Goodbye I - What's Behind The Names Of New Apple Products?

Video: Goodbye I - What's Behind The Names Of New Apple Products?

2023 Author: Gordon Kinson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-24 11:09

The 15-year era of using the proprietary prefix "i" in the name of gadgets and services has come to an end, both of the brand's newest products have received fundamentally different names. It is unlikely that apart from the iPhone, iPad, iOS and iMac, anything else in the future will be called similarly - this decision is tortured, but extremely necessary. For a number of reasons, which are not very talked about in Cupertino.

But the ex- Apple employees are not averse to commenting on the actions of their former colleagues - a word to Ken Segall, who in 1998 invented the " iMac ". If it weren't for him, there would have been MacMan on the shop windows, as Jobs, despite his creative talent, sometimes got stuck in one thought and couldn't give up on Mac. Sigall saw an allusion to the Internet in the prefix "i", but he also considered options for "imagination" (imagination, creative thought), "individual" (personal, personal), "inspire" (inspiration, inspiration) and "instruct" (mentor, associate). In short, nothing really to do with "information" in IT (information technology), but beautiful and suitable for an advertising campaign.

There is an incredible fact behind this - no one at Apple has been trying to give "i" any real meaning for 15 years. The words iBooks, iPhoto, iTunes sound beautiful, help to make an impression, are part of traditional slang, but nothing more. The famous prefix, which for some reason must be written with a lowercase letter, is used out of inertia because top managers do not have the courage to accept the arguments of junior employees as correct. At one time, they could not explain its meaning to the world, but now they are afraid of the reaction of the consumer audience and continue to cling to a remnant of history.

More precisely, they would have continued if it had not been for the increased activity on the part of patent trolls. Neither Jobs, nor Segall, nor other creatives of the late 20th century thought of copyrighting the "i", it never occurred to them. In all fairness, it still would not have worked, but at least something could have been tried, for example, to study more closely the neighbors in the industry. The Israeli company InfoGear, 10 years before the appearance of the iPhone, quite officially patented this name for its future products. But it was bought by Cisco, which was not slow to roll out a lawsuit to the Cupertinians and could put an end to the Apple smartphone, but Apple preferred to solve everything out of court.

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Loud scandals of recent years, multi-billion dollar amounts of new lawsuits, activity in the camp of patent trolls - to defend the notorious "i", behind which there is practically nothing, is becoming more and more difficult and dangerous for a well-grown corporation. Fear, coupled with business judgment, became the driving force for the Cupertinians, according to Ken Segall, Tim Cook's team analyzed the situation and came to the conclusion that the only thing they have is Apple. An officially registered trade mark with a solid history and long-standing presence on the market, well-known on all continents. Even if the spiteful critics and encroach on the great "Yabloko", they will not achieve anything, in contrast to the "i" -pieces.

Both the payment service and smartwatches are large platforms with huge development prospects, which must be reliably protected from encroachments from the cradle. The phrase " Apple Pay " or " Apple Watch ", firstly, unambiguously indicates that the product belongs to a particular brand. Secondly, it gives freedom of maneuver - if competitors want to make an analogue, let them call it "Sony Watch" or "Gazprom Pay", everything is immediately clear, no confusion. And, thirdly, such names still sound more solid than the iPhone or iPad, which have become common nouns, hackneyed, and how many "i-ridicule" is lying around on the Web - do not count. Yes, all of the above are just assumptions, an attempt to understand the ongoing changes, but there is one important argument.

At the presentation, the names of both new products were designed in a fundamentally different manner than before. The company logo is , as an analogue of the word "apple" and the word indicating the product category, "pay" and "watch", payment system and watch. In Cupertino, a rebranding was carried out, launching and partial - they just don't take such steps in big business, which means that there is something more behind the new names.