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



## doemel (Jan 11, 2006)

Here we go. I am determined to boycott Apple's renaming of the well established PowerBook brand to something that sounds like a joke and could have just as well been brought up by the bright marketing folks at Dell or HP (their equivalent being something like "Win Book Pro" or "Windows Book Pro").

I'm still sure as hell getting one but I'll remove that abominable name from the enclosure with all means necessary.

So, who sides with me on this issue? Or do you have any good reasons why the name should be changed? BTW, the PowerBook name has been around ever since the PowerBook 100 replaced the first real portable computer by Apple, the Macintosh Portable. Why oh why, Steve.....


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## Thank The Cheese (Jan 11, 2006)

I do prefer PowerBook, but I don't feel as strongly as you about it!. 

I think it's just that "Book" needs to be preceeded by a 2-syllable word. "Mac" is too short, and it sounds a little weird - doesn't roll off the tounge. 

I'm sure we'll get used to it. I always thought "Everybody Loves Raymond" and "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" were dumb names, but now I couldn't imagine them called anything else.


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## Lt Major Burns (Jan 11, 2006)

blah blah blah blah apple changed something.

apple _always_ changes things.  if they didn't, we'd still be reducing the size of everything to fit it onto a floppy.

grow up.


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## doemel (Jan 11, 2006)

That is hardly a good analogy. Floppies have been around for too long and had to be axed because they have by then been replaced by far superior alternatives and because their obsolescence was glaringly apparent at the time. That's a technological advancement.
BUT we're talking about rebranding here. It's got nothing to do with replacing obsolete technology. PowerBook in its use up until ca. 1995 had absolutely nothing to do with the processor used.


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## fryke (Jan 11, 2006)

Okay. You go boycott it, I won't. I don't particularly _like_ "MacBook" as a name, but that's what they're called. It's really a bit whiney to "boycott" the name change.

You're absolutely right about the fact that the name "PowerBook" didn't originate as a reference to the PowerPC processor. But look at it this way: The name's over a dozen years old now. A little bit of rebranding can't hurt. And he _is_ right about putting "Mac" in the name. Those early PowerBooks with 68K processors inside were named "Macintosh PowerBook 1xx/5xx", not just "PowerBook", so back then, you clearly had the brand name Macintosh in the name, and "PowerBook" was just an extension to that like "Plus", "SE", "Centris" or "Quadra". Things change, man...


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## Mikuro (Jan 11, 2006)

doemel said:
			
		

> BTW, the PowerBook name has been around ever since the PowerBook 100 replaced the first real portable computer by Apple, the Macintosh Portable.


And for those who aren't up on their ancient Mac specs (shame on you! ), those early PowerBooks were not PowerPC-based; they used Motorola's 68k processor line. It took a few more years before the PowerPC was used in PowerBooks.

I don't really like the name, either, but I understand Apple's desire to give it a more brand-centric name. All of Apple's other lines either have their trademark "i" or have the word "Mac" in them.

I thought "iMac" was a retarded name at first, too (when the "i" was supposed to stand for "Internet").


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## doemel (Jan 11, 2006)

Point taken. The "Macintosh" name was dropped a while ago. Now they reintroduce its short form. Fine with me. I just feel that they could have come up with a better name for the Intel PowerBooks. Yes, I can't provide you with a better name right here right now but then again, I'm neither a branding specialist nor a marketing guy but just a plain old simple scientist that happens to care about branding and design (why do you think I use a Mac after all? Well that's not the only reason of course.).
I also want to find out how other people feel about it. I'm sure I'm not the only nostalgic nitpicker in here.


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## djbeta (Jan 11, 2006)

I DEFINITELY do hate the name... perhaps because I have been attached to 3 previous powerbooks...

anyway..  perhaps there is a good reason for the name change

maybe it will help more people to understand what they are buying when they buy a mac  (i do know several people that have come to me to ask whether they should go with an ibook or a powerbook-- unable to weigh the features for themselves)  i suspect that the new naming/branding convention might be a step toward helping the population of potential consumers understand and decide on the brand.

just a guess though..

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.


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## doemel (Jan 11, 2006)

djbeta said:
			
		

> 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 *P*ersonal *C*omputer. 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


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## powermac (Jan 11, 2006)

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.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Jan 11, 2006)

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."


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## doemel (Jan 11, 2006)

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?


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## kainjow (Jan 11, 2006)

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


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## Shookster (Jan 11, 2006)

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?)


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## fryke (Jan 11, 2006)

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.


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## doemel (Jan 12, 2006)

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.


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## ecirtap (Jan 13, 2006)

I got the solution - it should have been iMac Book Pro (i standing for Intel)... so everybody knows it is the same company manufacturing iMacs... and everybody might be a little more confused... LOL.

patrice
http://www.patriceschneider.com/apple-osx/blog/


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## Mikuro (Jan 13, 2006)

ecirtap said:
			
		

> I got the solution - it should have been iMac Book Pro (i standing for Intel)... so everybody knows it is the same company manufacturing iMacs... and everybody might be a little more confused... LOL.


I think Apple likes to reserve the "i" moniker for consumer products rather than their pro ones. Power Mac, PowerBook, Final Cut, DVD Studio Pro, etc. are all pro products. iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto, iMac, and iBook are all consumer products. I think that distinction is important from a branding perspective.

That begs the question, why call it the "Pro" at all? Since they're keeping the "i" in iMac, I assume they'll do the same for the iBook. They never felt the need to call their old pro models PowerBook Pro or Power Mac Pro, so why the extra word now? Although I must admit that without the "Pro", "MacBook" sure doesn't sound like a professional product name. That's one reason I think it's a bad name; whatever the official title is, everyone will naturally just call them MacBooks.


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## iball (Jan 13, 2006)

$20 says Stevie didn't outsource to a consulting firm for that name.
Either he came up with it or an Apple employee did and Stevie liked it.
Either way, guess who was the one to make the final go-ahead decision on the name "MacBook"?
That's right, your "Apple God", Steve Jobs.  
So if you hate the name, then hate him for deciding on it.


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## doemel (Jan 13, 2006)

iball said:
			
		

> That's right, your "Apple God", Steve Jobs.
> So if you hate the name, then hate him for deciding on it.




But then again, nobody's perfect, right? Everybody makes mistakes.


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## doemel (Jan 13, 2006)

OK, nobody seems to care too much. I for my part have found a way of dealing with the situation: I'll just call it

The computer formerly known as Powerbook

On the long run I guess I'll have to get used to whatever name Apple thinks of. After all I got used to the name "iMac" shortly after I got one back in '98.


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## dmetzcher (Feb 1, 2006)

fryke said:
			
		

> Okay. You go boycott it, I won't. I don't particularly _like_ "MacBook" as a name, but that's what they're called.QUOTE]
> Agreed. I think the name stinks, but no one is going to boycott anything.


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## ergo proxy (Feb 5, 2006)

I think the Mac Book pro name will save them the trouble of renaming it
again in the future. If they went with the (for eg.)Intel Book name, what happens if Apple starts using AMD, cell or even revert to PPC in the future?

I don't really mind the MacBook pro name, In my case, only those who own
a Mac will call it Powerbook, everyone else will just call it a Mac or a Mac laptop.


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## dmetzcher (Feb 5, 2006)

ergo proxy said:
			
		

> If they went with the (for eg.)Intel Book name, what happens if Apple starts using AMD, cell or even revert to PPC in the future?


There is no way that Apple would have ever used the word "Intel" in the name of any one of their machines. Everyone else calls them "Intel Macs", but Apple does not, and will not. The same goes for the term "WinTel", which is an industry term, and not one used by Microsoft. It has nothing to do with the fact that they might use AMD chips in the future. It has everything to do with the fact that no company is willing to highlight another organization in a place as prominent as the name of their product.

I actually hate the terms "Intel Mac", "MacTel", and "MacIntel", and prefer "Intel-based Mac". Intel really has nothing at all to do with the machine. It's just the chip. I can't wait until they are all Intel-based, and the PowerPC machines have long faded, so we can just refer to them as Macs. 

As far as AMD is concerned (and this is way off-topic, I know), I hope they do start putting their chips in the Macs after a while. A company like Intel should not have so much power.


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## ergo proxy (Feb 5, 2006)

dmetzcher said:
			
		

> I actually hate the terms "Intel Mac", "MacTel", and "MacIntel", and prefer "Intel-based Mac". Intel really has nothing at all to do with the machine. It's just the chip. I can't wait until they are all Intel-based, and the PowerPC machines have long faded, so we can just refer to them as Macs.



Those were the names floating around after the Intel announcement. So I  was kind of glad they decided not to include the Intel name. 



			
				dmetzcher said:
			
		

> As far as AMD is concerned (and this is way off-topic, I know), I hope they do start putting their chips in the Macs after a while. A company like Intel should not have so much power.



Well, since were now on the x86 road map, that could be a possibility,
maybe in the high end PowerMac er I mean Mac Pro Systems.


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## ScottW (Feb 5, 2006)

Why don't they just call it the PowerBook Duo?

Oh... that has already happened.


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## dmetzcher (Feb 5, 2006)

ScottW said:
			
		

> Why don't they just call it the PowerBook Duo?
> 
> Oh... that has already happened.


They want "Mac" in the names of all their computers, according to Jobs at the keynote.

i.e. - iMac, Mac mini, PowerMac
Now we'll have the MacBook Pro (to replace the PowerBook), and, I assume, the MacBook (to replace the iBook.) The names stink, frankly. I think "iBook" and "PowerBook" were perfect.


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## fryke (Feb 5, 2006)

While we _assume_ that they'll rename the iBook to MacBook or "MacBook mini" or something similar, it's not a done deal just yet. Maybe both the iMac and the iBook will keep their names? Then again, I truly *hope* we'll have a final lineup of this:

Mac (was iMac)
Mac mini (was Mac mini)
Mac Pro (was PowerMac)
MacBook (was iBook)
MacBook nano (flash-memory based super sub-notebook)
MacBook Pro (was PowerBook)

 (I know, I sneaked my wish for a subnotebook in there, can't help it...)


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## ergo proxy (Feb 5, 2006)

iMac is going to be called just Mac?? 

A: " I hear that you have a Mac at home, which model? "
B: " I have a Mac."
A: " I know, but which one?"
B: " A Mac, that all in one computer. They use to call it the iMac but now it simply called a 'Mac'."

Sub notebook? that's a good idea, I could definately use one.
8" screen w/ tablet functionality would be cool.


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## fryke (Feb 6, 2006)

You're right. They can't really get rid of the "i" in "iMac" for that reason.  ... Although I've heard _plenty_ of people referring to their iMac as "the Mac" already (even being puzzled when I called it the "iMac"...) and others who referred to their iBooks as iMacs... Hm...


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