CUPERTINO, CA — Apple may create some of the sexiest computers and tech gadgets on the market, but it’s certainly suspicious of anything overtly erotic that might even possibly be interpreted as a product of its designers imaginations – and it seems to believe it has a corner of the market on small letters.The company had been in a foam about a Japanese toy called a gPod – which was not a reference to an Apple product but to the infamously pleasurable G-spot to be found in all biological women. Apple has not made a legal move on the company – but its interactions with British LoveHoney Ltd. the next month weren’t so indecisive.
LoveHoney Ltd’s iBuzz vibrator was the first pleasure device ever created specifically for use with the iPod MP3 player. The beef from Apple’s perspective was how the iBuzz was marketed. Advertisements promoting to toy used silhouetted figures similar to those employed by Apple in the promotion of its inspirational portable media player.
After receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Apple, LoveHoney released a new generation of vibration and replaced the silhouettes with new animation.
Now the maker of the “lovable MacBook” and other sophisticated tech toys is spitting legal seeds into the face of yet another British sex toy maker over yet another advertising campaign.
This time it’s the iGasm from Anne Summers, an English retailer specializing in lingerie and sex toys. Its latest reasonably priced gift to the world is an egg-shaped device that plugs into an iPod and keeps the beat based on the volume of the music pumping from Apple’s palm-sized music maker. The happy little egg is priced at $60 American and includes two silicone ticklers and a splitter, permitting the use of earphones.
iGasm’s Web promo encourages users to “Load up your iPod with killa choons and take your appreciation of music to a while new level. Just turn up the volume to increase the strength of the vibrations and believe us when we say that full whack is PHENOMENAL.”
Apple, as is often the case with companies that have expanded beyond a sense of humor, is not amused. Perhaps even phenomenally unamused. Although its legal eagles appear to understand that the company has no legal ground to keep developers from using the iPod for launching sensual purposes, they feel more secure encouraging iGasm’s promoters to pull out early when it comes to the device’s current poster-based advertising campaign which, includes the use of silhouettes, which Apple apparently believes it owns the universal copyright on.
Unlike the black iPod silhouettes, which feature people merrily rocking out to the tunes being pumped into their heads, the iGasm silhouettes are an eye-searing neon pink and feature an underwear clad woman holding her iPod while her arms are crossed over her head. One set of wires emerges from her earphones and a second vanishes into her panties.
According to British tabloid News of the World (NOTW), Jacqueline Gold, the CEO for Ann Summers, isn’t planning to see her company cave in like those before her have. Although Apple informed the company that it hopes “this request to remove it (the shop and website posters) immediately will prevent us from having to consider further action,” Gold thinks there may be another way to avoid trouble.
“Perhaps I can send them an iGasm to put a smile back on their faces,” the cagey marketing maven proposes in the pages of NOTW.
Diane Duke, executive director of the Free Speech Coaltion told Sci-Tech-Today.com reporters that she has an even better idea. “I think Apple is seriously misreading their customer base. I believe that any association with iGasm would be positive, so instead of suing Ann Summers, Apple should offer them a deal.”
What a novel idea. Perhaps it’s time for Apple to “think different.”
