iPad is a baneful brand name to Bostonians

John Brownlee ()

I’m on the hardware beat of CoM’s iPad coverage, so while the App Store devs take the stage, I wanted to just a quick aside on why I think the iPad is a terrible name for the Tablet, as spontaneously ill-considered as my opinion might be.

In an earlier post, I swore that if Apple was creatively bereft enough to call their tablet the iPad, I’d eat an extremity… but not that one. Either way, I’m reneging on my promise, since I like my digits.

But I wanted to point out quickly why I think this is such a terrible product name. I’m from Boston originally. We have an interesting way of pronouncing our a’s.

Call up a friend with a Boston accent and ask them to say “iPad.” They might just pronounce it pretty similarly to “iPod.” We’re weird that way. Or as Jake von Slatt just said to me: “Here in Boston, we’d say ‘Do you haave the big iPohd or the little iPohd?’”

Even if the pronunciation is different for everyone, though, iPad still seems a bad choice. A one letter difference makes for a lot of possible confusion.

iSlate had its problems — I equate a slate with something monochrome, fragile, easy shatterable — but it was a lot better than iPad.

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What do you guys think?

24 comments »

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, Opinions |

  • http://settuno.com Jules Stoop

    They should’ve called it ‘Canvas’, but I do think iPad is a lot better than the imho somewhat scummy and unfriendly sounding ‘iSlate’.

  • JD

    Uncreative name, yes. On a positive note maybe some people from Boston will learn how to pronounce the letter “a.”

  • Connor

    I couldn’t agree more (writing this from Boston).

  • http://queenofrock.tumblr.com Kat

    I would have much preferred the ‘iSlate’ name, myself. I think ‘iPad’ is lazy and uninspired, and obviously has the potential to be confusing since one of Apple’s most popular existing products name is only off by one letter. Somehow, the ‘iPad’ name doesn’t scream cutting edge.

  • http://www.badrobot.ca Andrew Robulack

    iPad is an outstanding name. After all, it is the same rough size of a pad of paper and represents a similar utility. It’s not the world’s fault if Boston people suffer a weird speech disability.

  • Mike P

    My wife just said, ‘Women are going to hate the name, because it reminds them of periods.’ Dunno, is she right?

  • Robert

    Well if that’s all we are complaining about so far I guess this is going to be an awesome product. It’s just a name people, c’mon! Get over yourselves.

  • Ashish

    IPad sounds tough and practical, a rough notepad kinda pad plus organizer.

    Ipad definately sounds better than Islate

  • Mario M.

    I agree with the potential confusion b/w iPod and iPad. True not just for Bostonians but for the Hispanic and Asian worlds as well. There’s not much differentiation b/w the “a” and “o” in those areas.

  • porkchop1234

    I think the PC retards are laughing their asses off at the name

  • JD

    Mike, I asked my wife if she liked the name and, like yours, she responded “Sounds like a tampon.”

  • Lorum Ipsum

    Get over yourself

  • http://blog.argentinaslovenia.com/ Carlitos

    Worse, in Hungary they pronounce the letter “a” just like a Bostonian an “o”. My head hurts.

  • IcyFog

    Bostonians should just learn to speak proper English.
    It’s not that big of deal.

  • John

    As Steve Jobs might say, “Just learn to speak English. It’s not that big a deal.”

  • MrJones

    I liked the iSlate name, but I think iPad will be fine. iPod wasn’t exactly a sexy name when it came out, and look how well it did. Not sure if this is the Jesus Tablet, with pizza delivery unicorns(FSJ) but certainly should kill the kindle. Hope it takes off.

  • Matthew

    Speaking of the iPad name, I got a quick glance at what is the constantly-edited fury that is the iPad’s Wikipedia page. For a brief second, there was a claim on the page saying that Apple did not yet have the rights to use the iPad name in the US, as it was currently being used by some self checkout product or something like that.

    Does anyone know if there’s any truth to that?

  • Matthew
  • Scott

    I think if people from Boston would learn to speak English properly, it wouldn’t be an issue.

    It’s not the rest of the world’s fault that you read things completely different than how they are written. :)

  • itskaye

    They should’ve called it just MyTab as in My Tablet. iPad is just painful, in all honesty.

  • http://mannyc.com Manny C

    I agree with many of the others here: Bostonians need to stop speaking English like retards. Problem solved.

  • Joanna

    Mac’s iPad
    The jokes will die down, but it will always be subject to sniggers.
    Will my boyfriend will be too embarrassed to pick me one up from the store?

  • http://ipad.liveautomatic.com iPad Insteon

    The whole pad thing is the first thing my wife thought of when hearing the name – I like iSlate personally, but from a company known for it’s creativity someone dropped the ball with “pad”.

  • michael

    are we all ignoring the obvious itampax jokes?