Discussion Groups / English Usage / November 2006

Nor do I. I do think that the "i" is supposed to be taken from "Internet"
(cf. "iMac"), and I think the "pod" is due to the shape of the device, or
its original versions.

Good man.  

I held off for a long time, but finally became convinced that this
wasn't actually true.  Aside from a single required use of iTunes when
you start up, you can completely disregard their software for transfer
(or any other reason).  It mounts as a disk, and I use Winamp to
manage my music and a backup program to give me an encrypted backup of
my more important files.  (I've gotten sufficiently frustrated with
the fact that I can't find synchronizing software that does things the
way I want that I'm currently looking into writing my own.  It doesn't
look difficult.)

As will my iPod.  Of course, you'll have to install Linux on that PC
or Mac first, but since I'd probably do that anyway, no great loss.

-=Eric

I don't know if my iPod works on any other platforms (if that's the
right word), because I've never hooked it up to any computer other than
my own. Why would I? What am I missing?

Although the "i" historically comes from "iMac", for which it stood
for "Internet".  As for the "pod",

   The iPod name was offered up by Vinnie Chieco, a freelance
   copywriter who lives in San Francisco. Chieco was recruited by
   Apple to be part of a small team tasked with helping figure out
   how to introduce the new player to the general public, not just
   computer geeks.

   During the process, Jobs had settled on the player's descriptive
   tag line -- "1,000 songs in your pocket" -- so the name was freed
   up from having to be descriptive. It didn't have to reference
   music or songs.

   While describing the player, Jobs constantly referred to Apple's
   digital hub strategy: The Mac is a hub, or central connection
   point, for a host of gadgets. This prompted Chieco to start
   thinking about hubs: objects that other things connect to.

   The ultimate hub, Chieco figured, would be a spaceship. You could
   leave the spaceship in a smaller vessel, a pod, but you'd have to
   return to the mother ship to refuel and get food. Then Chieco was
   shown a prototype iPod, with its stark white plastic front.

   "As soon as I saw the white iPod, I thought 2001," said
   Chieco. "Open the pod bay door, Hal!"

   Then it was just a matter of adding the "i" prefix, as in "iMac."

   Chieco declined to mention any of the alternative names that were
   considered. A source at Apple confirmed Chieco's story.

   Athol Foden, a naming expert and president of Brighter Naming of
   Mountain View, California, noted that Apple had already
   trademarked the iPod name for an internet kiosk, a project that
   never saw the light of day. On July 24, 2000, Apple registered the
   iPod name for "a public internet kiosk enclosure containing
   computer equipment," according to the filing.

   Chieco said the internet kiosk is probably a coincidence. He
   suggested that maybe another team at Apple registered the name for
   a different project, but because of the company's penchant for
   secrecy, his team wasn't aware what the other had done. And
   neither, apparently, was Steve Jobs. Chieco said neither Jobs --
   nor anyone else -- seemed aware that the company had already
   registered the iPod trademark.

   "The name 'iPod' makes much more sense for an internet kiosk,
   which is a pod for a human, than a music player," said Foden.

   "They discovered in their tool chest of registered names they had
   'iPod,'" he added. "If you think about the product, it doesn't
   really fit. But it doesn't matter. It's short and sweet."

   Foden said the name is a stroke of genius: It is simple, memorable
   and, crucially, it doesn't describe the device, so it can still be
   used as the technology evolves, even if the device's function
   changes. He noted the "i" prefix has a double meaning: It can mean
   "internet," as in "iMac," or it can denote the first person: "I,"
   as in me.

        http://tinyurl.com/whcs7
        <URL:http://www.wired.com/news/columns/cultofmac/
         0,71956-2.html?tw=wn_story_page_next2>

While I generally agree with you, I'm not sure this is necessarily so.
I'm thinking of a virus I heard of that will automatically copy itself
(along with some porn, to induce the user to open it and install the
virus) to a USB device when it's inserted into an infected computer.
It doesn't take a huge leap of imagination to extend that to
full-fledged worm status, where the worm is automatically installed to
any computer the device is plugged into.

I suppose in that case you could argue the communications network is
'sneakernet'[0], but that might be stretching it a bit even for some
technically-inclined readers.

-=Eric

[0] A common pun on the word 'ethernet', which describes a set of
   computer networking technologies.  'Sneakernet' uses sneakers,
   i.e., people walking around, to move information from one point to
   another.  By analogy, 'ethernet' should use 'ether', and arguably
   with the advent of the 802.11 family of standards, it does[1].

[1] Here's a quote from the memo where Bob Metcalfe describes how he
   coined the name 'ethernet':

         The word ether came from lumeniferous ether -- the
         omnipresent passive medium once theorized to carry
         electromagnetic waves through space, in particular light
         from the Sun to the Earth.  Around the time of Einstein's
         Theory of Relativity, the light-bearing ether was proven not
         to exist.  So, looking to name our LAN's omnipresent passive
         medium, then a coaxial cable, which would propagate
         electromagnetic waves, namely data packets, I chose to
         recycle ether.  Hence, Ethernet.

I suspect that where it becomes confusing for some is when "downloading"
is used for receiving an html image on one's screen. Obviously, it is
downloading in a way, but it's not quite the same thing as saving text
or images to one's disk.

[...]

In BrE (at least my dialect of geek-speek) a computer program is spelt
"program".  TV, theatres, events etc. have "programmes".

Will.