Amidst the growing chorus of rumors about an Apple branded television, The Telegraph reports that the UK TV network ITV has written a letter to Apple to warn it against using the name "iTV" for its future television product.
This is actually not the first time that Apple and ITV have been in contention over the name. When Apple first announced their set top box in 2006, they originally called the product "iTV":
The original name for the Apple TV set top box
Apple later changed the name to "Apple TV", but reportedly later reconsidered changing the name back to iTV. ITV executives were said to be "furious" over the possibility.
The Telegraph reports that Apple gave reassurances back in 2010 that they would not use the name, though they note that Apple is now under different leadership.
However, insiders fear that the world’s biggest company might take a different stance under Tim Cook, who replaced Steve Jobs as chief executive shortly before Mr Jobs died in August last year.
Apple is believed to be actively working on a standalone television product. A recent report claimed Canadian cable companies already had the product in their hands. That report and others have been casually referring to the upcoming product as the "Apple iTV", though Apple has yet to officially name or even acknowledge the project.
Update: In a statement to The Verge, ITV has denied that it sent any such warning to Apple.
In a statement to The Verge, ITV said that, "The Telegraph's piece is entirely speculative, and there has been no communication between ITV and Apple. ITV has no further comment on the matter."
Thursday January 23, 2025 6:41 am PST by Joe Rossignol
iOS 18.3 should be released to the public next week, following beta testing since mid-December. While the software update is a relatively minor one, it still includes a handful of new features, changes, and bug fixes for iPhones.
Below, we recap everything new in iOS 18.3.
Notification Summary Changes
Examples of inaccurate Apple Intelligence notification summaries
Apple Intelligence...
Friday January 24, 2025 1:55 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple is set to release iOS 18.3 next week, bringing further refinements to Apple Intelligence features, a couple of neat new capabilities to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 devices, and bug fixes.
While not quite as packed with new features as Apple's preceding iOS 18 point releases, iOS 18.3 still introduces capabilities that aim to make your iPhone smarter and more intuitive. Below, we've...
Friday January 24, 2025 8:16 am PST by Joe Rossignol
iOS 18.3 is expected to be widely released next week, and that means the first iOS 18.4 beta for iPhones should be just around the corner.
Apple has previously implied that iOS 18.4 will be released in April, as that is when it promised to make Apple Intelligence available in even more languages.
Below, we outline what to expect from iOS 18.4 so far.
Apple Intelligence for Siri
Siri ...
Thursday January 23, 2025 7:32 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Walmart still does not accept Apple Pay or other NFC payments at its more than 4,600 stores across the U.S., and it stood firm on its reasoning for that today.
A spokesperson for Walmart today informed MacRumors that its position on contactless payments has not changed since we last reached out about the matter in 2022. The big-box retailer said it remains focused on its own convenient...
Wednesday January 22, 2025 6:01 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
A new Apple TV is expected to be released later this year. In this article, we recap rumored features and changes for the device.
The next Apple TV will be equipped with Apple's own combined Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. He said the chip supports Wi-Fi 6E, which would be an upgrade over the current Apple TV's standard Wi-Fi 6 support. Wi-Fi 6E extends the...
Tuesday January 21, 2025 4:31 pm PST by Juli Clover
Apple provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of iOS 18.3 today, and with it comes release notes confirming what's new. While we knew about several of the features that are in the update, there are some lesser known tweaks and bug fixes.
The update adds new Visual Intelligence features for iPhone 16 models, it tweaks Notification summaries on all...
Friday January 24, 2025 9:09 am PST by Juli Clover
The upcoming iPhone 17 models that Apple plans to release this year will not feature a smaller Dynamic Island, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said today.
On social media, he said that he is expecting the size of the Dynamic Island to remain "largely unchanged" across the iPhone 17 lineup. His statement is contrary to prior rumors that we've heard about planned changes for the iPhone 17 models.
...
Saturday January 25, 2025 5:07 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple's retail stores will be rolling out "merchandise/floor marketing updates" next week, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
Gurman did not explicitly say if the store updates are related to any upcoming product announcements, but he did mention that next week is around the time that Apple rolls out its annual Black Unity watch band for the Apple Watch.
In each of the past four years, ...
Thursday January 23, 2025 2:48 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
It's also time for Apple's first product announcement of the year.
Last year, Apple said it would be launching Powerbeats Pro 2 in 2025, and the wireless earbuds are expected to launch very soon.
Powerbeats Pro 2 images found in iOS 18 code
In his Power On newsletter last weekend, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said the Powerbeats Pro 2 are "due imminently." In addition to Apple filing the...
I have said before, it didn't stop them using iPhone and iOS, two Cisco trademarks. Cisco are many times the size of ITV. (Before they came to the legal agreement)
Granted, iPhone wasn't really a known product and Cisco IOS isn't on consumer devices, most regular people who never hear about it.
Whereas ITV is a name people recognise in the UK, it being like, the second biggest broadcaster (I'm not entirely sure) after the BBC. With the UK being a large market for Apple they may choose to stay away from the name or just perhaps have a different name for it in the UK?
*shrugs*
Unlike Cisco and the iPhone name which was used on a little known and obsolete product, ITV is the name of the company. You can't seriously expect ITV to give it up their brand name after using it for the last 50 years?
