We see them, others buy them, we talk about them, and yet, we often forget that behind the name of Apple products, like behind every name, there is a story. And this is the story of Apple's first i-product and the meaning of the i next to the name of each subsequent series.
It all starts in 1997, the year that Steve Jobs returns to Apple from NeXT Computers with the vision of restructuring the company that is in danger of going bankrupt within the next six months. As in every "crisis" in every company, groups have been created at Apple, one blaming the other for the impending disaster. The first months for Jobs at Apple's helm are again spent on organizing products and restructuring personnel, but also on trying to make Apple focus on something important again. He decides to stop all the company's other products except PowerPC and the Mac family and for Apple to focus all its efforts on one of them.
The decision was made. It would be the new Mac. For the first time, a personal computer would have USB and (a scandal at the time) would NOT have a Floppy Drive. Even "worse"? The user of this new computer would not be able to disassemble and upgrade it. It would remain as it is, against the advice of the company's engineers, such as Wozniak, who believed in a product that would give alternatives to its users. Jobs disagreed. And he believed that this incredible, new product should be available in incredible colors and at its center, there should be only the CD-Rom drive.
With so many innovations packed into one product, Jobs rightly said, "We need a perfect name. We're betting an entire company on this." Guiding the creative department, he made a list of possible names and concluded that the ideal name for this new product would be MacMan! Fortunately, along with Jobs, Ken Segall, creative director and Apple consultant for many years, had come from NeXT. When Segall and his team heard MacMan, they "freaked out". It reminded them of PacMan, a game. Jobs argued that it reminded them of the Walkman and Apple could benefit from the good practices of such a successful (at the time) company as Sony. Segall disagreed. So he had to convince Jobs of something different.
Segall returned to the meetings with the creative teams and Jobs with 5 suggestions, the 5thof which was the name iMac.
“It’s a Mac with all the features that make a Mac. But its most important feature is that it can connect you to the Internet in 10 minutes, even if you’ve never used a computer before.” The executives and Jobs loved the new name. iMac. It was simple, it was clear, and the i, in addition to the word Internet, was also an abbreviation for other words they wanted to “load” into Apple products: imagination, individuality…
So, somehow, the i in Apple products, which were no longer just computers, but tools for users to access the internet, tools that had imagination and uniqueness as their element. Thus, the iMac initially, followed by the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. And from all indications, the iWatch.
Source: digitallife.gr
