When Steve Jobs announced yesterday that they were finally taking the “phone” out of the iPhone OS and rebranding it “iOS,” I breathed a sigh of relief: even before the iPad, branding an operating system that runs on non-phone hardware like the iPod Touch always seemed confusing, and if rumors of a new Apple TV are correct, Apple’s plans for iOS are far bigger than the smartphone arena.
But I also met the announcement with a bit of a “Whuh?” Cisco has owned the trademark for iOS for almost two decades: it’s what their routers run on. Then again, Cisco also owned the iPhone trademark, and Apple came to a deal with them on that one back in 2007: they must have worked out a deal.
They did. According to a Cisco blog post, “Cisco has agreed to license the iOS trademark to Apple for use as the name of Apple’s operating system for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. The license is for use of the trademark only and not for any technology.”
As of this moment, there’s no news if Apple reached a similar licensing agreement with the Greek government, who certainly could use the money right about now.
