Why not Apple Phone?

Stan Beer
Sunday, 14 January 2007 10:23

Opinion and Analysis

Those of us who were there and those who have watched a replay of the entire keynote address of Steve Jobs at Macworld 2007 a few days ago will remember that the Apple boss had other things to talk about besides the iPhone. One of them involved a name change.

Early in his keynote address, Jobs announced that Apple had renamed its previously launched iTV video streaming box to Apple TV. In fact, he made a point of saying that he would probably forget himself and accidentally use the iTV name during his speech. One wonders then, why Apple cannot be consistent with the naming of its new wonder device.

Knowing like most others that Cisco was owner of the iPhone trademark, I felt I could detect an undercurrent of mild surprise mixed in with the whoops of delight when Jobs announced the iPhone name. I was left in no doubt, however, that the thing the audience most wanted to see was not a new widescreen iPod or mobile Internet access device, but an Apple branded mobile phone.

At the beginning of the iPhone presentation, Jobs announced that Apple was launching three new products, before we all realized he was talking about a single device. The "new product" that easily drew the greatest roar from the audience was the "revolutionary new mobile phone.”

As we left the auditorium, the prevailing view was that Apple must have done a deal with Cisco over use of the name iPhone.

Now that we all know that no such deal had been finalised, the question is why did Apple decide to go with the name iPhone. Aside from the fact that Cisco already has a product called iPhone, there is nothing  especially captivating about the name.

While it is true that iPhone is a convenient concatenation of the names iPod and phone, from what Jobs said at his keynote, the device is being positioned as a mobile phone first and an iPod second. Jobs made a point of saying that the iPhone is aimed squarely at capturing a share of the 975 million handsets a year mobile phones space. So why not simply call it an Apple Phone?