Forget iSlate… will the Apple Tablet be the iGuide?

John Brownlee ()

Forget iSlate… will the Apple Tablet be the iGuide?

With the revaluation of recent filings made by Apple for both the Magic Slate and the iSlate trademark, it seemed a lock that Apple’s forthcoming tablet — whenever it ends up being announced — would at least eschew branding itself as a “tablet” in favor of the word “slate.” Still, Apple loves to muddy the rumor waters, so it’s no surprise that Apple has filed for another trademark that could describe a tablet device, called the iGuide.

The trademark application was filed in December, 2007 by iGuide Media, LLC. Just like the iSlate and Magic Slate filings, iGuide Media, LLC is a dummy corporation set-up by Apple to hide their trademark applications, and the John Hancock on the application is none other than Apple’s Senior Trademark Specialist, Regina Porter.

The application describes an all purpose media browser:

Computer hardware and computer software for accessing, browsing, searching, recording, organizing, storing, transmitting, receiving, manipulating, streaming, reproducing, playing, and reviewing audio, video, games, music, television, movies, photographs, and other multimedia content.</blockquote

A later passage also describes the iGuide as being able to download electronic content in many formats, but with a heavy e-reader focus:

Downloadable electronic publications in the nature of books, magazines, newsletters, journals, and blogs in the fields of entertainment, sports, science, history, culture, celebrities, news, current events, politics, technology, and education;

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In truth, iGuide doesn’t sound like a very good product name, although it would make an excellent service name for slurping in digital content like books, magazines and blogs. The iGuide trademark application, then, seems to lend credence to rumors that the Apple Tablet will largely tackle the likes of the Kindle and the Barnes & Noble Nook in the e-reader market. In fact, as Techcrunch points out, as iTunes doles out more and more non-musical content, a rebranding seems like an obvious choice to convey its expanded scope. If Apple’s Tablet is as heavily media and e-reading oriented as it seems like it might be, rebranding iTunes would make a lot of sense.

Does that mean iSlate is still on the table then? I hope not: the word “slate” has obvious problems from a branding perspective. A slate is cold, monochrome, and easily shatterable: I doubt Apple wants any of those concepts attached to a revolutionary new device, especially given rumors that the Apple Tablet’s glass touchscreen was already rejected once for being too fragile.

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About the author

John BrownleeJohn Brownlee is news editor here at Cult of Mac, and has also written about a lot of things for a lot of different places, including Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, AMC, Geek and the Consumerist. He lives in Cambridge with his charming inamorata and a tiny budgerigar punningly christened after Nabokov's most famous pervert. You can follow him here on Twitter.

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Posted in Apple Tablet, News |

  • http://www.lexnetcg.com Steve

    I agree that the emphasis will be on providing a good platform for digesting content.

    I recently wrote a blog post on potential business applications for an Apple Tablet and one of the things that I speculated on is that a tablet will be useful for reading long PDFs in the comfort of a chair or a bed — rather than sitting upright at a desk. Long, product training videos on YouTube and iTunes are another type of content for which it’s hard to focus for long periods of time while sitting at a desk.

  • Charli

    1. there seems to be contrary info showing that Apple is not connected to this iGuide.

    2. iGuide sounds like a Nav Device. which is unlikely to be all they are making, anymore than an ereader, netbook, etc only. Slate might be a tad old fashioned to some ears but at least it’s more neutral. and more likely if those are the only two choices.

    Personally I still think Tablet is the likely contender. Yeah it’s a bit boring but when you add iPod in front of it, who is going to care. Cause it’s Apple. and it will be A-Maz-ing. Cause “Wouldn’t it be cool …”

  • http://www.islates.us Apple Islates

    Can’t forget iSlate, the name grabbed me from the beginning, and I am sticking with it.