SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - As Apple takes a bruising over the moniker of its latest creation some technology analysts are shrugging off the fuss over the name to focus on what's inside the iPad: a speedy new chip.
Critics and fans have been filling the 60-day void between this week's unveiling of what Apple chief executive Steve Jobs hailed as a "revolutionary" device and the time the first models will begin shipping globally.
By Friday, talk of the iPad's technical strengths and weaknesses was drowned out by comic awe rooted in Apple picking a name seemingly fit for a feminine hygiene gadget.
"It's always those kinds of words that are suggestive of feminine menstruation," said Michael Cronan, whose eponymous branding specialty firm in California named Amazon's Kindle electronic reader and the TiVo television digital recorder...... The remainder of this story can be read here
Apple has become attached to the "i" brand that seems to sell its products effectively. The iPad is definitely something very different. My first reaction upon hearing about this product was that it must have been designed with idle housewives in mind. Apple perhaps may want to drop the "pad" in this particular product and use something like slate or abacus for example. Slate is a piece of erasable portable blackened wooden board we used to carry to school as kids and abacus of course is the chinese bead calculator. Slate sounds ultimately universal, gender neutral and appealing. iSlate will obviously attract many.
