This is why fewer and fewer Apple products start with the letter “i”
The iPhone, iPad and iMac: all iconic Apple products that start with an “i”. What does this letter actually stand for? And why is Apple increasingly moving away from this trademark? Time for an analysis.
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This is why the iPhone is not called an Apple Phone
Our starting point is 1998. In that year, the late Steve Jobs unveiled the first iDevice: the iMac. You can hardly imagine it now, but back then ‘the internet’ was in its infancy and the new technology was on the rise. It is therefore logical that computer makers responded to this, including Apple.
During the presentation of the iMac, Jobs, who was just entering his second period at Apple at the time, indicated that the “i” stood for the Internet. The World Wide Web was the basis of the new computer, so the company thought it was a logical name. However, the “i” in the name has more meanings. During the presentation, Jobs gave four more interpretations:
- Individual: Apple wanted to enable iMac users to express themselves to the fullest through their brand new and unique computer.
- Instruct: The first iMac was (partly) made for students and teachers. Apple envisioned a future in which the iMac would become the dominant computer in education.
- Inform: The company indicated that the iMac was an ideal device for learning thanks to the Internet.
- inspire: The company wanted iMac users to create all kinds of cool things to inspire others.
No sooner said than done. The iconic iMac became a huge success, so Apple tried to repeat the trick in its other products. Thus, the iBook appeared a year later. This predecessor to the MacBook was marketed as a portable variant of the iMac computer. And, not unimportantly, the iBook also became a huge sales success.
“i” is Apple’s trademark…
Apple could use that windfall. When Jobs just returned to Apple in 1997, the company was in anything but rosy. The financial situation was bad and people were eagerly looking for a sales stunner. It is therefore not surprising that Apple stuck to the “i” trademark in the next products, because never change a winning team.
For example, 2001 saw the release of the iconic iPod music player, followed by the 2007 smartphone from which this website takes its name. The iPad, which saw the light of day in 2010, also builds directly on the successful path that Apple took in the late 1990s.
In fact, Apple even tried to patent the “i” at one point. The company believed that the letter had become an integral part of the Apple experience. Anyone who saw the letter “i” immediately thought of Apple, according to Apple itself. However, the judge did not agree and ruled in 2010 that “no sane person” thinks that if a product has the letter “i”, it must have been made by Apple.
…Or not?
And this is where it gets interesting, because around this time, the company seems to have fallen from its “belief.” After all, products come out without the well-known letter. For example, look at the Apple Watch, which was presented in 2015.
That name was striking, because the outside world thought the smart watch would go through life as iWatch. Why was the Apple Watch chosen, instead of the apparently much more logical iWatch?
When Tim Cook, the current CEO of Apple who took over from the increasingly ill Jobs in 2011, was asked about this by a journalist, his answer was not really satisfactory. “Of course we thought about the name, but I think Apple Watch is a good name. What do you think?” Cook asked the journalist from news week.
It may be obvious. Apple is a mysterious company, so Cook is tight-lipped about the new ‘name strategy’. We therefore do not have an explicit explanation about the how and why, but we can of course make an attempt to explain it.
Why Apple is moving away from the “i”
It probably has to do with trademark law. Apple is a protected name. That is, competing companies can’t just release an Apple Phone, because that would naturally make everyone think it was made by Tim Cook’s company.
On the other hand, the letter “i” is therefore not a protected brand name. It therefore seems logical that around the time of the lost lawsuit, Apple is changing course.
Just look at the ‘recent’ product unveiling. For example, you don’t use an iPencil to operate your iPad, but an Apple Pencil. And you pay (in America) with the physical Apple Card payment card, instead of an iCard. The notable precursor to this trend is the Apple TV. It came out in 2006 and was ‘ahead of its time’ by not being called iTV, but that was because a British television network had claimed that name.
In the software field, too, we clearly see that Apple has moved away from the iconic letter. The iBooks app is now simply called Books, and we now use music program iTunes as Music. The Photos app also dropped the “i” prefix a few years ago.
When will the iPhone disappear?
So, if Apple seems to see little of the iconic “i” anymore, why do products with this name still exist, such as the iPhone and iPad? Apple itself has never explicitly answered this, but it probably has to do with money. After all, the iPhone and iPad are hugely successful and known worldwide.
It would therefore be illogical to suddenly call the iPhone Apple Phone, because then you lose all that brand awareness. It makes much more sense to naturally phase out existing Apple stuff with the “i” prefix, as happened with the iPod. After all, the iPhone can do everything the music player could, so Apple decided to largely leave the iPod for what it is (except for the upgrade from 2019).
For many people, the smartphone is their most used electronic device, but maybe in ten years it will be smart glasses, another device or something we can’t imagine right now. Whatever the successor/evolution of the smartphone, Apple’s will most likely not start with the letter “i”.
Also interesting: Apple Glass: the 8 most important rumors about Apple’s AR glasses
