Gruber has a post up on the impact of the iPhone SDK on iPhone web apps. I don’t really have a comment on the main point of his article — I think he’s exactly right.
What I do have a comment on is the last point of his article: The nomenclature of the iPhone.
I think Apple did users and developers a huge injustice calling the iPhone “iPhone.” Apple had a great product name in the iPod. iPod doesn’t mean “music player” — in fact, it doesn’t really mean anything. What was the point in calling the iPod something so meaningless if the name wasn’t going to grow? The iPhone easily could have been the “iPod phone.”
We all read about the Linksys incident and now Apple’s apparently having difficulty with the iPhone trademark in Canada1. All for a product name that in the long run is going to confuse consumers.
Anyway, I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple called it the iPhone simply because it was the name everyone expected them to use.
- To be blunt, though, I think Rogers’ horrible service and pricing is more likely to be what grounds the iPhone in Canada. Boo, hiss, boo. [↩]
I talked about this briefly here.
I think Apple iPod still means “music device.” Granted, all iPod’s but the shuffle do much more than that now, but I think in the people’s minds iPod = music. I think Apple is in the process of rebranding the “iPod” now, and I imagine in as iPod’s gain more and more features they will be recognized as more than music players, but I think it’ll be some time.
Calling it iPhone by-passes the issue of breaking people from the concept of the iPod as a music player. The iPhone isn’t an iPod that also makes calls — its an iPhone. For now I think it makes sense.