MacRumors: ‘Will Apple’s Tablet Actually Be Called the iPad?’

I say no. I guess it’s not a bad name in and of itself, but it sounds and looks way too much like “iPod”. (And for what it’s worth, the “ipad.com” domain name is not registered to MarkMonitor, Apple’s preferred domain registration service.)

I have heard nothing — zilch, zero — about the name of this thing from sources. So this is all just my opinion. If you wanted me to bet on a name, I’d say they bring back “iBook”. If so, maybe that’s the reason for the change from PowerBook and iBook to MacBook a few years ago. But that’s just a wild guess on my part, and mainly because I just think it’s a great name. Looks good, sounds good.

Second guess, even wilder guess: “Tablet”. Not “iTab”, not “iTablet”. I started referring to it as “The Tablet” just to have something to refer to it as, and because that’s what friends at Apple (who know nothing about the specifics) seem to call the whole secret project. (A lot of people at Apple refer to the iPhone as “the phone”, too.) But just plain “Tablet” actually started growing on me. Maybe it’s time to drop the whole “i” prefix thing anyway.

★ Tuesday, 19 January 2010