Recently, the names that Apple took under consideration for its well-known smartphone have been revealed. The choice was not as simple as one might think. Let’s find out together what the alternatives were.

Former Apple advertising lead Ken Segall has recently described at an event at the University of Arizona how the Cupertino company came up with the name “iPhone".

What we are holding in our hands today could have been called Telepod, Mobi, Tripod or iPad.

Ken went on to explain the philosophy behind each names:

-Mobi: it refers to the abbreviation of “Mobile” and Apple believe that is was creative and had personality. 

-Tripod: this name would have described the three main features that Apple wanted to focus on: making calls, interacting with multimedia elements (music, photos, videos) and browsing the Internet. The name was later abandoned because it was already registered and also because the device was able to go beyond those three features.

-TelePod: Apple considered this name because it sounded like a futuristic version of the word "telephone." The "Pod" part obviously would have underlined the coherence with the other Cupertino-made product, the iPod, which was very popular at the time.

-iPad: long before the iPad was studied and eventually created, the name had already been considered by Apple, however it had been discarded because it lacked the reference to the phone features of the device.

Eventually, Steve Jobs, expert of simplicity and clarity, opted for an intuitive as well as immediate name: iPhone.

Below, the video of Ken Segall at the University of Arizona, where he added in the Keynote the name “MicroMac”, which he came up with to confuse the analysis of the students.