UGH!
7:45 PM - January 10th, 2006
Every so often, Apple will remind you that it is run by humans by making a cool product with an awful-sounding name. Joining the “Extremes” (Airport and Quartz) and Apple’s endless fascination with “i” (come on, you know they’re taking it too far) is the MacBook Pro. Unlike the other cases, though, I think this is the first time Apple has rebranded a product with a name as cool as “PowerBook” with a name as bad as “MacBook Pro.”
Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s an awesome product. Dual-core Yonah CPU, PCI-e, DDR2 RAM, SATA hard drives, lithium polymer battery (unknown battery life, however), built-in iSight, a thinner profile, and the possibility of dual-booting or virtualizing Windows (GTA2!). I certainly wouldn’t mind having one in my possession. But the name! “MacBook Pro” sends shivers down my spine (in a bad way).
January 10th, 2006 at 9:11 pm
I agree! That was my first reaction… the WHAT?!? WTF!!!
Jonathan Ive may have awesome design sensibilities but when it comes to naming products he probably had no input in it whatsoever… what a clunker of a name. GAH.
You and I could have done better. Heck, anyone could’ve.
January 10th, 2006 at 10:13 pm
you know they probably went through series of considerations too, I mean it’s usually not just a guy saying one day “let’s call our next series of laptops the MacBook”, it has to be a team of guys.
so they probably went through names like… “SuperBook”.. “UberBook”… “UltraBook”… “ExtremeBook”…..
January 10th, 2006 at 10:19 pm
I say, drop the “Book” entirely. Even “Power.” Each word is pretty tired by itself and in combo, it has gotten old. Although something with the basic “PowerBook” in it could still fly.
When I get mine, I’ll scratch out the name and have it inscribed with something else. ;p ::starts thinking::
January 11th, 2006 at 10:47 pm
i’ll send shivers down your spine in a bad way!!! ;)
January 12th, 2006 at 12:53 pm
I would have called it the iQuad.
You’re right, that’s horrible!
January 12th, 2006 at 1:53 pm
For another perspective, Chris Howard over at Apple Matters has an interesting point about “Mac branding”.
I would argue, however, that the Mac hardly needs branding any more. Apple basically = Mac. If so-called ‘mindshare’ is the issue, it’s also a moot point. Apple’s and the Mac’s mindshare way outstrips its actual market share. In fact, a good case could be made that Apple computers have the most mindshare of all computers in the market today.
January 12th, 2006 at 10:12 pm
after reading that, that kinda makes sense actually…
if someone doesn’t even know what a powerbook is and thinks it’s a pc.. then i wouldnt be surprised, let’s say for example if the MacBook Pro was called a SuperBook (just for example’s sake). you’d be talking to a guy and say you got a SuperBook and they’d ask what processor it has.. and you say an Intel Core Duo.. the guy would probably totally think it’s a pc. but if it’s called a “MacBook”, then that’s like no question… yeah it’s a mac.