Comment by dredmorbius

11 hours ago

"iPhone" was an Infogear, later Cisco, trademark, for the InfoGear iPhone (1997--2000 / InfoGear, Cisco/Linksys 2006--2007), which was licenced to Apple.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_(internet_appliance)>

<https://www.cultofmac.com/apple-history/cisco-infogear-iphon...>

It was licensed... eventually :) Cisco where quick to bring Apple to court if i remember correctly.

  • I was at Cisco when the Apple iPhone was announced. It was rumored to be happening, so Cisco rushed out a Linksys VoIP(?) phone rebranded (it might have just been a sticker) as an "iPhone" so they could defend the trademark. They quickly reached an agreement with Apple. I remember they might have been getting their VPN included on the device. I'm sure there was a similar issue with iOS, and that caused me to get a lot of not-so-relevant emails from recruiters looking for mobile devs.