Analysis: Can Apple still be the challenger brand?

6. Thou shall be exempt.

When last week Australia's competition regulator the ACCC announced some new rules concerning mobile phone warranties being extended to the life of their service contracts.

Great news for the consumer, everybody wins. Except those people that bought an iPhone.

Those consumers will have a reconditioned handset offered to then for $288.

Regardless of whether or not it is enforced in practice - by the very nature of this issue being raised we are again seeing a brand flexing its muscles, wielding its market power over the very people that put the brand there in the first place.

7. There's a trademark for that.

Woolworths is one thing - even if the logos weren't particularly similar. But Apple, when you set your lawyers on a small Australian developer in seaside Sydney, you are really losing touch.

The Little App factory, hardly a multinational by any stretch, was happily selling an application, 'iPodRip' designed to save the consumer heartache over losing entire libraries of music should the hardware crash (probably running Flash, Steve?).

However, the usage of 'pod' by this company was deemed to be in breach and the orders were made: No use of the iPod or Apple-related imagery, and relinquish the website.

Apple have a right to protect their trademarks, but when the enquiry was made to Mr Jobs, the reply was simply 'Change the Apps name. Not that big of a deal'.

Again, Apple may be in the right. But from a brand perspective, everything is wrong.

The irony is the Little App factory is exactly the brand Apple needs to be.

A quick visit to their website and you notice that they were so touched by the Haiti tragedy they immediately donated $10,000 to Doctors without Borders and gave a percentage of sales from their Apps that month to the same charity. That lifted their donation to around $15,000 but in the interests of rounding decided to donate $20,000 instead.

Imagine that sort of thinking when you sell tens of millions of product a month.

8. We have [to have] control.

Details are still to fully emerge about iAd.

But according to the Wall Street Journal it looks like, at least initially, control over advertising will be in the hands of Apple. The approval process? Yes. But sorry? The creative as well?

Apple will be designing the advertising themselves.

"As a creative director, I can completely understand that they created this new baby and they want to make sure it gets born looking gorgeous," said Lars Bastholm, chief digital creative officer at WPP's Ogilvy told the Journal. "But as a creative director, I don't feel completely comfortable letting Apple do the creative."

9. Anti-trust.

Google the Apple brand name. How long is it before you start seeing the news results with the words anti-trust mentioned. Need we say anymore?

10. Even the Daily Show is getting laughs at your expense.

Comedian Jon Stewart, I believe, has put it best in regard to the Apple brand losing its shine.

"You guys are busting down doors in Palo Alto, while Commandant Gates is ridding the world of mosquitoes. What the f**k is going on?"

Darren Winterford is a former global brand manager and sometime [disgruntled] Apple fan.