Apple, Bloggers Fight In Court

The Electronic Frontier Foundation noted the Apple v Does lawsuit heads to the courtroom on Thursday. Apple wants two fan sites, AppleInsider and PowerPage, to turnover sources that provided them with insider information on forthcoming Apple products.

Apple also wants PowerPage’s email provider, Nfox.com, to hand over email so it can track down the source that gave up Apple’s product information. Despite great consumer popularity, Apple has its detractors in the media who find the company’s attitudes towards the press at best apathetic.

The media does have what Apple claims bloggers do not have, a privilege under the Constitution to maintain the confidentiality of a source. But bloggers feel otherwise, and will face Apple in court over the issue.

A November 2004 article published at AppleInsider about a new audio interface to the GarageBand audio application. Apple considered that a theft of trade secrets.

The Mercury News reported on the coming storm, noting a vast array of high tech companies and the former dean of Stanford Law School have aligned themselves against bloggers being protected by the First Amendment.

An EFF attorney responded to that in the article:

A March 2005 court decision in favor of Apple discovering the source behind the leak did not address the issue of journalistic protection. The subsequent appeal hopes to receive a decision that treats the typical blogger like a journalist.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

It’s at the “sources said” stage at AppleInsider, but that’s enough to build some excitement as Google finally develops an application that doesn’t have the word ‘Windows’ in the system requirements listing.

Should the rumors be true, Google has a version of Google Earth in development to run on Mac OS X, the current version of the Macintosh operating system. Reportedly, a version of Google Earth for Mac OS X began showing up outside the US. That pre-release edition relies on OpenGL rendering, the report said.

The free version of Google Earth lets Windows users zip around the globe to view images from the whole planet. A $20 annual subscription adds GPS device support and better printing options to the service, while a professional version with collaboration features carries a $400 annual price tag.

Except for a Gmail Notifier for Mac OS X created by a Google engineer and Macintosh fan, Google has not released any products for platforms besides Windows. Complaints from the vocal users of other operating systems like Linux, and the addition of Chris DiBona to Google as open source program manager may finally spur Google to develop versions of apps for non-Windows users.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.