This video was sponsored by Skillshare. I have a link for you to try out premium for free
So hangout till the end.
In 1998, the iMac started one of the most iconic
naming trends in Apple history. The lowercase "i" according to the creative director of
Apple at the time originally stood for the internet but was also loosely implying other qualities such as
Imagination inspiration and so on.
It was short easy to pronounce and definitely had a better bring to it than Mac Man
which is bizarrely what Steve Jobs was planning to call the computer and
After it made its debut on the iMac the lowercase
"i" became synonymous with Apple products including legendary devices like the iPod the iPhone
and the iPad as well as services like iTunes and iCloud.
For a while it seemed like "i" something
was just going to be the name of almost every new Apple product going forward.
But then in the early 2010's,
Apple stopped using this naming scheme almost completely
and they don't seem to be the only one to doing this,
Microsoft and Google are going through a similar rebranding of their own as well,
Meaning that this is probably more of an industry trend,
so in the fifty-fifth episode of the story behind series.
Let's take a look at why exactly these rebrandings are happening now
and what the strategy will be like going forward.
Real quick before we start if you would like to see more in-depth analysis of tech companies
Especially from a business perspective, Consider subscribing to TechAltar.
Trouble for the iDevice branding started with Apple's first ever TV box in 2007. Instead of being called the
iTV which is what the public had expected. This device was named the Apple TV
it's clear that the abandoning of the "i" branding wasn't entirely voluntary at the stage though
as Steve Jobs repeatedly called the device the iTV during its launch event.
The name was simply taken by the British television channel ITV,
so Apple didn't have much of a choice but to find an alternative one
starting in 2012 though after the death of Steve Jobs, the abandoning of the "i"
Branding became a part of Apple's strategy rather than just an annoying necessity.
Apple started renaming existing parts one by one so
iChat became messages, iPhoto baceme photos
and iTunes will soon be phased out in favor of Apple music for example,
and Apple under Tim Cook has not launched a single new product with the lowercase "i"
The company doesn't seem ready to forcefully rebrand well-established and iconic product names
like that of the iPhone the IPad or iCloud just yet
But they definitely grab the chance to retire a name whenever they can
marking it a pretty clear long-term direction.
And you might be wondering why? Why is Apple dropping its iconic naming scheme?
The most obvious reason appears to be a legal one as Apple, of course
Doesn't own the letter "i" because of that, It has to apply for a new trademark for each new
"i" branded product which it might or might not win
There are some legal clashes that seemed fairly legitimate like around the ITV trademark
Which we've talked about before but also around the iPhone for example
which belong to Cisco which Apple have to settle a lawsuit with.
But since Apple had gotten larger a lot of new players have entered the game
holding trademarks that seem a lot more unorthodox
The IPHONE trademark for the Chinese market with all caps mind you is owned by a Chinese leather goods maker
Despite Apple's continuous lawsuits
and the iPad trademark for the Chinese market again which Apple tried to acquire ahead
of the product's launch is claimed by another local company that actually got Apple to pay
60 million dollars as a settlement in order to avoid having their products banned all together
and it's not just China the iWatch Trademark which Apple tried to get apparently is owned by two
incredible companies that are definitely worth taking a closer look at,
first is Probendi who's the entire homepage is essentially dedicated to letting you know that they own the
iWatch trademark in the EU and that they will definitely sue anyone for its misuse.
In case you were wondering what the company sees as its core business, Probendi
does of course claim that they are a very serious business not just a shell company that holds a
Trademark and that iWatch happens to be an app where I think users can submit emergency photos
and audio snippets. It's pretty unclear to me what these
emergencies are supposed to be about or why anyone would submit
them but the app itself is a thing of beauty.
Two reviews on the Google Play Store both with one star and screenshots from the app
that literally have some of the lowest resolution
sample images possible and some very legitimate looking lorem ipsum placeholder text.
Definitely looks like a real app. Another slightly more legitimate looking trademark holder of the iWatch is
OMG electronics who not only has a great name,
But also at least put some effort into having something that looks like a SmartWatch
it never got past the IndieGoGo stage of course
In fact a campaign failed pretty miserably
And the watch that they demoed seems to run the standard media tech SmartWatch OS meaning that it is
Probably off-the-shelf hardware that they were just planning to buy from China and rebrand as an iWatch
But at least they made a demo video for it which isn't complete garbage, So I appreciate that.
Either way it's pretty clear to see that Apple having a naming scheme
that is predictable to pretty much everyone but isn't predictably trademarkable by Apple
Is just going to keep causing them trademark disputes all over the world
either with companies that are legitimate or with ones that just want to extort a little bit of money out of them.
Now beyond just trademark disputes,
There are of course other reasons to leave this branding scheme behind as well
To start with the "i" standing for Internet has become a little
meaningless since by now pretty much everything is connected to the Internet anyway on top of that,
the "i" just feels a little dated in my opinion and it also evokes a sort of
gadget feel which I think Apple is trying to move away from.
Especially with the Apple watch I bet Apple wanted people to think of it primarily as a
Luxury lifestyle product and not as a gadget with a processor and antennas and whatnot
And as Apple is moving further into luxury and lifestyle territories
I think it wants people to think less and less about gadgety stuff.
Meaning that the "i" just doesn't convey the right message anymore
the final reason in my opinion is that Apple wants to focus more
and more on its master brand the Apple rather than putting the emphasis on their sub-brands
Putting the master brand into the names of their products gets it an extra bit of exposure
and doing this is a pretty popular trend with other tech giants too
Microsoft is slowly
De-emphasizing sub brands in exchange for its Microsoft master brand like rebranding Windows Azure
Windows Defender and the Windows Store - Microsoft products
and Google - is shifting focus to its Google master brand.
The Android Market, Android Pay and many others have been Googleified and most of their hit new products
Their assistant their photo app and even their phone prominently carried the Google brand not so much the Android one.
I think all three of these companies are trying to achieve pretty much the same thing with this shift in branding
They've all recognize that their product portfolios are becoming larger more complex,
and they're also becoming cross-platform.
So Apple music comes to Android for example, Microsoft edge comes to iOS and Android for example
and so on. And so these complex cross-platform portfolios, they need and sort of naming scheme
That makes sense across platforms and is also simple and descriptive and I think that's what we're getting
So that's the why in my opinion and if I have to make a prediction for the future?
I'll say Apple will probably just keep doing what they've done for the last couple of years,
which is that instead of doing one big
Rebranding where they changed the names of everything just for the sake of getting rid of the "i"s
They'll probably just faze products out and product names out one by one as they either leave the
Portfolio or as they get a big new refresh. That's probably the best time to give them a new name
Anyway finding a good name for a product or a brand is such a weird little
Science on its own and so much goes into it
I would really recommend you learn a little bit more about it
even if you aren't a branding professional.
I really enjoyed the structure then step by step approach to naming products from this course on Skillshare
And if you enjoyed my video then I think you will like it too.
You can watch this or any one of their twenty five thousand
High-quality courses to learn a new skill or to improve a current one
They have courses in a ton of creative fields like this in depth logo design course from my favorite design teacher Aaron
Who is just a legend?
But also courses in business software development and a lot more
You can get all of them for free for the next two months using my link in the description below and after it it's less
Than $10 a month annually, give them a try and I'll see you in the next one