stream on iCloud? Acer’s version is PicStream, complete with the same 30-day retention of photos across devices save for your home computer. Documents in the cloud a la iWork? AcerCloud’s got that (I’m surprised they didn’t call it AcerWork.) Clear.fi copies what Apple has been doing with music and entertainment content in the cloud and brings it to Acer’s own cloud service.
There’s no “Find My Acer” yet, but just you wait.
Let’s be clear: by no means am I suggesting that iCloud is the end-all-be-all when it comes to the cloud. What I am saying is that Acer really should have been a little more smart with the branding, and a little more original. When you put out something that is so close to an already existing product, you run the risk of getting angry calls from the lawyers of that existing product’s creator, not to mention well-deserved criticism from the tech blogosphere.
I love this comment that Apple blogger Craig Grannell posted to Twitter last night, because it shows the power Apple has in the industry today:
From what I've seen, Apple might not be at CES, but lots of its ideas (from last year) are, as 'reinterpreted' by rival companies.
— Craig Grannell (@CraigGrannell) January 9, 2012
To companies considering copying Apple or anybody else’s work: please at least try to cover your tracks rather than making it so blatantly obvious.
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15 Comments For This Post
January 9th, 2012 at 7:23 am
Apple was not the first to do ANY of these things. They just copied ideas already being used and bundled them.
January 9th, 2012 at 11:17 am
What phone had photostream before Apple? Did it keep the photos for 30 days on each device, and indefinitely on your computer?
January 9th, 2012 at 7:48 am
Ripping off Apple? LMAO!
Apple made it's product lines by "ripping off" others. It is the nature of high tech.
January 9th, 2012 at 8:55 am
iPhone?
Mac?
iPod?
iPod Touch?
iPad?
iMac?
I don't think so.
January 9th, 2012 at 11:24 am
Smart phones – already done before Apple.
MAC? Gui – PARC, Mouse – Stanford O/S – derived from nix
MP3 player – already done before Apple
Tablet computers – MicroSoft.
You aren't too bright, are you?
January 9th, 2012 at 6:20 pm
Granted, these things all existed before Apple; but Apple made them * usable *. The hottest phone before the iPhone was the Motorola Razr. How archaic it looks now next to the iPhone! And as for MP3 players, there is nothing – from the crazy song-formatting/loading schemes to physical button operation – that was more user-friendly than the iPod. Yeah, the Diamond Rio existed; it failed, too.
Microsoft has been touting tablet PCs for a decade but they were rejected in the consumer market because all they did was shoehorn Windows into a tablet. Who really prefers to use a Windows-style file menu (either with a stylus or a finger) to an app? Microsoft did have a great competitor for the iPad – the Courier – which was killed in a boneheaded move to lock future tablets into the Windows dynasty.
My professor in college told us that Geoffrey Chaucer didn't really invent any of the story-forms used in "The Canterbury Tales". He just retold them in a spectacular new way. I don't hear anyone decrying Chaucer as the greatest poet in the English language because of it (and yes, he was a better * poet * than Shakespeare).
January 9th, 2012 at 6:21 pm
No. They were usable before Apple. Apple just, ripped them off.
January 9th, 2012 at 9:52 am
You know, I really don’t seem the ripoff with regards to the pics. The cloud has to be represented with a cloud, and Apple did not come up with that idea. Nor did they originate the location service concept.
At least try not to be so one sided, or rename the site to Applogizer.
January 9th, 2012 at 11:25 am
Maybe it's the 1st time the writer had seen a pic of a cloud used to represent, the Cloud…. LOL
January 9th, 2012 at 12:28 pm
AFAIK Windows Phones have always had the ability to upload photos automatically to SkyDrive. Not even a 30 day limit (just 5GB I think).
January 9th, 2012 at 1:06 pm
Sure they could have been more blatant. They could have put a Samsung logo on it.
January 9th, 2012 at 1:29 pm
@Sir Fatty: This site is already “Appleogizer” in all but name. The Apple bias shown by Harry and the other writers here couldn’t be more obvious if they hit us over the head with a 20lb sledgehammer. It’s rare that any article passes through here that doesn’t contain some kind of pro-Apple statement. I hope Harry never tries to claim that this site is impartial, otherwise his nose will instantly grow so long that it’ll shatter his computer monitor in the blink of an eye.
January 9th, 2012 at 10:05 pm
ahh.. looks like the fandroid boyz (and usual APPL haters) are out in full swing tonight. It's just a story folks, don't get your panties in a knot 😉
January 14th, 2012 at 8:57 am
Changing small things in the app allows Acer from hit with a copy suit!
January 17th, 2012 at 12:23 am
I've been using syncing services or apps with smartphones since my first blackberry. When I got my first Android phone the first thing I did was find something that would sync content. Currently I have a nice app that lets me sync all my photos wirelessly over wifi or 3g, it works with music also, but I choose to use google music which has all 15,000 of my songs from my library aviliable in the cloud and playable from any pc or my phone. The idea of cloud storage and syncing wasn't created by apple and the fact that other people are doing the same thing is simply called business.