The Power Of “i” In Apple Products
Steve Jobs was a revolutionary man, who changed the life of computing and made it into a core business. The launch of iMac in the late 90s was a huge, rather phenomenal success. The announcement of iMac was the main cause of the enormous amount of buzz among all Macintosh Fans and Critics alike.
This was the period when Apple decided to make a drastic change in the entire Macintosh Computer’s internal hardware. At that time, Apple was known for making computers that didn’t just perform well, but looked pretty good too! Apple was declared unanimously, as “The Back of Macintosh Computers looks better than anyone else’s”.
Slowly, Macintosh was getting to be known more as a brand ambassador for Apple computers rather than a Computer. The idiosyncratic aesthetics of Apple’s iMac were easily spotted. The iMac gradually took over the name of the simple computer, like nowadays, when we say Cola, the word Coke comes to our mind. Similarly, if anyone would say, Computer, iMac HAD to ring a bell or vice-versa.
Steve Jobs didn’t fail to notice this. Rather, he made the use of the ever famous letter “i” to a GREAT extent. The actual meaning of “I” in the iMac was to denote the slowly rising star, “The Internet”. The Macintosh was incomplete with the “I” and was now turning a few heads in rivals and competitors. When this beautiful machine was released, it was one of the best selling computers in both the Western as well as the Eastern part of the worlds, including the two super powers at that time, the United States of America and Japan for long months alike, so much, that Apple was failing miserably to cope up with the never ending demand. Simply because of the tradition of “I” in the beginning of the computer’s name.
Apple had declared the meaning of I in the iMac to denote “Internet” to attract the customer’s attention and gather them around to show some interest in the machine. The internet was arousing a lot of curiosity and excitement in all types of layman and nerds together, causing a huge media hype. Making the best use of the situation, the hotshots at Apple decided to make some profound use of the letter i.
Apple aimed at making the computer and the new fantasy, the Internet, so simple to use that you should be up and running the computer as well as be connected to the internet in no greater than 2 steps. Apple followed the catch-phrase: “There’s NO step 3!!” and so came the popular and possibly the best commercial ever made for a computer during those days, the “Simplicity Shootout”.
The Macintosh, now popularly known as iMac was pitted up against an HP Pavilion 8250. The Macintosh was up and running within a record time of 8 minutes and 15 seconds whereas the HP Pavilion was not yet finished being setup even though the commercial was over.
Finally, after witnessing the great phenomenal success from Macintosh, just after combining with the simple letter “I”, Apple adopted the “I” prefix across ALL of it’s existing industrial hardware, including servers and consumer products such as the iPod, iBook, iPhone, iNote, iLife, iWork, etc. and the list continues till date.
Tags: apple, ibook, ilife, imac, inote, iphone, ipod, iwork, macintosh
October 14th, 2008 at 4:45 am
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