On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 7:31 PM, Reid Katan <ka...@his.com> wrote: > Quoting "phartz...@gmail.com" <phartz...@gmail.com>: > >> On the same tangent, I am still trying to find out what the "i" part >> of their various names is supposed to refer to. > > My guess would be "iNternet", but what do iKnow. What was the first iName > anyway? iMac?
I suspect that Apple took the "i" thing from the high-end automotive industry. A number of years ago, BMW and one or two other makers of very costly, posh and status symbol cars began placing an "i" before or at the end the model number of the car. The "i" was in reference to "injection," as in fuel injection. Of course, there is no fuel injection involved in the operation of computing devices as far as I know, but there is some smugness and snobbishness in the computing world as in the car world. The automotive world caused the letter "i" to become equated with luxury and expensiveness and status when coupled with a car name or model number, and that equation stuck with much of the public. Perhaps Apple decided that was a good way to go as far as marketing was concerned, so they decided to use the letter "i" in a similar fashion although it actually held no meaning whatsoever. Of course, this is all just a guess on my part although after the car industry began this "i" thing, various companies started doing it, even prior to Apple getting on board. Today there are many companies that tack the lower case "i" to their product names. Steve ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
