[atomicbartbeans]

Since the 90's, the lower-case prefix "i" has been applied to almost every comsumer computing device made by Apple (iMac, iBook, iPod), and has even been adopted by other companies (iMic, etc).

What does the "i" stand for?

[Luca]

Originally it stood for "Internet."

[Kickaha]

It originally stood for 'internet', with the first iMac. Now it generally just means 'consumer product'. Marketing wise, it's a nice cuddly prefix that makes the user/consumer think 'I', 'personal', 'mine'.

Note MS's attempt to copy this with Windows ME.

[dfiler]

I was under the impression that Apple has never explicately said what the "i" stands for.

Is there anything from apple that actually says for sure? I was asked this question by a switcher recently and went digging for the answer. Eventually, I gave up and told him that most people think it stands for "internet" but apple has never directly said what the i stands for.

internetMovie?
internetTunes?

Internet was the most plausible originally.
Nowadays... individual seems more appropriate.

[Brad]

No, it definitely stood for internet when the iMac was released. I can remember a Stevenote where the big guy said that himself, but I don't have the reference handy.

Everything after the iMac, though, was pure marketing.

[dfiler]

My recollection was of him talking about the internet and the iMac but never explicitly saying what the i was for. But hey... most of grad school is pretty hazing memory wise.

Anyone have a link to that SteveNote?

[atomicbartbeans]

Link to Stevenote?

I didn't know that people archived Stevenotes. That would be awesome.

[Moogs]

incomprehensiblycool

[BlueRabbit]

Originally Posted by atomicbartbeans Link to Stevenote? I didn't know that people archived Stevenotes. That would be awesome.

Well, this MacNN thread has a lots of keynotes, even though a lot of the links are either dead or Bjorked (you'll know what I mean when you see it ).

Anyways, we can't forget the iCEO product, where the i stood for 'interim'. It was only $427 million, and with a free company, to boot!

[Brad]

Actually, it's not hard to find others that reference this naming. My first Google search gave me this article from 1998:

The big news on the hardware front is the imminent release of the iMac (Internet Mac)...

And every PR from Apple regarding the iMac uses the word "internet" a dozen times. The connection should be clear.

[dfiler]

"Should be obvious"


Sorry but no. It's plausible and likely but as of yet, I've never actually seen Apple call it an "Internet Mac".

Since it's release, I've only seen people speculate at this.

I'm not saying such literature or web pages don't exist. But if it is so obvious... I can easily be forced to eat crow. Show us one thing from apple which calls it an "Internet Mac".

[Brad]

Here's another:

Much of the future growth for Apple will come from the consumer market, with the re-entrance of Apple into the market with the iMac -- the "Internet Mac" -- that comes bundled with Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

I don't think everyone would have suddenly started calling it the "internet mac" upon release without some word from the mothership. Unfortunately, I can't get my hands on the video of the iMac's intro to verify this.

When Jobs became the official CEO of Apple, he also mentioned keeping his title as "iCEO" because he wanted to keep the focus on the importance of the internet (ie. again with the little "i"). This was at a MWSF 2000 (also with the intro of iTools), but again I don't have the video handy.

One such reference to that event:

Apple, which sells the iMac personal computer, has been referring to Jobs as the company's "iCEO." Jobs says he'll keep that acronym, but change its meaning "to remind me of what's really important - the Internet."

[dfiler]

And here's one that says it doesn't mean internet:
http://homepage.mac.com/giantmike/articles/iStuff.html

But the thing is, the 'i' has never really stood for 'Internet', that is just a byproduct of having products that integrate well with it.

It likely means internet, and that is the guess that many authors have perpetuated.

I still doubt that apple has ever referred to it as the "internet mac".

[theyoda3]

Why don't we just call Apple and fnd out what the "i" means?

[709]

---------------------------- * The Ultimate Internet Appliance * ---------------------------- When we first announced iMac, we explained that the "i" in iMac stands for Internet. iMac, we said, is the first computer to bring the ease of use long associated with Macintosh computers to the often arcane world of the Internet.

From an Apple 'iMac Update' newsletter. Here.

Trust thine mods and admins.

[Brad]

Originally Posted by 709 Trust thine mods and admins.

Et voila.

I expect to be remunerated for my wasted time.

[dfiler]

709 gets the prize for posting an actual link.
Brad gets the prize for being mildly pretentious.

Like I said, I believed it likely and only needed proof. Now we've got a document from apple calling it an "Internet Mac". The phrase is curiously absent from nearly all of their marketing, hence my healthy skepticism.

[dfiler]

Heheh... after a 50 minute commute to work I realized I was too emotionally involved in this thread. I shouldn't care if someone said I wasted their time.

Sorry for the pretentious comment brad. I sincerely apologize.
(Wait, did someone just act civilized on the internet? )

Back on topic:

I wonder if Apple's sparse use of "Internet Mac" has anything to do with trademark concerns. If "i" were to become commonly recognized as simply meaning "internet", then Apple would have zero recourse in defending the iPrefix as one of their trademarks. In some of my previous web work, I've had to fix product descriptions at the request of our marketing guys. Apparently, using "extraction of leads" is less safe than "Lead Extraction", (one of our trademarks).

You see, I wasn't just doubting for no reason. Product names are a big deal to companies and exact wording is normally pretty deliberate. Hence, my honest inquiry about if apple had ever explicitly used the phrase "internet mac".

[Brad]

Well, in a similar light, can you find any official, public sources from Apple itself that Mac OS X 10.0's code name was "Cheetah"? Or that the "e" in eMac stands for "education"? Those too have only been mentioned very mentioned briefly if not never officially.

I simply think that it wasn't Apple's top priority to explain away the names like this. That kind of kills the mystique about it. If they did, more people would have simply called it the "internet Mac" instead of the "iMac" and the latter wouldn't have become such an iconic name in pop culture. Apple started a huge trend with the iMac and I think that to some degree the developers had the foresight to realize that and made sure it would have a short, catchy name.

I just woke up and I think I'm rambling, but I hope that makes some sense.

[psmith2.0]

It does.

Originally, with that Bondi iMac in 1998, it was touted as the easiest way to get online and so forth ("there is no step three..."). A year later, they had a couple of colorful laptop partners for it, and banked on the "i" name.

To me, it just became shorthand for "cool crap from Apple that isn't silver and expensive".