

Apple’s unsolicited idea submission policy - d_r
http://www.apple.com/legal/policies/ideas.html

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Perceval
I submitted the idea for GarageBand to Apple. I think it was through a bug
report or some other generic contact Apple form. I was a senior in college at
the time. I asked for a basic music loop program with an iCal interface.

I didn't really care about ownership of the idea. I just wanted the program
made.

The fact that they made GarageBand was probably just a coincidence, and not
based on my idea (since they already had sound editing programs like Final Cut
and Soundtrack), but I was still pretty happy when they announced it.

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tvon
Isn't this pretty standard?

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codeup
Interesting stuff. Reads like Apple sees itself as a walled garden of
creativity, innovation and initiative. Any external, unsolicited idea that
crosses the semipermeable walls of Cupertino is swallowed into a black hole
becoming Apple's property.

This gives a whole different meaning to all the recent "ideas are worthless,
execution counts" talk. If you're very lucky, your idea may result in another
exceptional Apple product which you can then buy in a store.

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tptacek
Or, _instead_ of this breathless narrative, we can acknowledge that this is a
standard boilerplate legal safeguard employed by hundreds of companies,
particularly those that rely on intellectual property or creative work.

But that would require you to Google ["unsolicited ideas" policy], the first
two SERPs of which would tell you that the same safeguard is published at
Taser, Sling, Fujifilm, eBay, Zynga, Husqvarna, Krispy Kreme, LG, McDonalds,
Dickies, American Spirit Tobacco, Reynolds, Nabisco, and The Late Late Show
With Craig Furguson (and all other CBS shows).

If you wanted to be creative, you could also use advanced Google-fu in the
form of ["unsolicited ideas" (cisco|google|adobe|microsoft)], whereupon you'd
learn that all those companies _also_ have that safeguard.

Sheesh.

~~~
codeup
Good clarification.

~~~
tptacek
No.

(The parent was edited; originally, it read, ", but doesn't this just mean
that the same narrative applies to all those companies too").

