Say it out loud: iPad

But now, we’re stuck with it. Sure, we’ll have to move past it. Get the giggles out. But I’m afraid I’ll only ever love the device despite its embarrassing name. And that makes me love it a little less. Apple, you fucked up. But if the thing helps me be a better reader, we’re solid and I eagerly await the next one, which will probably be called something stupid.

What’s in a name?

When I mentioned the name of the newest Apple product to my roommates this afternoon it was met with chuckles. I remember having a similar reaction to the news of the Wii a few years ago.

I’m not sure whether the was an internet-wide wocka wocka-fest as there was today, but those were the days before “trending topics”. We need to ask ourselves how much weight is given to the punchlines of late-night talk show hosts and CNN’s latest edition of Twitter bottom feeding.

When the reviews come in there will be a line in the first paragraph of every review about how everyone thought the name was bad—but after that—I suspect we won’t hear about it again. Everyone has it out of their system.

Adam isn’t wonky in his reaction. It sure seems like a mistake. Let’s try to look at it from Apple’s perspective shall we?

iSlate/Apple Slate: Good name, but it conjures up images of paving stones and Bill Gates fumbling with a glorified netbook at CES earlier this month.
iTablet: Pill-popping reminder of all the failures of the Tablet PCs.
iCanvas/Canvas: Before the announcement I was with Gruber on this one. Seemed like a good way to connote creativity and possibility. However, it doesn’t follow the single consonant naming scheme of most Apple products and has kind of a weird sound to it.
iBook: I would’ve loved this one. Resurrecting an old name for a revolutionary new product, but in the context of a device that does more than just read books, it kind of pigeon-holes it.

So what does that leave us with? I excluded some names I saw floating around that were just too horrid to mention.

iPad: Succinct. Follows the single-consonant naming scheme. Looks like iPod, sounds like iPod with a Boston accent. Conjures images of a pad of paper as well as that other thing.

I’ll take that image of the legal pad over the negative of the feminine hygiene product. A pad of paper is one of my favourite things. A nice big, blank, clean surface to fill with ideas. And it has layers for all the other things you want to do with it. It’s a nice image.

Time will tell if we still get all associative when walking through the drugstore. The iPad will definitely have a life beyond the front page of CNN, anyway.