

Apple History: The "Mac" was almost renamed "Bicycle"  - BrainScraps
http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Bicycle.txt

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mechanical_fish
It's impossible to look at naming objectively, and now hindsight and habit
make it doubly impossible - how could "Macintosh" have a different name than
"Macintosh"? That's crazy talk!

But here's my hypothesis for why "Bicycle" is a terrible name, which it is:
can you name another successful, novel consumer product that was introduced
with the same name as a _large existing general category of popular consumer
products_?

It seems both pretentious and confusing to call a project "Bicycle". "Did you
take your bicycle to work today?" "Um, no, I drove." "But doesn't your bicycle
work more efficiently?" "No, this new Rollerskate gets twice the battery
life." "Third base!"

Of course, the excuse was that it was "only a code name". To which a good
response is that lousy code names are like Lorem Ipsum text: They screw up
your design by encouraging you to ignore things which are actually important,
like the thematic unity of your work or the need to convey a specific actual
meaning with the words you are typesetting.

~~~
kalleboo
Windows?

"I just upgraded my Windows!" "Oh nice, switched to three-pane? How much did
you save in heating costs?"

