If you are trying to piss off an entrepreneur, the best way is to steal their ideas. That’s what’s going on between Apple and WhatsApp founder Jan Koum right now.
Apple announced some new features for their new iOS 8 this morning at the WWDS 2014, a developer’s conference in San Francisco. Among their updates were some new features for iMessage that are all too similar to Koum’s WhatsApp messaging platform. While Koum has yet to comment on the exact features, it isn’t hard for the rest of us to see where these features come from- and it’s not just WhatsApp either.
Some of the “borrowed” features include the option to insert audio in messages and load video and location information into conversations, all of which are offered by WhatsApp. Apple also unveiled that messages would have a “self-destruct” capability if the user chooses, a feature that Snapchat is mainly built upon. Apple’s iCloud Drive, a file storage system, is also posing a threat to applications like Dropbox and Box through similarity.
According to Mashable, Snapchat responded rather nicely by saying that, “It’s exciting to see other companies begin to embrace deletion by default.” Dropbox had “nothing to share at this time,” while Box’s CEO praised Apple for the iCloud’s cross-platform synchronization on Twitter.
This isn’t the first time Apple has borrowed features from other companies (remember their war with Samsung?) and it apparently won’t be the last either.
