"Now, did iFone choose their name based on the positive connotations associated with Apple? I doubt it."

I see no reason to doubt it. There are exceptions but "i" prefix anything generally is trying to cash in on the association. Whether Apple deserves to be the only company that can use "i" prefix is another matter (I would say no).

This is simply another case where Apple will end up writing a big check. They did it for iPad in China, iPhone from Cisco, the swiss clock thing a couple months ago, etc. Again the difference is Apple users aren't crying about how broken the world is because they have to write a check for walking all over some other companies IP.