Apple’s Uproar Over Amazon Appstore

Posted by Blake Sanders on Mar 29, 2011 in Telegram Past News

Technology giants Apple and Amazon have not really had any problems with one another, until now. Amazon recently released its own version of Apple’s App Store, which is perfectly fine; however, they chose to name it the Amazon Appstore, which Apple believes is a violation of its trademark Apple App Store.

Since its releases, the App Store has been incredibly successful for Apple, containing over 400,000 apps to date and giving Apple some healthy profits. Amazon, seeing possibilities in having their own app store, created the Appstore to be used on Android devices as a better version of the Android Marketplace.

The Amazon Appstore operates very similarly to Apple’s App Store. It has very close controls and profit sharing with developers as the App Store, but this is not Apple’s primary concern. Apple wants Amazon to change the name of its app store, claiming that it clearly violates Apple’s trademark of the term “App Store” and can possibly confuse customers into thinking that the two app stores are the same store.

This “customer confusion” is really just one way that Apple is trying to get enough support to force Amazon to change the name of its app store and maintain control over the app industry. Apple was the first company to have a truly successful app store, so they want to keep interest in their own app store, not have other companies try to steal their thunder.