Apple to stop CeBIT presentation of iPod shuffle clone
After the company Luxpro banished its "Super shuffle" from its CeBIT stand on Friday, the iPod Shuffle lookalike again put in an appearance on Saturday.
"It's not identical with the iPod Shuffle, it's better" - that at least is the way one of the people presenting the device for the Taiwanese company sees it (Hall 24, Stand C24-1). Under the name Super shuffle Luxpro is presenting an MP3 player with Flash Memory that at first sight cannot be distinguished from the iPod Shuffle.
Urged by Apple's lawyers Luxpro had taken the player out of its show cases on Friday, only to put it back in again on Saturday for the benefit of the weekend visitors to the CeBIT event. Who, moreover, did seem to show an interest in the device: The player offers besides all functions present in the genuine iPod shuffle an FM tuner, a WMA playing capability (according to the manufacturer also with digital rights management) and voice recording - only AAC support has to be dispensed with. At that the iPod lookalike is only marginally thicker and according to statements by staff at the stand "in any case cheaper than the original."
Even a visibly distraught Apple product manager was unable on the Saturday evening to persuade Luxpro´s stand manager to once again remove the Super shuffle from the display. The stand the visual appearance of which is strongly reminiscent of an Apple ad campaign provided a bizarre backdrop to the brief yet heated verbal encounter that ended without mutual agreement. "Our lawyers are in the process of weighing legal options," the Apple press spokesman, Georg Albrecht, told heise online.
