Swatch trademarks Steve Jobs’ famous catchphrase

“And there’s just one more thing…”

It’s the famous line Steve Jobs often used on stage to introduce unexpected Apple gadgets: Color iMacs, the Apple Cinema Display, the G4 Cube, the iPod Shuffle, the Apple TV, the MacBook Air and various other products were all announced in this way since the Apple CEO first used the phrase in 1999. Of course he wasn’t the only one to utter it — TV detective Columbo was catching out criminals with the phrase way back in the 1970s and 1980s too.

Since Jobs passed away, his successor Tim Cook has been known to use the phrase during Apple product announcements too.

For technology enthusiasts, it will be forever associated with Jobs and Apple, so it seems strange that watchmaker Swatch has decided to register a European trademark for the phrase. It gives the Swiss company the right to use “one more thing” in its promotions and advertising up until 2025, a move no one was expecting. Presumably Swatch wants to aim some sly digs at the Cupertino company rather than pay homage to its innovation.

Apple and Swatch have only recently started moving in on each other’s turf: After years of rumors, the Apple Watch was finally announced in September 2014. Since then, it’s been affecting sales of traditional watches, which obviously has the established manufacturers worried — as a result Swatch has made several attempts to add extra modern-day smarts to the timepieces in its own line-up of products.

Over the weekend, Swatch CEO Nick Hayek was quoted as saying there are quite a few smartwatches in the pipeline at his company: We should be seeing the first of those before the end of the year, though no firm release dates or model names have been mentioned. Hayek has also said that he has no interest in making “a reduced, minimized mobile phone on your wrist” — it sounds like Swatch’s smart timepieces will focus on one or two extra features rather than packing in everything that the Apple Watch or the Android Wear devices do.

So far the Swatch Zero One is the only watch from the Swiss firm to have had any kind of extra electronic circuitry added to it; more models have been promised, but we’re still waiting for them to appear. When they do, expect a promotional campaign that’s distinctly Steve Jobs-esque.

from Planet GS via John Jason Fallows on Inoreader http://ift.tt/1PJCgsr
David Nield