The new Apple under Tim Cook has seen great advances towards social responsibility, environment protection, privacy care, product line expansion, and many other great things that are tremendously beneficial for Apple.
However, one of the things that has really suffered from Steve Jobs’ absence is Apple’s naming conventions. Over the last 5 years, as product choice has grown, Apple’s product names have slowly turned into a mess that’s hard to understand and follow.
These are the current Apple products names:
- iPhone 6s
- iPhone 6s plus
- iPhone SE
- iPhone 6
- iPhone 6 plus
- iPad mini 2
- iPad mini 4
- iPad Air 2
- iPad Pro (9.7 inch)
- iPad Pro (12.9 inch)
- MacBook (12 inch)
- MacBook Air (11 inch)
- MacBook Air (13 inch)
- MacBook Pro (13 inch — 2009)
- MacBook Pro with Retina Display (13 inch)
- MacBook Pro with Retina Display (15 inch)
- iMac (21.5 inch)
- iMac (27 inch)
- Mac Pro
- Mac mini
- TV
- The new TV
- watch sport
- watch
- watch edition
Patterns
There are some easy-to-spot patterns, let’s dissect them:
- Pro: For Professional products, oriented towards a professional market.
- Air: For regular consumers.
- mini: Usually implying a smaller size than a normal product.
- plus: Implying a bigger size than a normal product.
- Numbers: Generational numeric editions (for iPhones mostly) like 5, 5S, 6, 6S.
However these patterns are not consistent nor they are standard across the multiple product lines. However, we can see concepts behind these patterns: they’re used to describe sizes, generations and target market.
For this exercise let’s try to find a common pattern that follows these rules:
- Can be applied across the entire product line.
- Remains standard.
- Solves generational issues.
- Solves size naming.
- Stays in line with Apple’s traditional naming patterns.
Solutions
The most common thing across the entire product line is product sizes, it’s the most pivotal element that defines many categories usually within the mini and Pro brands.
Let’s propose a new naming standard for product sizes, one that can be applied to all lines and is familiar with every consumer out there: S (for small), M (for Medium or Regular) and L (for large). S, M, L. Easy. We could use the current conventions of mini, nothing and pro for sizes, but pro usually means something more than a big size. We can even remove the M since it’s the “regular” product size and we just need to differentiate smaller or bigger sizes. So we end up with S for small and L for large.
Let’s remove letters from generational numbers. So the 5S, 6S and so. Let’s propose either a full number methodology: (iPhone 6S would be iPhone 7) or a “.5” methodology (iPhone 6S would be iPhone 6.5).
So let’s apply that to the iOS devices without adding the M to the regular sized products:
- iPhone 6.5 (formerly iPhone 6S).
- iPhone 6.5 L (formerly iPhone 6S plus).
- iPhone 6.5 S (formerly iPhone SE).
- iPhone 6 (stays the same).
- iPhone 6 L (formerly iPhone 6 plus).
- iPad 5 S (formerly iPad mini 2 but 5th generation iPad mini).
- iPad 6S (formerly iPad mini 4 but 6th generation iPad mini).
- iPad 6 (formerly iPad Air 2, 6th generation of the product).
- iPad Pro (formerly iPad Pro (9.7 inch)).
- iPad Pro L (formerly iPad Pro (12.9 inch).
For Laptops Apple has 3 lines. We can integrate them into 2 under a new naming structure:
- MacBook 2 S (formerly MacBook (12 inch), new generation product).
- Macbook S (formerly MacBook Air (11 inch)).
- MacBook (formerly MacBook Air (13 inch)).
- MacBook Pro (formerly MacBook Pro (13 inch)).
- MacBook Pro L (formerly MacBook Pro (15 inch)).
- MacBook Pro 2009 (let’s kill this one).
For desktop Macs there are 3 different products: iMac, Mac mini and Mac Pro. Let’s integrate them to end up with at least 2 lines based on current setup: Macs that are fully integrated (iMacs) and Macs that require monitor, cameras, and so (Macs). We end up with:
- iMac (21.5 inch).
- iMac L (27 inch).
- Mac S (formerly Mac mini).
- Mac Pro (stays the same).
The TV doesn’t have different sizes, so we could end up with:
- TV 3 (formerly TV).
- TV 4 (formerly: the new TV).
The watch have 2 sizes (38mm and 42mm) and 3 different product lines. The name of the product lines is inconsistent: sport, nothing and edition, and it usually carried the trouble of saying “the watch edition edition”. Let’s use the materials they’re made of to name the product lines and use the standard S, L nomenclature for sizes. That way we end up with:
- watch al S (formerly watch sport 38mm) (baby, when you call me, you call me Al!).
- watch al (fomerly watch sport 42mm).
- watch steel S (fomerly watch 38mm).
- watch steel (fomerly watch 42mm).
- watch gold S (fomerly watch edition 38mm).
- watch gold (fomerly watch edition 42mm).
There are possible variations to this that would make it maybe better. We could remove the whole generational number system and just use the year of launch for older generation products. It would look something like:
- iPhone 6: iPhone (2015).
- iPhone 6S: iPhone.
- iPad mini 2: iPad S (2013).
- iPad mini 4: iPad S.
- MacBook Air 11: MacBook S (2014)
- MacBook: MacBook S.
- TV: TV (2012).
- the new TV: TV.
You can extrapolate that to the entire product line. This can make it even simpler and better with the only downside of someone today buying an iPad mini (2013) feels worse for the customer than buying an iPad 2 S.
Another idea would be to keep the mini and plus naming instead of S and L. It makes it longer, but more familiar to Apple’s current customer base.
Conclusion
This way, we end up with a familiar naming structure that spans across the entire product line, simplifies choice understanding, solves size naming and stays within Apple’s guidelines for naming products.
These naming conventions achieve all the goals we established at the start while being clean, consistent, smart and simple.
This is a great way for Apple to solve the naming issue and provide a clear, consistent nomenclature for their products across their entire product line in a way that helps customers, salespeople and marketing.
Apple won’t change its current product line. But it can start by adding this new nomenclature to their new products as they are released. I certainly would love to see that happen.
Your move, Apple.
