The discovery that in iOS 11.3 Apple is renaming the iBooks app to “Books” seemed... not particularly revelatory. We’ve all read about how Apple’s been slowly stripping away the lower-case-i prefix from older products. New products and services are a generic word preceded with the word “Apple,” as in Apple TV and Apple Watch. This is the conventional wisdom. But is it true?
No, kill ‘i’
Apple’s made no pronouncements itself about it. Yes, it seems the “i” prefix introduced with the iMac 20 years ago has fallen out of favor. (I’m reminded of the time when Steve Jobs said that the “power” prefix of the PowerBook and Power Mac had gotten tired.) And yet that same prefix continues to appear in front of some of Apple’s most popular products and platforms! Meanwhile, Apple has announced new hardware—like AirPods and the HomePod—with absolutely no sign of either the letter “i” or the Apple prefix.
