‘iPad’ Name Makes Waves For Apple
Apple’s newest creation, the iPad, is getting slammed by fans and critics over its name, but technology analysts are brushing off the ridicule and focusing on the product’s key feature: a speedy new microprocessor.
Apple chief executive Steve Jobs gave high praise to the new device, calling it “revolutionary.” However, by Friday, talk of the iPad’s strengths and weaknesses was overshadowed by an outpouring of negativity over the suggestive name more fitting of a feminine hygiene product.
Michael Cronan, whose firm specializes in name branding, told the AFP news agency in an interview, "It is always words like these that are suggestive of feminine menstruation.”
If the name Apple had chosen wasn’t bad enough, not being the first to place it on a product makes it more of a target to critics.
The iPad was actually launched years ago, according to Japan’s Fujitsu Ltd. that said its sister company, based in the US, launched the iPad device in 2002 for retail stores to keep inventory data, scan barcodes and manage operations.
Fujitsu spokesman Masao Sakamato told AFP that its trademark application for the iPad name is still patent pending with the US Patent and Trademark Office. Apple has had trademark troubles in the past with other companies, including Cisco Systems, which launched the iPhone before Apple. The dispute was settled in 2007, both companies deciding to share the name.
The uproar over the iPad name is expected to be only a temporary issue, according to Cronan and others, who feel that people will eventually grow into it, much in the same way that people have gotten over referring to digital lock interfaces as “key pads.”
People will get over it. “It is much ado about nothing,” Cronan told AFP. “Apple gets so much rank in the world that I think people intrinsically try to find a crack in their armor.”
The iPad name is probably the most aptly suited name that can be given to this new gadget. The “i” lead-in is so associated with Apple that it is basically a trademark within itself. And “Pad”, a single word, easy to pronounce, states what the handheld computer is, and keeps Apple’s significant, culture-shifting, and winning iPod line close in our minds, Cronan clarified.
But, instead of worrying over a name, people should be thinking about what the device can or cannot do. The chip delivers stunning graphics and processing capabilities that usually require multiple processors, and also saves power and space as well. It’s a real deal. “They have gotten a lot of functionality into one chip. The main guys at Intel and AMD are still working on that,” Kay said.
The iPad is fitted with Apple’s new microprocessor, an impressive chip that is expected to branch out to all of Apple’s other mobile devices and possibly it’s computers as well, said Roger Kay, analyst for Endpoint Technologies Associates.
P.A. Semi, the microprocessor firm that Apple bought out in 2008, designed the innovative chip for the new iPad. According to Kay, with this new technology at hand, “Apple could potentially kiss Intel goodbye.”
In a blog post, made by John Gruber of fireball.net, he wrote “I got about 20 blessed minutes of time using the iPad demo units Apple had at the event… and if I had to sum up the device with one word, that word would be ‘fast.’”
Most of the controversy surrounding the iPad name comes from criticism based on an old Mad TV episode that featured a skit about a fictitious Apple iPad tampon.
“If Apple didn’t have any idea of the repercussions of this, that would be surprising,” Cronan said. However, Apple does know what they are doing and it’s a good bet that people “will not dwell on it.”
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