iRiver? Why is there an "i" in front of it?

I don't believe apple holds any sort of claim to i product names. Witness the Cisco iPhone.

Also, iRiver came about in 1999. At the time Apple was a small company that had minor first release product called an iMac. iPod and iTunes came out a couple years later. Any real recognition of i product names and Apple came about later.

True I Guess,
But still, I wish it wasnt called iRiver.

I did not know what iRiver was so I had to look. These companies really need to hire someone with a better grasp of the English language.

Their website contains gems like... The clear screen you are going to newly experience will keep offering a big pleasure for the entire hours while controlling Clix. Even long-time seeing a moving picture cannot make your eyes hurt.

http://www.iriver.com/product/p_detail.asp?pidx=82

Steve

You'd be better to use the iriveramerica.com site for english.

The re-designed iriver clix gen 2 plays music, video, photos and more. Freshly updated with a sleek design, vibrant 2.2” AMOLED screen, and highly compatible with both MTP and UMS* operating modes. The iriver clix works with both subscription and pay-per-song music services, so millions of songs are available to you.

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Cause they don't like to just be any river, but an iRiver

Joking aside, I think iRiver had their name before Apple started using the iSomething naming convention. They're also actually pretty good players. I owned one before my Ipod and it had a radio with very good sound. That was before many competing players started having the radio feature on theirs.

Ummm

Apple has not been a small company since 1978, and FYI: was & it still is the fastest growing company in history making the first billion dollars faster than any other company.

Smoothfonzo said:

Cause they don't like to just be any river, but an iRiver

Joking aside,

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That wasn't funny.

Cuzz323 said:

Apple has not been a small company since 1978.

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Please don't get defensive for Apple. When I say small, I don't mean they were still operating out of a garage or such. In the world of electronics they weren't huge. It was the year before this that Microsoft did their $150 million investment in a struggling Apple Computer Inc. In the world of MP3 players that iRiver was in, they (Apple) weren't anything. You can't expect a south-East asian company making MP3 players to be all that aware of Apple and their iMac product name. Around 1998 Apple shares were $5-$10 each, vs the $135 of today.

Chas3 said:

True I Guess,
But still, I wish it wasnt called iRiver.

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Maybe they wish the ipod wasnt called that either

Marketing. Period.

It would be hard for Apple to hold licensing on a single letter on at the beginning of a word.

as stated already - iriver came a bit before the ipod and all that jazz. I used to be a very big fan of iriver especially since i was a big pcbigot.

In fact back 2001/2002 I bought the iriver cdplayer i forgot what model it was, but as i recall iriver was the top rated cd-player, and then their ihp-20/40 models came out the same time the first gen ipods and they had equal ratings. Since then however ipod has easily outpaced iriver in almost every aspect. (i personally dislike iriver now, i find their products are very expensive and the quality is just not up to par with standards i prefer.)

The name aside, I must say... iRiver Clix looks like a better player than the iPod.

Atroz said:

Please don't get defensive for Apple. When I say small, I don't mean they were still operating out of a garage or such. In the world of electronics they weren't huge. It was the year before this that Microsoft did their $150 million investment in a struggling Apple Computer Inc. In the world of MP3 players that iRiver was in, they (Apple) weren't anything. You can't expect a south-East asian company making MP3 players to be all that aware of Apple and their iMac product name. Around 1998 Apple shares were $5-$10 each, vs the $135 of today.

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FYI Microsoft did not invest 150 million in Apple to help them out because they were struggling... it was in fact an out of court settlement for one of the many lawsuits against them.

I'm sick of companies ripping off Apple's "i" motif as well... can they be any less original?? Also the iMac was released when? 1998? iRiver surely did not exist back then?

irontree said:

I'm sick of companies ripping off Apple's "i" motif as well... can they be any less original?? Also the iMac was released when? 1998? iRiver surely did not exist back then?

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Absolutely, I suggest that Apple go after the Eskimos and their silly iGloos, the Swedes and their sille iKeas, and Donald Trump, for naming his daughter iVanka.

irontree said:

I'm sick of companies ripping off Apple's "i" motif as well... can they be any less original?? Also the iMac was released when? 1998? iRiver surely did not exist back then?

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The key here is that, while Apple did release the iMac in 1998, the iPod wasn't yet a product and weren't in the same same business. iRiver was one of the first companies out with an MP3 player. In fact, I think they were probably first in the market with one. So, Apple only became a direct competitor to iRiver once they released the iPod and went into the MP3 player business themselves.

they could also go after the iDiots at microslop.... when something turns blue, doesn't it die shortly after?

Well, at least the iRiver is some sort of digital product. The Indigo/Chapters "iRewards" program threw me for the longest time. It was basically a reward program you signed up for instore for savings at the physical store.

You couldn't gain points thru the website, and certainly there was nothing "innovative", or "interesting" about the offering.

jicon said:

Well, at least the iRiver is some sort of digital product. The Indigo/Chapters "iRewards" program threw me for the longest time. It was basically a reward program you signed up for instore for savings at the physical store.

You couldn't gain points thru the website, and certainly there was nothing "innovative", or "interesting" about the offering.

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No, but it saved me lots of money when I was buying texts for school.

milhaus said:

Absolutely, I suggest that Apple go after the Eskimos and their silly iGloos, the Swedes and their sille iKeas, and Donald Trump, for naming his daughter iVanka.

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Of course because they did after all strategically place a lower case "i" next to to an upper case letter of a name didn't they?