Monday, March 28, 2016

Apple Naming Inconsistencies

Here are the names of the current products available from Apple:

  • MacBook, MacBook Air (11" and 13"), MacBook Pro (13" and 15")
  • Mac mini, iMac (21.5" and 27"), Mac Pro
  • iPad mini 2, iPad mini 4, iPad Air 2, iPad Pro (9.7" and 12.9")
  • iPhone SE, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6S, iPhone 6S Plus
  • Apple Watch Sport, Apple Watch, Apple Watch Edition
  • Apple tv

And every place it says "Apple " above, it's really this symbol, Apple Logo which I can't make reliably appear on your screen. If you can the last two lines look like:

  • Watch Sport, Watch, Watch Edition
  • tv

All the capitalization above is as it's found on Apple's website. I don't understand why "mini" and "tv" aren't capitalized.

I don't understand why the laptops and iMac have inch based sizes and the iPhone just has "Plus" and now "SE". Or why S and SE are in boxes.

They seem to be trying to deal with 3 versions of things where the low end is "mini" (no capital) and the high end is "Pro" (capital) and the middle is either nothing (the watch), Air (the laptop and iPad) or i (the iMac).

The Apple Watch seems the most egregiously different. The main watch having no moniker seems odd, but at least Sport makes sense. Edition is just the completely wrong kind of word in this position.

Here's an attempt at bringing these closer in alignment:

  • MacBook (12", 14"), MacBook Pro (13" and 15")
  • Mac Mini, iMac (21.5" and 27"), Mac Pro
  • iPad Mini, iPad, iPad Plus
  • iPhone Mini, iPhone, iPhone Plus
  • Apple Watch Sport, Apple Watch, Apple Watch Wealth
  • Apple TV

This clearly doesn't clean up everything, they have two much invested in the iMac and iPhone names, but it's a start. The computers use Mini and Pro to designate less or more capabilities. The iPad and iPhone use Mini and Plus to designate size. If every other year they give a little bump to the iPhone, instead of a new number use Pro. So one year the biggest iPhone you could be would be the iPhone Plus 6 and the next the iPhone Plus 6 Pro (maybe that's not great, maybe say 6.5 or just go with 7). I'm willing to stick with iMac over just Mac to indicate it has a built in display (which the iPhone and iPad do too and argues that it should have been called iWatch).

I'm basically arguing that the MacBook line should subsume the MacBook Air line, which seems inevitable. Also that the iPad Pro was a mistake in naming. They should have stuck with size and strived to the keep the capabilities the same. The 9.7" iPad Pro should have replaced the iPad Air and both should have just been called iPad. They did it the way they did so that they could get more money for the "Air" and still sell the regular non-Air for a year or two at a slightly lower price.

The Apple Watch Wealth is a joke, but come up with something better than Edition. Gold seems like the obvious choice, but it's confusing with the Rose Gold and Gold colors the Sport comes in.

And don't get me started on the difference between Apple Music, iTunes Store, iTunes, and the iOS Music app; I really don't understand it all details.

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