The let's-boycott-stupid-PowerBook-renaming thread

**doemel** · January 11th, 2006, 06:51 AM

Originally Posted by djbeta

I think the WinBook analogy is spot on !! however, we should remember that it's not really the name that makes PCs suck.. it's that they do.
I mean.. if I could pick between a WinBook and a MacBook , I'd take the MacBook. :-)

Thanks. I got the analogy from someone in an aftermath discussion. Can't link to it though because I'm the web surfer equival of an ADD kid

and tend to visit too many places in too short a time.
Of course it's not the name that makes PCs suck. But I look at Apple products as a whole, including the actual product, features, enclosure, branding, marketing etc. The whole shebang. That is what also sets the Mac experience apart from the rest of the pack.

On a sideline: Has anyone noticed yet that we've definitely run into a naming problem if we want to set us apart from Windows users using hardware other that Apple's? The whole "PC" and "Mac" destinction was flawed from the beginning because the Mac is also a Personal Computer. OK, then we got Wintel. But now we got Intel Macs, so, bang, that's gone since not few of us will have to run Windows along with the Mac OS on our shiny new Intel Macs. So I guess we now have to destinguish between primary OS use preferences. Now there's the

* Win-only
* Win-primarily
* Mac-only
* Mac-primarily

folks. And I haven't even started to get Linux and others into the picture yet.

Sorry, for having to continue nitpicking today. It's one of these days. I promise I'll eventually chill

**powermac** · January 11th, 2006, 07:02 AM

I am not a fan of the name either. From a marketing view point, the name is not sexy. They should have left the powerbook name alone. It sells, even non-mac people know the name powerbook.

**ElDiabloConCaca** · January 11th, 2006, 08:57 AM

Hey, they named cars "Pintos" and "Yugos" and they sold well despite their names.

I guess I'm alone in liking the new "MacBook" moniker, huh? "PowerBook" was getting a little long in the tooth... if Apple never rebranded stuff, we'd all be looking at our gorgeous iMacs but calling them "Performas."

**doemel** · January 11th, 2006, 09:04 AM

Ouch. Performa. The very name makes me wanna PerforATE one of them boxes. Those were the dark days before Jobs' second coming

Of course you're right about occasional renaming. But does it have to be what they chose?

**kainjow** · January 11th, 2006, 11:10 AM

MacBook is growing on me too. It's a refreshing new name yet still is similar. The whole "Power" name is getting rather old.

**Shookster** · January 11th, 2006, 11:13 AM

I think the name was changed to press the point that it's still a Mac even though it contains Intel hardware. Apple also said that they haven't gone out of their way to stop Windows from running, which makes you wonder if some retailers be selling MacBooks that run Windows... (are they legally allowed to?)

**fryke** · January 11th, 2006, 12:26 PM

theoretically, they could just add a Windows license to the cost and do it. If you can install Windows in a nice dual-boot situation, that'd make a nice package for wannabe-switchers.

**doemel** · January 12th, 2006, 03:00 AM

Ability to dual boot and/or possibility to smoothly integrate a virtual Windows environment would definitely benefit the community. Sometimes you are just forced to use some Windows-only app. I am, at times forced to use FrontPage, which I think is a hideous piece of you-know-what just to upload/synch files to and between a customer's staging and production (IIS) server. The hosting company didn't manage to properly configure FTP accounts for the servers (password protected areas cannot be accessed using FTP in all cases, looks like a permission issue on the IIS side) because either they're really not up to that task or Microsoft made it close to impossible to enable adequate FTP access on their IISs. For now I have to literally wait for hours within VPC to do the job.