The people behind it extremely popular retro game emulator for iOSDelta, were forced to quickly change the app’s logo after receiving legal threats from Adobe and warnings from Apple.
On April 7th Apple has changed its App Store rules and began allowing retro video game emulators on its digital store. Within days, some of the most popular apps in the App Store were emulators. One of these new apps shoot up the charts is the Multi-console emulator Delta, which looks back on decades of history. Its creator, Riley Testut, I recently spoke to My city, and shares his hopes that the emulator can pave the way to a new, better future for retro gaming. But before all that happens, Delta first has to find a new logo.
As reported by The edge, On May 17, the Delta Emulator for iOS was updated to version 1.5.4. And in the patch notes for this update, there’s a message indicating that Adobe – the company behind Photoshop and Premiere – has sent Delta a legal threat.
“Adobe threatened legal action unless we changed our app icon – and we did! I hope you all enjoy it,” Delta’s developer explained in the patch notes.
Testut spoke along The edge about the situation and explained in a few emails that everything happened very quickly. It all started on May 7, when Adobe’s lawyers sent Testut a “firm” but “friendly” email asking Delta to change its icon and stating that the emulator may “not benefit consumers.” “Confuse or otherwise violate Adobe’s rights or the law.”
But before Testut could respond, Apple emailed Delta the next day suggesting that the emulator might be at risk after Adobe contacted it and claimed Delta was infringing on its intellectual property.
“We responded to both Apple and Adobe, explaining that our symbol was a stylized Greek letter Delta – not an A – but that we would still update the Delta logo to avoid confusion,” Testut said The edge.
The current delta icon in the App Store is now only temporary. There are plans to introduce a new permanent logo in the future along with Update 1.6. As the outlet pointed out, Delta’s old icon most closely resembled Adobe’s Cloud Experience app icon. Since the 1980s, most of Adobe’s logos and trademarks have included a stylized A with a gap, a design similar to Delta’s old, now-defunct symbol.
Hopefully Delta’s next icon will have nothing in common with another giant and litigious company.
