Live data from Hacker News

How Apple names things

nicolas.kruchten.com

111–120 of 202 posts

Re: How Apple names things

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It reads as fanboyish because it start with "I love how ...", while a non-fanboy might instead have said: "How apple names things: they choose names that have a slight air of elitism to them (also reusing name parts they already established), to make it sound as if they're slightly better than everything else"

That's being overly pedantic. You can appreciate (even love) something without being a fanboy. I, for one, can say that I love some of the design of macos, but I also criticise apple on most other things. I don't even own a mac.

I know this might be pedantic under certain circumstances but I think it was really just a joke on the part of the commenter.

Re: How Apple names things

#112
post #93
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think anyone has said that Apple never used bad names…? But I don’t think it is radical to say (atleast among us who works with branding) that ipod, mac, powerbook, macbook, itunes, airpods, etc. are strong names.

Frankly all the i-devices are just bad naming. The products themselves were/are great but their names are really bad. "I phone" kind of works, but "I pod"? "I pad"? Really? :-)

iPhone followed the name iPod. I actually think iPad is great.

Re: How Apple names things

#113
post #16

Apple's system strikes an interesting contrast to Google's system for naming products, documented at [1]. [1] https://bonkersworld.net/naming-dartboard

If Google is so good, why haven't they made Google 2 eh?

Google 3.0 would be a minimum. In industry 4.0 times, it should at least be google 4.2, but why bother with minor versions: Google Googol! (with or without the faculty sign. As long as users say the want the new Samsung iPhone [sic], no one cares if that is barely even a meaningful number)

Re: How Apple names things

#115
post #41

I always wonder why, out of all the mobile products, is the Apple Watch the only one not called the iWatch? iPod, iMac, iPhone, iPad ... Apple Watch? Feels like somewhere along the line they decided that naming all their products something with the letter 'i' was silly and dropped it.

I don't believe there's ever been an official explanation of when Apple stopped using the 'i' prefix for new products, but Apple Watch came out after that date. My guess - the 'I' prefix was tied to the Digital Hub initiative, where software and devices would tie in via your home computer to share music, home movies, photos, etc. When it became clear that the cloud would replace having all of that maintained on a hom…

[deleted]

Re: How Apple names things

#116
Apple’s way of naming things generic names makes it almost impossible to search for information related to them on the internet. Almost think it’s intentional so that people have to use them as the resource for all information related to Apple.

Re: How Apple names things

#117
post #110

This reads like some typical fanboi stuff. There are a lot of things to also hate about apples naming schemes, just look at the pro, max, se nonsense they cooked up. Also the naming scheme of Mac OS versions, i can never figure out which one came before or after the other, there is no rhyme or reason. Why dont they use alphabetical sorted names? Or years/numbers like Windows…?

> There are a lot of things to also hate about apples naming schemes Which you’re free to do, and could have done without insulting the author. The submitted post’s very first sentence is “I love the way Apple names things”. The author likes them. They’re sharing a opinion, at no point do they imply they’re the voice of reason or that you should agree with them. What I see from their post is someone who made an effor…

> they’re not harming anyone

That is to be proven. Encouraging and advocating practices that are counterproductive can be harmful.

Maybe you just don't see how one company is shaping the entire market because a group of people (we can call them fanboys for the sake of argument) insists that their way of doing things is "the" way. Which it of course isn't and we see how that is ruining products that try to compete. See win11 as an example.

Re: How Apple names things

#118
post #2

ive been making general notes on How To Name Things (from companies to variables) here since its one of the well known hard problems - offering it up for others https://www.swyx.io/how-to-name-things this piece would be a new category for me - how to name products, given a big brand that covers multiple products

Number one rule to be is that it should be universally unique and easy to search for, especially if it’s frequently searched for on Google. Being universally unique might mean if the primary name (company, app, etc) is combined with the thing name (product, variable, etc) it is unique.

Re: How Apple names things

#119

This reads like some typical fanboi stuff. There are a lot of things to also hate about apples naming schemes, just look at the pro, max, se nonsense they cooked up. Also the naming scheme of Mac OS versions, i can never figure out which one came before or after the other, there is no rhyme or reason. Why dont they use alphabetical sorted names? Or years/numbers like Windows…?

Is it so hard to just let someone enjoy something? Apple has a lot of problems right now, but it's still OK to say something positive about them once in a while. We don't need to fight about it and discredit it. Apple names are fun! It's a nice thing!

> Is it so hard to just let someone enjoy something?

Really, what is there to be joyful about here?

I can write a similar essay about how I like the strong capital letters of AMD, the beauty of not falling for the temptation of putting a lower-case "i" in front of it, etc., etc.

Post reply on HN