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The founder of Delicious Monster, an iPhone app developer, has claimed that Apple stole the user interface for his Delicious Library app and used it to create the iBooks feature that was demonstrated on the iPad.
According to the SuperSite Blog, Wil Shipley immediately twittered his thoughts during the product demostration last week.
“No, Apple didn’t license iBooks from me. They just copied me. Ah well,” he wrote, before adding: “I guess it’s not enough Apple has hired every employee who worked on Delicious Library, they also had to copy my product’s look. Flattery?”
The Delicious Library app received the Apple design award twice and was a runner-up once, so Shipley is adamant that the duplication is not a mistake.
“Now, of course Apple couldn’t contact me ahead of time and say, ‘Hey, we’re taking your idea, thanks.’ Their lawyers would worry they’d open themselves to a huge lawsuit, for one, and they’d also be leaking a secret,” speculated Shipley. “Nor could they write me a check. Even a token one would be an admission (in their lawyers’ eyes) that they were copying something.”
