The iPhone is a commonly-known and used gadget all over the world. It doesn’t matter if you have it, you see it everywhere. It’s the phone brand of choice by a lot of people. Have you ever wondered what the “i” in iphone stands for? The “i” originally stood for internet, which highlighted not the iPhone’s capacities, but the iMac, which was released first. However, Steve Jobs didn’t just have internet as the meaning of the “i” in iMac, as Reader’s Digest detailed:
That little “I” actually got its start long before the iPhone became a reality. The first Apple product with an “I” in its name was the iMac computer, released back in 1998. So the “I” originally stood for Internet, to highlight the Mac’s revolutionary Internet capacities.
But when that first iMac launched, the “I” had several other meanings as well. When Steve Jobs introduced the iMac, he displayed a presentation with not one but five potential I-meanings. “Steve Jobs said the ‘I’ stands for ‘internet, individual, instruct, inform, [and] inspire,'” Paul Bischoff, a privacy advocate at Comparitech, explains. However, while these words were an important part of the presentation, Jobs also said that the “I” “didn’t have an official meaning,” Bischoff continues. “He also alluded to it referencing ‘I’ as a personal pronoun, and ‘instruction’ for education purposes.” So it seems the “I” is open to Interpretation.
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