Another useful Apple peripheral device bites the dust today, thanks to the effectiveness of Apple's litigation muscle.
In response to being sued by Apple in September for patent-infringement in its usage of the patented MagSafe power connector and 30-pin iPhone/iPod dock connector without a license, the Sanho corporation has caved and will no longer be offering its charging cables and car chargers to its HyperMac external batteries. That's a blow to anyone who wants to be free of the tethering effect of the MacBook's short battery life.
Engadget's Thomas Ricker also reports on another consequence of the strong-arm tactics: changing the HyperMac name to HyperJuice. (Which makes me think of super protein energy smoothie, not a battery.)
On the HyperMac site today:
As part of our ongoing comprehensive licensing negotiations with Apple regarding a wide array of technologies and issues, we have decided to cease the sale of the MacBook charging cables and car charger on November 2, 2010.While we will continue to sell the same batteries together with the rest of our product line after November 2nd, they will not be able to charge MacBooks without the cables.
So you have until midnight tonight to order the HyperMac external battery, which boosts the battery life of a MacBook by upwards of 11 hours. (I'm already enticed, as it's hard to go more than two hours at a time without plugging in on my 2009 aluminum MacBook.)
Without the cables to connect the device, charging the non-removable batteries in the MacBook, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro is futile. USB-connected Apple products such as the iPad and iPhone can still get juiced.
Ricker's colleague at Engadget, Nilay Patel, pointed out in a story covering the September lawsuit that HyperMac doesn't claim to use anything but the original MagSafe connectors.
Check out the blurb from the HyperMac site:
Every battery is compatible with all MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air models. HyperMac battery intelligently determines which MacBook model is connected and adjusts the charging power automatically, supporting MacBook Pro dual voltage. Our charging cables use original Apple MagSafe connectors for maximum compatibility.
Patel writes that this would "theoretically defeat Apple's patent claims -- once a patent holder sells a product that contains a patented technology, it can be difficult to claim that the patent is being infringed by the use of that product, even if there's modification involved."
We're not lawyers, but reading through the United States Patent and Trademark Office's "Infringement of patent," there does seem to be enough wiggle room for those (no-doubt highly paid) lawyers Apple engages to make a compelling case.
At the very least, they have kept busy with an ever expanding list of cases in which Apple is either the plaintiff or defendant: Motorola, the European Commission, Meizu, HTC, Nokia...and on and on.
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