Did Apple steal the name for HealthKit from an Australian startup?

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New IBM cloud has the potential to take Health data to the next level. Photo: Apple
New IBM cloud has the potential to take Health data to the next level. Photo: Apple

Apple might have been planning its entry into health-tracking for quite some time, but it may not have given quite so much thought to the name of its HealthKit platform, as recently announced at WWDC.

That’s because an Australian health startup with the same name has come forwards, and it’s none too pleased about Apple apparently borrowing its name for the API of its Health app.

“It is very flattering that they like our name, but I’m a little let down because how hard would it have been to spend five seconds to put HealthKit.com into their browser and find us?” Alison Hardacre, co-founder and managing director of HealthKit told Wired. “Everybody worries that Google or Apple will come into their space and their business will die, but no one thinks that company will come into that space and use the same name!”

The startup owns both the domain name and Twitter handle for HealthKit.

One possible explanation is that Apple made the change after word of a “Healthbook” (using the same naming strategy as Apple’s previous Passbook) made it out into the blogosphere. Another explanation is that Apple simply does not care enough to change from its chosen course. While the company has certainly altered aspects of its adversarial approach to business since the days of Steve Jobs, this wouldn’t be the first time Apple has chosen a name for one of its products already being used. Back in the mid-2000s, Apple steamrolled Cisco to take the names iPhone and iOS which Cisco already held trademarks for.

It just goes to show that when you’re sitting on $150 billion in cash, the normal rules of naming products doesn’t always apply.

Interestingly, Apple’s HomeKit smart home software kit also points to a gift idea website online, while @homekit on Twitter is taken but inactive. As of yet Apple hasn’t heard anything about this name though.

Source: Wired

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