“Seemingly cementing a move first hinted at during the World Wide Developers Conference, Apple has filed for a trademark for its OS X operating system but without the “Mac” prefix that has accompanied the name since its inception,” Aidan Malley reports for AppleInsider.
“The Cupertino-based company initially filed for its trademark in Trinidad and Tobago less than a week after the June 2008 conference, where lobby banners first indicated a split where Apple would distinguish between OS X Leopard, the version of its operating system for traditional computers, and OS X iPhone, the modified platform that supports both its namesake cellphone and the iPod touch,” Aidan Malley reports for AppleInsider.
“The software label also passed through a southeast Asian trademark office in November, but as of this writing remains under review,” Malley reports. “Apple’s reasons for trademarking at this stage aren’t entirely clear, though the most conspicuous is its current product strategy: as many of its devices are running some variant of the FreeBSD-based software but operating well outside the bounds of ordinary Macs, the company may be under some self-imposed pressure to rebrand its flagship software in a way that allows it to enforce its trademarks without tying itself to a particular software revision or product line.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple should come up with a better name than “OS X iPhone.” One that doesn’t slight iPod touch and every other future non-iPhone device that will employ the OS. Something better than “OS X Mobile” or “OS X Lite” of course, but those names should give you an idea of what we mean. We constantly see articles discussing “iPhone apps” even though the same apps also run on iPod touch. If Apple’s OS were properly named, we’d see articles talking about “‘OS X Mobile’ apps” instead and everyone would know that their device was included.
Also, for quite some time, Apple’s naming guru has suffered from muddled thinking. Why some caps and some lowercase names? iPod touch is constantly incorrectly referred to in the press as “iPod Touch” or, Jobs forbid, “iTouch.” It doesn’t help matters that Apple has “Mac Pro,” but also “Mac mini.” We guess the “Pro” is uppercase because it’s big and the “mini” is lowercase because it’s small? But, then why “MacBook Air?” It makes no sense. Why use “iPod naming convention” for the Mac mini, but no other Macs? Yes, it’s minor, but it’s also inconsistent, which isn’t a good thing for a company that prides itself on – and bills itself as – being consistent down to the most minor details.