Dear Rich: I have been noticing a lot of new start up companies, especially in the medical industry, are buying Apple iPod's (Touch) and then they preload the iPod's with videos, educational tools, music, medical apps etc. and then they sell it to medical professionals. For example there is a company that sells iPod's to dentists. These iPod's have educational tools preloaded so that the dentist can show the patient the procedure he is about to perform. My questions are: (1) Do these companies have to be registered Apple resellers? (2) Does Apple frown upon start up companies like these? (3) What are the legal implications? We'll answer your questions in order. (1) No, these companies do not have to register as resellers. They're fine as long as they buy authorized iPods and don't represent themselves as authorized Apple resellers. (2) We don't know if Apple frowns (and we're not sure a company can frown) but we think that shareholders would be pleased. It's better than dentists buying a competing device. (3) Legal implications? As long as there is no unauthorized copying or violation of any license agreements, all is good.
Reseller Redux #2. Most of this information was provided in previous blog posts and frankly we're answering this question primarily because it provides us a chance to link to our own home-made dental video in the hopes that one of these companies will license it from us. Oh, and also, since we're talking about iPods, we thought this would give us a chance to explain to our readers why we just returned our iPad to Best Buy ... On second thought, maybe we should consider the legal implications before we write about that!