The new iPad – What’s in a name?
There has been a little talk of the naming of “The new iPad“. The pundits were referring to it as iPad 3 or iPad HD in the days leading up to the announcement, but it turns out Apple called it The new iPad.
Why?
The biggest reason is it doesn’t matter. Watch an Apple commercial for iPhone or iPad, no matter what the latest model is, there was never a 3G, 3GS, 4, 4S, or 2 at the end of it, just iPhone or iPad. Look at Apple’s Mac lineup, it’s always MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, never any other model number or specifier. Same thing with the iPod touch. It’s the antithesis to something like the name of the Samsung GALAXY S II and other borderline silly Android phone names that led to something like the Android Phone Name Generator.
One more reason to not use iPad 3 is the confusion it may cause with the “4G LTE” accessibly of the new device. When Apple went through the names of iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, some called the iPhone 4 an iPhone 4G, which led to some consumer confusion since the iPhone 4 could only access 3G networks.
Apple may have learned their lesson in overloading the meaning of the numeric suffix in their device names. It will be interesting to see what the next iPhone will be called.