Numbers are important, as any cricket fan or lottery winner will tell you, but they are not everywhere. It’s strange, come to think of it, that some objects are numbered and others … are not.
The footballers are numbered. Billiard balls are numbered. Food (sometimes) and ice cream (sometimes) delivery orders are numbered. The seasons and episodes of the television series are numbered. Movies and games are numbered, or used until the colon and the “&” sign became popular.
But how many more products are numbered, even when they follow a logical sequence? Books from time to time, although the number depends on the title. Albums, hardly ever, unless you’re Scott Walker or Led Zeppelin. Shakespeare of course liked to number some of his stories; I never saw Henri v because I had not seen the first four and I thought I would not understand anything.
IPhone 4, the fourth
And the iPhone, famous and most practical for this article, has been numbered, sometimes logically, since the arrival of the beloved iPhone 4 in 2010. It was the fourth iPhone, so it was called iPhone 4. Simple and precise. How good it was to be alive.
Before and after iPhones didn’t follow the rules of arithmetic as strictly. The iPhone 3G got this name because of the inclusion of 3G connectivity and not because it was the third model (it was the second, actually), and the 3GS had the right number, we imagine, by accident.
The fifth model was called iPhone 4s, launching the S generation which would now prevent correct numbering, since the iPhone 5 was actually the sixth model, the iPhone 6 was the eighth (assuming we were considering the 5c and the 5s as a single generation) and the iPhone 7 was the eleventh (if you include the OS). And then the iPhones with Roman numerals came along, and no one could have been right.
The way Apple uses the numbers is eccentric, but also inconsistent in how the company names almost every other product. Both IMacs and MacBooks carry specs and year by name, they don’t follow digital generations. There is no Apple TV 3, and surely there will never be a HomePod mini 2.
Some products (the iPad, AirPods, and Apple Pencil) have a generation in the name, but the company doesn’t use it in their promotion. They only appear in small print. Not on the mark.
But the iPhone (along with the Apple Watch, which followed a mathematical order if you ignore that Series 1 came after Series 0) continues to use the same system that, when a new model arrives, the number goes up. .
The iPhone that will be announced in September will most likely be renamed iPhone 13, and you will see the number 13 in pretty handwriting on a white background in wonderful advertisements. This number will be the key to promoting Apple.
I am not a number
In fact, we can call it iPhone 12s because they already did and because of the superstitions that there are in some parts of the world about the number 13. But wouldn’t it be better to take advantage of this? opportunity to eliminate the numbering system? and treat it the same way they treat a new Mac mini? Ladies and gentlemen, we are pleased to present the iPhone 2021 to you.
Here you have. What sounds better?
The problem I have with iPhone numbers is that they just don’t work anymore. They do not help customers differentiate models as the numbers are very high and do not follow any logical pattern.
Those who don’t realize that “iPhone X” means “iPhone ten” won’t understand how it fits into the sequence alongside the iPhone 8 and iPhone 11. (Speaking of which, what is it? It happened to the iPhone 9?) The iPhone SE It doesn’t seem to relate to the rest of the system, and the S models confuse those who don’t know how it works.
In addition, the name “iPhone 12” does not give any information about the device, only how it compares to others. It’s a newer generation than the iPhone 11, of course (assuming you’ve been lucky and there isn’t an S generation complicating things). But when was the iPhone 11 released? That’s why you’ll see stores like Amazon include phrases like “next generation” at the end of Apple product names. (Which, in turn, can lead to further confusion and even abuse.)
All of this would be easier if the iterative numbers were replaced by years. How old is the iPhone (2021)? It’s new! It happened in 2021. Look, he puts it in the name.
And if that doesn’t work, Apple could call its next device “iPhone and the continued lack of Touch ID below the screen”.
Original article published in igamesnews UK.
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