Having written about the Apple Watch for months before it was announced, I’ll admit it was difficult to stop referring to the device as the “iWatch.” Even Tim Cook has slipped up and used that name in interviews, suggesting that this is the name Apple’s wearable debut had inside the company.
With that in mind, CollegeHumor has created a hilarious public service announcement video entitled, tactfully enough, “Apple: Call It the iWatch and We’ll Kill You.”
Featuring “appearances” from various “Apple executives,” the ad promises customers that, “Do as we say and a lifetime of delights can be yours, but disobey and forsake any hope of ever owning” an Apple Watch since you’ll be unceremoniously booted out of whichever brick-and-mortar Apple Store you happen to be in at that moment.
It’s an amusing video, and one we’ll bear in mind next time we’re dashing off an article about the impending iWatch Apple Watch.
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
10 responses to “‘Call it the iWatch and we’ll kill you’”
I guess it makes sense to move away from the “i” branding which they can’t fully control to the “Apple” branding which they can control. Just as the iWatch becomes the Apple Watch so the iPhone can become the Apple Phone.
LAME
you lame?
iWon’t buy it.
iDon’t care if you buy it or not. :-)
“There’s no such thing as an ‘iTouch!!!!'”
-me, to most members of my family.
Meh, not as funny as I thought it’d be, a little too much
I like the mental shift away from the i, as the chinese were copying the hell out of it. now they can just make banana electronics
I guess all of the free publicity that the rumor mill, media and even the analysts have dong for several years leading up has some pull. Tim Cook should have gone publicly the instant people started referring it as the iWatch and tell them they aren’t going to put out a product called the iWatch, so cease using the term. That might have helped a little.
The problem is that once Apple announced the original iMacs and follow on products, companies and people around the world caught on to the other possibilities of product names and got them registered. Unfortunately, Apple didn’t foresee this happening. If Apple had registered in all of the countries all of the possible names back in the beginning, maybe they would have used the term iWatch. I actually like the term iWatch vs AppleWatch as it’s one less syllable to pronounce, but I do understand Apple’s reasoning for getting off the “i” convention. I’m just wondering why they don’t call iOS what they should call it instead. OS Xi? OS X lite? OS X mobile?