Welcome The iPad “New”
Posted on Wednesday, March 21st, 2012
March 7th 2012 Apple announced “The New iPad“. Its new features include a Retina Display, the new A5X processor, iSign 5 Megapixel back facing camera, 1080p HD video, voice diction and 4G LTE.
By no means is this post a review. It’s probably nothing but blather. Don’t get me wrong, I love the iPad. I have one and will probably update it in the future. There’s nothing out there at the moment that even comes close to how well the iPad performs. What this post is really about is the name.
Yes, the name. “The New iPad”, not iPad 3 or iPad 2S. Critics are freaking out about this for some reason. I say, “Who the fuck cares!”
Think about it for a second. Why do we expect it to have a numerical name? Cause the one prior was The iPad 2 and iPhone is also numbered. I have been saying for a while now that Apple should just ditch the numbers, and here’s why…
On July 11, 2008 Apple released the second generation iPhone and called it The iPhone 3G. Like many iPods before it, it had a cleaver word appended to the end of the product name to differentiate it from others in the Apple line up (ex. iPod Photo, Nano, Shuffle, Classic, Touch). One year later Apple announced The iPhone 3GS. This phone was meant to be an upgrade for the people who had the original first generation iPhone, and who’s cellular contracts where due for an upgrade. It was the same form-factor as the 3G, but faster and had a better camera that was capable of shooting video. It was new, but not so different that the people who had just bought the 3G felt that they were out of date. Thus began the “tick-tock cycle” we now know Apple to have given their products.
It wasn’t until June 24, 2010 when Apple released the next iPhone as The iPhone 4 that the number game had begun. It seemed natural, “the last one had a 3 in it, so let’s make this one the 4.” No other product that Apple had made was given a number like this until then (except for some software like their operating system OS X 10.(insert version number here), but that doesn’t count.)
Following The iPhone 4, came The iPad 2, announced on March 2, 2011. Adding the number to The iPad seemed like the cool thing to do at the time, but I had always thought this was a risky game. How far do you take it. “8, 9, 10 – and when it hits 10 do we call it X like the OS and Final Cut and QuickTime?”
For this reason and others is why I think it’s stupid to give products like this a numerical name. It’s not software! Some people think owners are going to have a hard time distinguishing which modle they have. Kind of like the MacBook dilemma, but who cares! There’s always a way to tell. For instance, the iPod Touch has never had a numbered name. It’s just refered to by its generation number. Also, not having such a distinguishing factor will mean that older models of a product will hold value and status longer, and not be given a black mark solely because of a name.
So, that’s what I think. Apple made a smart move and I saw it coming for months. Now all they have to do is drop the X off of their OS name and ditch the stupid cat. Oh, and don’t be surprised when the next iPhone is announced as just “iPhone”.
