What class will be the new Apple tablet? Is it a big iPod Touch or a multi-touch Macbook? What will be its name?
The first question is partly answered via the choice of operating system. If the tablet runs OS X iPhone, it will be considered a big iPod. If it runs OS X Snow Leopard it will be considered a Multi-touch Macbook.
The same goes for the name. It will be either iSomething or Macsomething. That brings me to the thought that iPhone OS should be rebranded at one point to iOS X, but I guess will be a problem since the same is taken already. Its just iPhone would be will be one of the many devices running that OS.
However, if the Apple tablet features a middles class OS X, then the name is up for grabs.
If Apple plans to redefine the product class similarity as it did with the iPhone, the new device may as well be called an iBook ( a name Apple has already used for a consumer type of notebook before the Macbook). Some people might say, well the Apple Tablet will be much more that a book, why constrain it with its name? Since when did iPhone stands for just a phone these days. It's important to recognize that in the history of the human civilization, books have not always been made from paper. What a book is is determined by the latest technology. Its uses are also far beyond the popular acceptance. There are these folding books that when opened spring 3d like shapes that are great for children or as gifts. I remember, I was hooked to the book games when I was a kid, where the readers decided the course of the story and jumped back and forward in the book. Apple has always tried to redefine or add new meaning to products, rarely to invent whole new metaphors or names.
A pod has a meaning. It's a small rounded object that can store things. The iPod is now an information pod. It stores electronic things. We will always have a need for such a device.
Same with the phone. Its a communication device. The iPhone is also mainly a communication device but of whole another level.
Everybody knows what a book is and just like everybody has pods and phones in the house, they have books. Who has tablets, slates and pads and what does these mean to the ordinary person. The names sound cool but maybe they will be used for other products or just to protect the used choices from similarly cool sounding ones from the competition.
Apple switched to Mac in its laptop line when it switched from Power PC to Intel architecture in 2005. However, ever since WWDC 2008 it dropped Mac from its OS name as OS was now running on iPhone as well on Macs. Back in 1998 it used to put Power in front of its Pro
products and "i" in front of its consumer products. Ever since 2005 the name iBook has been seeking its new product.
So wile iPad and iSlate seam like a natural choices, I think iBook is the logical choice. Imagine! Today, Apple reinvents the book.
Sent from my iPhone
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