Alison Hardacre, co-founder and managing director of HealthKit, a Melbourne-based startup and owner of both the HealthKit Twitter handle and the healthkit.com website, expressed disappointment over Twitter on Apple's use of its company name in its new product.
Hardacre's HealthKit is a health platform that connects patients and doctors similar to Apple's service of the same name that's coming to the new iOS 8 operating system for iPhones.
It is designed to streamline health services for people online by connecting health practitioners--such as doctors to clients--to access health records, data, and other useful information.
The company has since taken to its Twitter account to voice its complaints: "Feeling annoyed. #Apple is using our #HealthKit name for their new health product! @tim_cook r u aware of this?"
Another post from the company said: "Apple likes our #HealthKit name and so do we!"
Apple on Monday announced the new features of its operating system at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), with a claim that iOS 8 is now the world's most advanced operating system.
Among many other updates and new features, iOS 8 has an app called Health, that gives users access to a dashboard that collects and displays a user's health and fitness data. Accompanying this app is a new tool for developers called HealthKit, Apple's API or the platform's programming interface that allows all other health and fitness apps to work together under the Health app.
It is not the first time Apple has been embroiled in allegations of trademark-infringement. In 2010 it settled with Cisco--a company that designs, manufactures, and sells networking equipment--over a trademark-infringement lawsuit for the use of the iPhone name. Cisco sued the company after Apple launched its highly-anticipated multimedia phone, a name already claimed by the network equipment maker.
Join the Conversation