Why did Apple start dropping the letter “i” in its products?

 When we mention Apple, the first thing that comes to our mind is iCloud, iPhone, iPad, or even iPod or iMac (iPhone / iPad / iPod / iCloud / iMac) the similarity between these products is That they all start with the letter “i”, but did you notice that Apple stopped using this letter in most of its new devices such as Apple Watch, AirTag, AirPod and HomePod. What is the secret behind this transformation and why did Apple stop using the famous letter “i” in its products?

The history behind the "i"

There were many different Apple products bearing the name “i”, but the story began in 1998 when the company launched the first iMac, and the first device achieved great success and was able to save Apple, and this helped form an idea that Apple had during the success of the iMac, using the letter “i” i” in its products that will appear in the coming years.

It is worth noting that Steve Jobs initially wanted the iMac to be called the MacMan, but fortunately his team was able to persuade him to abandon this name and eventually the iMac was approved.

Why the letter "i"

 Apple explained that the letter “i” basically stands for “Internet” because the Internet was new at the time and it was a popular demand as everyone wanted to experience the Internet at that time and in this way people were connecting the Internet to their Mac. In addition, the Apple founder said that The letter "i" refers to other things, not just the Internet, such as "the individual", "media" and "inspiration".

Given the tremendous success of the iMac, Apple decided to continue using the letter “i” in most of its products, including the iPhone, iPod, and iPad, all of which have achieved tremendous success.

Why did Apple stop using the letter “i”?

While there's no official answer from Apple, there are several obvious reasons why the company has dropped the famous letter "i".

First, a legal reason: Let's take an example with the Apple smart watch, where the company explained that it was not able to name its smart watch as “iWatch” because three other companies in the United States, Europe and China claimed the rights to this name, which means that Apple needed to invent a name New or risk a lawsuit and pay millions to use that name.

Believe it or not, the iPhone was not owned by Apple as it launched a company Cisco The first iPhone in 1998 and then it re-launched this brand again just a few days before the announcement of Apple's iPhone and before entering into long issues, a settlement was made between the two companies and it was said that Cisco got 50 million dollars from Apple.

Another possible reason is that many companies have benefited from the use of the “i” in their products, and since Apple does not own the property rights to the letter “i” despite its attempts to make it its own trademark, it did not work and other companies can use the letter “i” with its products. Simply, no one owns the intellectual property of the name “watch” or “car”, for example, so Apple cannot claim that any part of the name of the products violates its rights.

In order to avoid all these legal problems and create products that people know are affiliated with Apple, it was better to add the word “Apple” instead of the letter “i” and this makes Apple the right to use this word without any problem and people will easily know that it is affiliated with it.

Apple ditched the "i" wherever it could

The “i” strategy isn’t just limited to its latest products, Apple has also started getting rid of the iconic “i” icon in most of its apps, for example, iChat is now the Messages app and the Photos app has replaced the word iPhoto where it wasn’t Logically, the use of the letter that mainly refers to the Internet in services and applications away from the Internet, and therefore Apple did not abandon the letter in its iCloud service because it is a cloud that works on the Internet, so it did not change the name.

 Apple is not the only one

Many other technology companies have changed the names of their products, such as Microsoft, which changed its store from Windows Store to Microsoft Store, and also Windows Defender to Microsoft Defender, and Google also changed its app store from Android Market to Google Play and its Android Pay service to Google Pay, because adding the branding of the product or The service helps to know the name of the company that owns the product and of course you are constantly reminded of the name of that company.

Can we see a product that starts with the letter “i”?

If you are a fan of the “i” in Apple product names, I am sorry to disappoint you, but it seems that the company will not return to using it anytime soon, but that does not mean that it will change the names of the iPhone and iPad, which are among the most famous names in the history Technology, however, the company will continue to use its “Apple” brand with its upcoming products such as the Apple car or Apple glasses next to the word “Air” which Apple uses at the beginning of the product name to let us know that it means wirelessly such as AirPods, AirTags and AirPlay.

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