A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch
All of the hype is finally over. The new iPad was released. No, not the iPad 3, but the “new iPad”. I’d guess that the naming was some kind of marketing strategy. The new iPad isn’t really a whole lot better than the the iPad 2. You’ve got to get the users thinking “new”. Get them to upgrade the “old”.
Two things surprised me about the iPad 2012. Oops, I meant the“new iPad”. Kim Kommando wasn’t overly impressed with the machine. She even suggested to one of her on air callers that they not upgrade. I was even more surprised when Leo Laporte said he just couldn’t wait to get the new iPad. He was mostly interested in the retina display.
All of the ballyhoo got me to thinking. Why did Apple ever start naming so many products “i” something? Was the strategy that iNSANE prices could be iMPLEMENTED for iDIOTS to get rid of their iNCOME?
Who knows? I can only imagine that Apple considered other letters. That makes me wonder if I can figure out why they weren’t used:
aProduct – the Apple Pad would alienate orange, banana and other fruit lovers.
bProduct – Boy are we ever making a lot of money.
cProduct – Computer could have been used if the company name hadn’t been changed.
dProduct – Duh, it just works.
eProduct – Extra pricey.
fProduct – the Flash-less pad.
gProduct – Geeks won’t buy it because they can’t tweak.
hProduct – Holy Apple Grail.
iProduct – I can’t think of anything for this letter..
jProduct – Jailbreak Jobs machines if you dare.
kProduct – Kim pad. She wasn’t impressed.
lProduct – Local Integrated Software Architecture wouldn’t make a good acronym..
mProduct – Mostly Hype will sell lots of Macintosh stuff.
nProduct – Nobody ever watches You Tube anyway.
oProduct – Only Apple Software will run.
pProduct – Priced high means more money.
qProduct – Quality is a seven letter word.
rProduct – Ronald Wayne should never have sold his third..
sProduct – Steve and Steve: Jobs and Wozniac.
t-Product – Technology? Lets trick Microsoft into helping us.
uProduct – an Unusual User letter would never work.
vProduct – Victory would get mixed up at sea.
wproduct – Wayne is gone and Wozniak is too hard to spell.
xProduct – more than one X would be needed to sell.
yProduct – You in a name would never catch on.
zProduct – Ziggy just sounds too cartoonist.
Oh well. It was a fun fantasy, but now I’m wondering why HP calls their computer a Pavilion. Why is the Dell a Dimension? Why did COMPAQ choose Presario? I have no idea what a Vaio, Portege or Tecra is. I sure hope that I don’t start pondering cell phone names.
Thanks for reading.