Bill gates retired 19 years ago(2000s) and his name is still synonymous with windows due to choices he made.
People still ask Wozniak about his opinions on devices(iphones etc) that he had absolutely no input on and they do tinge people's perceptions of those devices
Jobs penchant for secrecy persists to this day at Apple, the personalities of the people who were in charge/first affect organizations more than you'd think
I know you’re being downvoted because your comment is based on the content not the name, but on the name thing, Netflix actually tried to spin their DVD business to be called ‘Qwikster’, but I think people got angry for some reason(?) so they kept the Netflix name for both. So that was maybe a bit confusing for a while.
Apple needs to have the marketing people who come up with California-based macOS names sort this out. If they solved the cat naming crisis then surely they can clean up this mess.
Remember when .NET came out? Everything was .NET. As a result, no-one really had any idea what .NET actually was. Eventually we figured out it was "Microsoft's Java".
Windows also went through a phase in which seemingly everything was Windows.
That's not really an example of what they're bringing up.
Microsoft has the .Net ecosystem (as the above poster described it "Microsoft's Java," which it largely is). However for a period Microsoft was naming other products and services ".Net" that were completely unrelated. Specifically this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_.NET_strategy
Both .Net Core and .Net Standard are part of the .Net ecosystem for real, making them not an example of the marketing phenomenon being discussed here. Which isn't to say the names aren't confusing, just that it isn't in the same pattern.
PS -
.Net Framework: Legacy/Classic .Net. Windows Only. Started in 2002. 4.8 is the final major version.
.Net Core: Light weight/cross platform "reboot" of .Net Framework. Started in 2016.
.Net Standard: Minimum subset of both that allows libraries to be cross-compatible with .Net Framework and .Net Core. Also assures they lack Windows specific dependencies. Allowing a bridge to migrate to .Net Core.
At least they named it core and standard so you know which mess you're referring to.
With Apple TV you have to make up your own qualifiers.
Apple's marketing team seems to failing at their jobs right now. They had iPhone had X/Xr/Xs/Xs Max at some point, and I never figure out which was which. The most recent 11/11 pro/11 pro max makes a lot more sense, but it sounds dated.
Just because you don't understand it doesn't make it a "mess"
.Net Core and Standard are two of the best things Microsoft has done in the past 5 years and part of the reason why .Net is doing so well and is super popular.
To be fair just before .NET Standard it was much more confusing. Then by
.NET Core 3 (which I kept telling people wait till .NET Core 3 for things to get better since it wasnt till .NET Framework 3 that I saw huge adoption of .NET) it got way better. Also now we are seeing cross platform UI frameworks for .NET as well. I have been wanting to experiment with some of them but I am letting the ecosystem grow and mature a bit more.
.NET Core is the best thing Microsoft did even if it sucks they basically redid .NET Framework. It sucks when companies do that kind of thing but the end result is a much more powerful .NET ecosystem. The confusing bit is old .NET Framework libraries that may or may not work at all with .NET Core.
Even Sun Microsystems had a phase where they made thought-terminating illogical statements. My 2 favorites:
"The network is the computer" - No, it's not, and Sun's tech at the time, just Unix servers, definitely did not have any enlightened concept of networking that others lacked. It had Berkeley sockets and NFS. Such a statement makes me think of single-system image cluster computing, or other cool stuff, but they didn't have it! Lame.
"We put the dot in dot-com" - ??? - I think they got scared that they were starting to lose relevancy in the internet age. It turned out that Sun hardware was a poor choice if you really wanted to scale.
Yes, it's marketing fluff (as with any marketing), but I liked that one.
For all you tech people like me that have problems answering to non-techie family members what you do, I thought that was an example of a beautiful succinct answer that still conveyed enough of an idea to be satisfying to laymen.
As for one I really hated from Sun: "Java Desktop System", which was just a distro with GNOME, and had nothing to do with Java.
Yesss... The name Java Desktop System made my soul hurt. The funny thing though is it was an okay GUI environment. Conservative and thoughtful. It was 10 years late to the GUI party though :)
Wasn’t that implying their infra running the implicit “.” at the end of “.com” (I know, it’s literally not what the copy says)? I.e. the internet .com resolving depended on Sun.[0][1]
Microsoft has gone through some pretty dark times w.r.t. naming stuff. Up there with "Windows" everything and absurdities like ".net Passport" was their unslakable thirst for "Active." ActiveX, Active Server Pages, Active Data Objects.
However, none of it holds a candle to IBM's mania for making everything "Websphere."
For sure, although whereas the Websphere-ing of the product line seemed like a plausible effort at consistent branding, Watson feels more like a cynical measure to appear relevant, but nobody's buying it.
On the "active" bandwagon, I forgot to mention Active Directory, which is kind of funny given that I spent the better part of a decade specializing in development and projects largely oriented around AD and ADFS, and which is maybe the only Active-branded thing still going strong.
I have a feeling business people eat up Watson. Nobody got fired for buying IBM as they say. I was at a telecoms conference and they did a demo and mentioned the systems could use Watson for speech to text functionality. Someone somewhere is buying into it whether directly or indirectly.
Dark times are still happening. Right now they're renaming everything Azure regardless of whether it's part of their cloud offerings.
Also, Live was another Microsoft naming phase.
For me, the canary in the coal mine of ms naming is their messenger. Msn messenger, live messenger, Skype, Skype for business, Teams... I assume the next iteration will be named Azure Teams.
My best guess is Skype was much more profitable than MSN. But Microsoft took the best features of Skype and removed them and the quality got diminished probably in order to monkeypatch Lync into Skype as well as MSN at the time.
After like 2013 I never used Skype again. Now everyone I know either uses Discord or Slack. Teams was at least the right direction for business focus but it seems they shoulda QAd it much more. I dont hear much positive about Teams.
The messenger naming example is also apropos because each successive generation of bad naming is also a generation of product that is measurably worse in some way. It goes to demonstrate the durability of software canaries!
Microsoft's email services are still a naming mess. Live, Outlook and Hotmail all seem to be interconnected, and I don't really know what differentiates them anymore.
Except outlook is the app you install on android or iOS to access your Outlook.com personal email, which is really hotmail, but not to be confused with outlook web access, which is the web interface to exchange’s mail. There’s also the outlook that’s part of office 365 for windows, which is “the business one”, except it is also in the office 365 personal edition, which you are not allowed to use for business, and that outlook is a completely different app from the outlook in office 365 for mac.
But the mail client on windows is not outlook, that’s just windows mail.
The Windows mail client was called Windows Live Mail for a while, and the mail service was called Windows Live Hotmail. The gaming platform, video editor and photo viewer were also all inexplicably Windows Live.
It surprises me that they didn't release 'Windows Live Office' in that era.
Here's the fun part: if I type in Hotmail.com into my browser, I'm redirected to a page titled 'Outlook' that's on a subdomain of Live.com (outlook.live.com)
But if I type in Live.com, I'm redirected to the same page that says 'Outlook' but is actually outlook.live.com
So Hotmail is Outlook but Outlook is Live.com but Live.com itself is Outlook
> Msn messenger, live messenger, Skype, Skype for business, Teams... I assume the next iteration will be named Azure Teams.
We have a similar issue in education. First it was MSDN-AA, then DreamSpark, then briefly Microsoft Imagine. Now it's called Microsoft Azure Dev Tools for Teaching.
Actually Skype for Business was called Lync and before that Office Communicator. And has nothing at all to do with Skype, or any of their other messaging products!
having to click the "start" button to shut down your computer is probably the most illogical one. and somehow it managed to stay that way for 15 years until someone got the bright idea to just but an icon there instead
"microsoft windows phone 7 series" was a mouth full compared to "apple iphone". luckily they changed that soon after but its crazy to think of the amount of people that were involved in that project and none of them spoke up about how stupid the name sounded
a recent one is the app "your phone". it just doesn't sound right. i imagine it would be even more awkward when someone has to search the term. "hey google, my your phone isnt working"
windows security centre changes its name every year. I could go on
> Up there with "Windows" everything and absurdities like ".net Passport"
.NET Passport went thru series of rebranding: Microsoft Passport, Windows Live ID and of course the current Microsoft Account. In some places they also tried to roll everything under MSN brand which later was replaced partially by Windows Live and then again, once they managed to combine their services, MSN applications were bundled with Windows 8 and 10 (News, Weather, Sports etc.). Not mention all GUI changes across the years...
Microsoft trying to figure out what's its brand identity it's like a kid who tries to combine a single image of various jigsaw puzzles sets, periodically smashing pieces together to fit
Actually, Microsoft's Java existed. Microsoft built their own JVM ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Java_Virtual_Machine ) and Java was supported as a language in Visual Studio in the past. It was the fastest Windows-based implementation of a Java virtual machine when it came out.
But Microsoft being itself added some custom features on top of JVM ( like IE ) and Sun sued them. In retaliation, Microsoft removed JVM from Windows and built C#. Everybody at that time knew C# was Java, though C# has evolved to be a much better language to code in than Java.
Seems like Apple is going through Xerox phases..Very soon they will have to explain everything.
There was a time when Xerox had to explain what their products were for.
In one of the computer ads the headline said
"This Xerox machine can't make a copy"
>Just a little reminder from Xerox / prepared by Needham, Harper & Steers Advertising, Inc. -- Not even Xerox can Xerox / prepared by Needham Harper Worldwide, Inc. (March 1985) -- Once a trademark, not always a trademark / [Xerox Corporation].
>Though it was a long time ago, I recall that my law school Business Torts casebook contained a copy of Xerox’s old ad, “Not Even Xerox Can Xerox”, which Xerox used to promote proper use of its trademark and fight genericide. Back in the day, Xerox was by far the most well-know copier brand, leased by offices all over. In this day and age, now that most people have a copier at home (as part of a multifunction printer) and it could be a Canon, HP, Brother, Epson or other brand, I think the younger folk are not so likely to refer to copying as “Xeroxing”. It poses an interesting quandary: Xerox may be winning the genericide war but they are no longer dominating the competition. Which is preferable?
>If the LEGO trademark is used at all, it should always be used as an adjective, not as a noun. For example, say "MODELS BUILT OF LEGO BRICKS". Never say "MODELS BUILT OF LEGOs". Also, the trademark should appear in the same typeface as the surrounding text and should not be isolated or set apart from the surrounding text. In other words, the trademarks should not be emphasized or highlighted. Finally, the LEGO trademark should always appear with a ® symbol each time it is used.
>In a well-reasoned opinion, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recently held that the GOOGLE trademark has not suffered death by genericide – even if the public uses it as a verb for searching the Internet.
>The case before the court sprang from the registration of 763 domain names that incorporated the term GOOGLE. After losing a domain name dispute arbitration, the domain name owners sued to have various trademark registrations for GOOGLE cancelled, claiming that the mark had become generic for the act of searching the Internet. The court rightly observed that a claim of genericide must always relate to specific goods or services, and that use of “google” as a verb for searching the Internet was not sufficient evidence that GOOGLE had become generic for “search engine services” or any other goods or services.
>The general rule of thumb is that trademarks are best thought of as “adjectives” that modify a generic noun. But this “part of speech” approach is not determinative to whether a mark has become generic. And while for years Xerox sought to instill in the public’s mind the trademark significance of XEROX by stating that “not even Xerox can xerox,” evidently Google can google without destroying the mark.
For me it was interesting to notice how my gf uses "googling" for all search actions. Not only in the Internet, but also for all in-app search and filtering functions.
This article is about the media player. For the streaming service, see Apple TV+. For the media player app from Apple, see Apple TV (software). For other uses, see Apple TV (disambiguation).
This isn't really a naming problem, though, although the naming is poor. Better naming or more clarity isn't going to fix the fundamental problem - Apple TV doesn't deliver on the promise of an (idealized) Apple product/service.
A good Apple product may in some ways be more constrained than similar products but is easy to understand and use and 'just works'. For instance, you bought an iPod and you plugged it into your Mac which popped up a store where you could buy music. You didn't have to know what an 'mp3' is. Or you bought an iPhone, took it home, plugged into your computer and 3 minutes later had a working new phone/pocket web browser. You didn't have to listen to anyone telling you about extended warranty and the web browser actually worked.
Buying an Apple TV or subscribing to the service doesn't solve any of the endless irritations and inconveniences associated with consuming TV or movies online. It just names them all Apple TV but if they fixed that, the irritations and inconveniences would still be there.
Maybe someone at Apple got the Sony WH-1000XM3 Noise Cancelling Headphones instead of the MDR-ZX110NC Noise Cancelling Headphones for Christmas, and this is some kind of a backlash into over-simplification.
What’s pretty brilliant is that you could remove the word Apple and it would look exactly like what Tv is. Essentially Apple has replaced TV with AppleTV. And with that Apple is trying to become a monopoly on what was formally a relatively distributed system.
Here's my take on it: I bought an Apple TV and It Just Works. Movies, subtitle, adding a few key apps like Netflix and Youtube. It's the same name because it's the same whole experience.
It all works juuuuust until it doesn't and you have to upgrade to the next tier. I assume the experience will be like the one i had with netflix, where once i had a 4k tv i realized i HAD to upgrade my account and internet bandwidth coz otherwise stuff would look blurry and buffer(for kids who can't tell why stuff doesn't look as good as on the neighbors device)
Obviously not a problem for people who can just buy all the extras but if you're budgeting then it does get quite nasty and lead you to the media server route
I find naming and details as confusing with Amazon Prime, Amazon Video and FireTV.
Maybe it is not as problematic when you are in the US, but in my country Amazon Prime works in all devices (android, ios, pc, etc) except in the FireTV, other services like netflix, spotify and youtube works very well on FireTV. Note that this is clearly stated in the documentation and faqs, it is a product targeted to a few countries only.
207 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 101 ms ] threadPeople still ask Wozniak about his opinions on devices(iphones etc) that he had absolutely no input on and they do tinge people's perceptions of those devices
Jobs penchant for secrecy persists to this day at Apple, the personalities of the people who were in charge/first affect organizations more than you'd think
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffal...
This is a weird comparison. Apple TV+ isn't competing with Netflix day one, it's competing with Netflix today.
- Cheetah
- Puma
- Jaguar
- Panther
- Tiger
- Leopard
- Snow Leopard
- Lion
- Mountain Lion
- Mavericks
If you are at the point that your company is adding MAX to the end of its product names, your company is about to jump the shark (see Boeing).
Plus, it'll probably be object-oriented.
Windows also went through a phase in which seemingly everything was Windows.
Microsoft has the .Net ecosystem (as the above poster described it "Microsoft's Java," which it largely is). However for a period Microsoft was naming other products and services ".Net" that were completely unrelated. Specifically this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_.NET_strategy
Both .Net Core and .Net Standard are part of the .Net ecosystem for real, making them not an example of the marketing phenomenon being discussed here. Which isn't to say the names aren't confusing, just that it isn't in the same pattern.
PS - .Net Framework: Legacy/Classic .Net. Windows Only. Started in 2002. 4.8 is the final major version.
.Net Core: Light weight/cross platform "reboot" of .Net Framework. Started in 2016.
.Net Standard: Minimum subset of both that allows libraries to be cross-compatible with .Net Framework and .Net Core. Also assures they lack Windows specific dependencies. Allowing a bridge to migrate to .Net Core.
At least they named it core and standard so you know which mess you're referring to.
With Apple TV you have to make up your own qualifiers.
Apple's marketing team seems to failing at their jobs right now. They had iPhone had X/Xr/Xs/Xs Max at some point, and I never figure out which was which. The most recent 11/11 pro/11 pro max makes a lot more sense, but it sounds dated.
.Net Core and Standard are two of the best things Microsoft has done in the past 5 years and part of the reason why .Net is doing so well and is super popular.
.NET Core is the best thing Microsoft did even if it sucks they basically redid .NET Framework. It sucks when companies do that kind of thing but the end result is a much more powerful .NET ecosystem. The confusing bit is old .NET Framework libraries that may or may not work at all with .NET Core.
"We put the dot in dot-com" - ??? - I think they got scared that they were starting to lose relevancy in the internet age. It turned out that Sun hardware was a poor choice if you really wanted to scale.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkmoQvbMRFk
Yes, it's marketing fluff (as with any marketing), but I liked that one.
For all you tech people like me that have problems answering to non-techie family members what you do, I thought that was an example of a beautiful succinct answer that still conveyed enough of an idea to be satisfying to laymen.
As for one I really hated from Sun: "Java Desktop System", which was just a distro with GNOME, and had nothing to do with Java.
[0] https://serverfault.com/questions/134611/why-no-final-dot-fo...
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_name_server
"You know, the one you've never heard of."
Microsoft: "Oh yeah? Well we put the COM into dot-com. Pthththth!"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Component_Object_Model
IBM: ”When they put the dot into dot-com, they forgot how they were going to connect the dots. Badoom psssh!”
https://www.itbusiness.ca/news/ibm-brings-on-demand-computin...
However, none of it holds a candle to IBM's mania for making everything "Websphere."
On the "active" bandwagon, I forgot to mention Active Directory, which is kind of funny given that I spent the better part of a decade specializing in development and projects largely oriented around AD and ADFS, and which is maybe the only Active-branded thing still going strong.
Also, Live was another Microsoft naming phase.
For me, the canary in the coal mine of ms naming is their messenger. Msn messenger, live messenger, Skype, Skype for business, Teams... I assume the next iteration will be named Azure Teams.
All the other ones are literally different products each. I expect different products to have different names.
Why there were so many messenger products is a different question. Anyone from Google wanna jump in and explain this one? ;)
After like 2013 I never used Skype again. Now everyone I know either uses Discord or Slack. Teams was at least the right direction for business focus but it seems they shoulda QAd it much more. I dont hear much positive about Teams.
The messenger naming example is also apropos because each successive generation of bad naming is also a generation of product that is measurably worse in some way. It goes to demonstrate the durability of software canaries!
Live is the one for gaming.
Outlook is the business one.
But the mail client on windows is not outlook, that’s just windows mail.
It surprises me that they didn't release 'Windows Live Office' in that era.
But if I type in Live.com, I'm redirected to the same page that says 'Outlook' but is actually outlook.live.com
So Hotmail is Outlook but Outlook is Live.com but Live.com itself is Outlook
We have a similar issue in education. First it was MSDN-AA, then DreamSpark, then briefly Microsoft Imagine. Now it's called Microsoft Azure Dev Tools for Teaching.
I learned just recently that Microsoft Visual Studio is completely different from Visual Studio Code.
But yes, dark times indeed.
having to click the "start" button to shut down your computer is probably the most illogical one. and somehow it managed to stay that way for 15 years until someone got the bright idea to just but an icon there instead
"microsoft windows phone 7 series" was a mouth full compared to "apple iphone". luckily they changed that soon after but its crazy to think of the amount of people that were involved in that project and none of them spoke up about how stupid the name sounded
a recent one is the app "your phone". it just doesn't sound right. i imagine it would be even more awkward when someone has to search the term. "hey google, my your phone isnt working"
windows security centre changes its name every year. I could go on
The first time Win95 was started, a giant arrow pointed to the start button. It was rather discoverable.
Now Win8, I had to look up how to shut it down, the rtm version was a UX disaster.
.NET Passport went thru series of rebranding: Microsoft Passport, Windows Live ID and of course the current Microsoft Account. In some places they also tried to roll everything under MSN brand which later was replaced partially by Windows Live and then again, once they managed to combine their services, MSN applications were bundled with Windows 8 and 10 (News, Weather, Sports etc.). Not mention all GUI changes across the years...
Microsoft trying to figure out what's its brand identity it's like a kid who tries to combine a single image of various jigsaw puzzles sets, periodically smashing pieces together to fit
Now with 40% more confusion.
But Microsoft being itself added some custom features on top of JVM ( like IE ) and Sun sued them. In retaliation, Microsoft removed JVM from Windows and built C#. Everybody at that time knew C# was Java, though C# has evolved to be a much better language to code in than Java.
There was a time when Xerox had to explain what their products were for. In one of the computer ads the headline said "This Xerox machine can't make a copy"
https://ries.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncatego...
Not even Lego has Legos. [3]
But even Google can Google. [4]
[1] https://beta.worldcat.org/archivegrid/collection/data/880574...
>Just a little reminder from Xerox / prepared by Needham, Harper & Steers Advertising, Inc. -- Not even Xerox can Xerox / prepared by Needham Harper Worldwide, Inc. (March 1985) -- Once a trademark, not always a trademark / [Xerox Corporation].
[2] https://trademarkmusings.wordpress.com/2009/12/05/not-even-x...
>Though it was a long time ago, I recall that my law school Business Torts casebook contained a copy of Xerox’s old ad, “Not Even Xerox Can Xerox”, which Xerox used to promote proper use of its trademark and fight genericide. Back in the day, Xerox was by far the most well-know copier brand, leased by offices all over. In this day and age, now that most people have a copier at home (as part of a multifunction printer) and it could be a Canon, HP, Brother, Epson or other brand, I think the younger folk are not so likely to refer to copying as “Xeroxing”. It poses an interesting quandary: Xerox may be winning the genericide war but they are no longer dominating the competition. Which is preferable?
[3] http://www.lego.com/en-us/legal/legal-notice/fair-play
>Proper Use of the LEGO Trademark on a Web Site
>If the LEGO trademark is used at all, it should always be used as an adjective, not as a noun. For example, say "MODELS BUILT OF LEGO BRICKS". Never say "MODELS BUILT OF LEGOs". Also, the trademark should appear in the same typeface as the surrounding text and should not be isolated or set apart from the surrounding text. In other words, the trademarks should not be emphasized or highlighted. Finally, the LEGO trademark should always appear with a ® symbol each time it is used.
[4] https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=65cb8ea7-6425...
>In a well-reasoned opinion, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recently held that the GOOGLE trademark has not suffered death by genericide – even if the public uses it as a verb for searching the Internet.
>The case before the court sprang from the registration of 763 domain names that incorporated the term GOOGLE. After losing a domain name dispute arbitration, the domain name owners sued to have various trademark registrations for GOOGLE cancelled, claiming that the mark had become generic for the act of searching the Internet. The court rightly observed that a claim of genericide must always relate to specific goods or services, and that use of “google” as a verb for searching the Internet was not sufficient evidence that GOOGLE had become generic for “search engine services” or any other goods or services.
>The general rule of thumb is that trademarks are best thought of as “adjectives” that modify a generic noun. But this “part of speech” approach is not determinative to whether a mark has become generic. And while for years Xerox sought to instill in the public’s mind the trademark significance of XEROX by stating that “not even Xerox can xerox,” evidently Google can google without destroying the mark.
* one or more pros not included
Amusing that along with this, there are two articles about caches on the front page of HN right now.
It solves all problems by leaving no memory and battery for them to happen in.
A good Apple product may in some ways be more constrained than similar products but is easy to understand and use and 'just works'. For instance, you bought an iPod and you plugged it into your Mac which popped up a store where you could buy music. You didn't have to know what an 'mp3' is. Or you bought an iPhone, took it home, plugged into your computer and 3 minutes later had a working new phone/pocket web browser. You didn't have to listen to anyone telling you about extended warranty and the web browser actually worked.
Buying an Apple TV or subscribing to the service doesn't solve any of the endless irritations and inconveniences associated with consuming TV or movies online. It just names them all Apple TV but if they fixed that, the irritations and inconveniences would still be there.
Obviously not a problem for people who can just buy all the extras but if you're budgeting then it does get quite nasty and lead you to the media server route
Maybe it is not as problematic when you are in the US, but in my country Amazon Prime works in all devices (android, ios, pc, etc) except in the FireTV, other services like netflix, spotify and youtube works very well on FireTV. Note that this is clearly stated in the documentation and faqs, it is a product targeted to a few countries only.
In the March 2019 Apple TV+ announcement event, Apple renamed the non-4K Apple TV hardware from "Apple TV" to "Apple TV HD".
So the hardware options are now "Apple TV HD" and "Apple TV 4K".