Did Microsoft Steal an Apple iPod Shuffle Design?
Posted March 1, 2007 
Comments(0) Could Apple and Microsoft Be in Court Soon?
Peter Ha has an interesting post over at CrunchGear about an Apple iPod Shuffle patent that looks (and sounds) an awful lot like a Microsoft Zune. According to Peter,
“This is somewhat strange, but you can’t deny the facts. Apple was granted a patent that would allow “A two shot injection process for forming an enclosure for an electronic device”. Sounds a lot like the Zune doesn’t it? Keep in mind the patent was filed August 16, 2005 and was meant for the first-generation Shuffle, but we know that it was shipped as a single layer shell. Does Apple plan on using this for future iPods or is it dead in the water? Did Microsoft ‘borrow’ this particular design and just tweak it a bit? Maybe it’s just coincidence, but don’t you love rumors?”
I’d have to agree that the patent looks like and describes a Microsoft Zune. What is more interesting though, is why has this form factor not been used? The first generation iPod shuffles look nothing like this. Could we quite possibly see a new iPod Shuffle form factor for the third time?
