Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How Apple names things

nicolas.kruchten.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 202 posts

Re: How Apple names things

#181

Post by majewsky »

zhte415 wrote: post #163
karaterobot wrote: post #154

Wow, I disagree strongly with this one. It's so frustrating that I have to describe a feature to a search engine to find out what it's called, just so I can find it in the Settings (sorry, I mean System Preferences) panel. Continuity, Stage Manager, Exposé, Spotlight, Launchpad, Mission Control. These names don't mean anything, and aren't helpful. They're features, not products, yet they are named like products and y…

Could we just name things functionally+unique? Functionally as in categories of what they do. Example: Oscalc. O: Office; S: Spreadsheet; Calc: Name of application. There's no reason to stick to only one name, Oscalc in English could be XyCalc in another language. And no reason why something with many functionalities could not be in more than one place, PvVLC could be ArVLC too plus deep linked to the recording funct…

> PvVLC

What does the "Pv" in this even mean? "Playback video"? That does not line up with your other examples. Is the first letter a verb or a noun? What about the second letter? You see how this proposal falls apart once you look at it for more than a second?

Re: How Apple names things

#182

Post by layer8 »

basch wrote: post #180
Jemaclus wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always imagined it was a play on "surfing" the web and a Beach Boys reference to "Surfin' Safari".

https://donmelton.com/2012/12/19/when-i-first-heard-the-name...

"iBrowse" would certainly have lifted some eyebrows. ;)

Re: How Apple names things

#183

Post by layer8 »

Jemaclus wrote: post #178
layer8 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be fun if Finder was called File Safari and Safari was called Internet Safari and Activity Monitor was called Process Safari.

I always imagined it was a play on "surfing" the web and a Beach Boys reference to "Surfin' Safari".

I would think it just jibed well with the naming theme of the OS X releases.

Re: How Apple names things

#184

Post by kergonath »

Jataman606 wrote: post #128
Edd314159 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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? Is it so hard to just let someone complain about something? Everyone can have their own opinion, i don't know why some people want every single one to be positive.

> Is it so hard to just let someone complain about something?

Contrarian edgelords are obnoxious and tiring. There is no need to get involved in a conversation if the point is just to label someone an idiot fanboy. It is not even cynicism, which requires some degree of consciousness instead of a knee jerk reaction. So yeah, if your only argument is “I think the author is an idiot and I am so much better because I can see clearly what he ignores”, well, then kindly fuck off. Come back when you’re civilised enough to have a conversation instead of name calling.

Re: How Apple names things

#185

Post by kergonath »

amelius wrote: post #119
Edd314159 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I can write a similar essay about how I like the strong capital letters of AMD

You could. And it might be an enjoyable read if you articulate it properly.

Re: How Apple names things

#186

Post by kergonath »

kesava wrote: post #112
oblio wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

All of them, of course, followed the iMac. The iPod was an extension of that, so the name makes perfect sense. The iPhone is an iPod on steroids (and it’s a web browser!), so again it makes sense. It is all very consistent.

I really dislike the pro/max/ultra qualifiers, but again it is all consistent.

Re: How Apple names things

#187

Post by kergonath »

ralfd wrote: post #26
sbuk wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * 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…?* They do. Ventura is macOS 13. In fact, when they dropped OS X, they did a bit in the key note explaining that instead of it being OS X 10.16 Catalina, it would now now be macOS 11 Catalina. See  > Abo…

But did Mojave come before or after Sierra? The cat names were more memorable and spanned a longer time line instead of being yearly releases.

10.12 came after 10.11. Nobody having to deal with this sort of thing is confused. Using a Mac, it is easier to get the version number than the code name. This argument is most of the time, if not always, used by people with no interest in trying to understand how it works.

Re: How Apple names things

#188

Post by kergonath »

robertoandred wrote: post #155
hnlmorg wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is confusing. Why have a hardware product and a streaming service named identically aside the addition of a non-alphabetically symbol. When people talk about Apple TV I’m never quite certain which product they’re referring to and have to infer that from the context of their sentence.

Don't forgot the app! Use the Apple TV app to watch Apple TV+ on your Apple TV!

Isn’t the app just called “TV”? It kind of makes sense if it’s purpose is to show television programs.

Re: How Apple names things

#189

Post by kergonath »

JayStavis wrote: post #146
3pac wrote: post #130

Apple has been dropping the article from iPhone advertisements. "With iPhone 13, you can...", not "an/the iPhone". To me, this breaking of orthography feels too much like reverential capitalization for something that is not exactly divine.

My recollection from the original iPhone keynotes is that there never was an article. Jobs presented "iPhone" and article-less was dominant in all company messaging for the product.

You’re right. It never was “the iPhone”, it has been “iPhone” since day 1. And Apple being Apple, they are very consistent with it.

Re: How Apple names things

#190

Post by kergonath »

hmate9 wrote: post #141

iPhone naming will have to be restarted soon. Purely from marketing I feel going from iPhone 14 to iPhone 15 doesn’t sound as impressive as going from iPhone to iPhone 2. After a while these large numbers feel like minors on a software patch and not big leaps that drive sales from average consumers.

Isn’t Samsung selling Galaxy S 23 or something like that?
Post reply on HN