In the lead-up to CES my inbox is flooded with literally hundreds of pitches every day. I swear, one out of five has been for an iSomething. None of them were from Apple. iNeed you to friggin’ stop it.
Look, Apple didn’t invent the iName. If you wanna credit (blame) someone, start with Isaac Asimov who published I, Robot back in 1950, which inspired the company iRobot: founded in 1990, predating Apple’s iMac by eight years, and they are exempt from all of this. So, yeah, Apple didn’t create the convention, but it uses the naming scheme best: iPhone, iPod, iMac, iTunes, iPhoto. These are the only i’s that matter in the world of technology.
iLuv, iShower, iWatermark, iDrive, iHome, iHDD, and of course iGrill, the Bluetooth meat thermometer. iWalk and iLimb prosthetics. The iVibe line of sex toys, the iVape vaporizers for smokin’ weed. Who could forget these? Everybody.
A company can name its products whatever it wants, but these iNames? Come on! They’re bullshit. They’re piggybackers, attempting to ride the wave of someone else’s success. And in an attempt to add value to their name by invoking someone else’s success, the exact opposite of value is achieved. Maybe this would’ve worked if only one other company did it, but that was never going to happen. Once Apple had a hit — and then a series of hits — a stadium full of mee-toos started cheering for themselves.
So, attention companies: Quit it. If you choose an iName for a product, you lump it into a category that you don’t want to be in. iNames don’t invoke innovation or quality — they just make you look stupid and unoriginal. And if the name is unoriginal, what do you think we’re going to assume about your product? It’d suck if it actually happened to be worth a damn, wouldn’t it?
TvZ
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 7:49 AMI got a pitch for you!
iDontCare! will be my new labels I will stick on anything I don’t care about.
How about iDontLikeYourParking labels I will be sticking on idiots’ cars who can’t seem to get the parking right.
Spikey8D
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 8:37 AMHeh, don’t forget iSnack 2.0!
I couldn’t agree more with this article.
iRiver actually comes to mind as a brand that managed to have a positive reputation with the i branding
Ash
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 8:55 AMThis comment has been deemed inappropriate and has been deleted.
olearymo
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 9:26 AMWhat about companies that already had iNames? The trend DID exist before apple brought out the iMac.
Also, I gotta admit, companies like iLuv… well, they specialise in Apple accessories. I think that’s fair.
Antipodean
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 9:34 AMIf You’re Not Apple, You Need To Stop With The iNames
Hell I’d be happy if Apple stopped using the “i” moniker!
Nick
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 1:00 PMChances are you don’t use Apple products. If that’s the case, why do you care about the name?
Antipodean
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 1:51 PMChances are, that you are right, why do I need to justify my comments to you?
Stew
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 1:03 PMAgree completely. I had an iPhone, and I called it my phone. I have an iPad2 and call it my padlet. I feel like a tool prefixing words with “i-”. Just like how I’ll order “nuggets” instead of “McNuggets” at Mickey-D’s.
Benny
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 9:41 AMiAgree.
NOZ
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 10:25 AMiToo
Mr Odd
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 6:03 PMi3 – But isn’t that an Intel trademark?
AC
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 10:19 AMwhat about hyundai’s cars?
Mr Odd
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 6:05 PMThey suck for other reasons. But I really hate ‘iLoad’ and i30 is BMW style name with i the on the wrong end.
Dave
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 11:32 AMMy Cousin’s got a concrete business called ‘iConcrete’ :)
n
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 11:52 AMi3, i5, i7
Troy
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 1:05 PMHA! Never noticed that one
Matt L
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 12:56 PMiinet – The most high tech of em all.
Stew
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 1:00 PMI could start my own ISP called iiiISP then I’d be top dog.
Mr Odd
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 6:07 PMYou wonder why AANet has 2 A’s? To be top dog in the yellow pages, not that matters any more.
Mitch Bus
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 8:29 PMDo you mean AAPT?
Ben Zemm
Saturday, January 7, 2012 at 1:19 AMI used to use aaNet back in 2006 (IMSMR) – I had 8mbit ADSL with them!
jeremy
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 2:11 PMthe use of the lowercase i prefix pre-dates apple. However they claimed i via thier usual process – cultural marketing saturation bombing :-)
So mr journo … ah whatever
Slight
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 2:14 PMha you beat me to it :)
Slight
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 2:12 PMGuys remember that iphone was a trademark used by Cisco first.
Apple made use of it illegally and later on there was alot of legalese that happened in order to allow Apple to use the name.
So i(device-name) predates apple. Not saying that lots of people are attempting to market on a catchy naming method but saying it is apple specific is a little disingenuous.
Displayb333
Friday, January 6, 2012 at 1:54 PMiPod predates iPhone, your last para may not be valid.
incontrovertible
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 3:44 PMthe ‘i’ in iMac stands for internet, whats your iVibe dildo or w/e do? connect to the internet to download different vibration patterns?
smurfydog
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 11:18 PMThe other day I saw two iNames that stuck with me.
There was a delivery van – perhaps Hyundai, I’m not sure – the model was called iLoad.
And there was a shoe shop called – I kid you not – iShoes. They seemed to sell factory direct or seconds, but I didn’t look closely enough to be sure.
I don’t think that Apple should have any kind of claim on the lower case i as a prefix, but surely enough is enough!