I Have Medium Hopes

Casey Liss (0:00)

So with that in mind, I think we're going to eschew, eschew, no, let me reboot that because I realized I don't know how to pronounce that properly.

John Siracusa (0:07)

Oh, you gotta write the first time.

Casey Liss (0:08)

That's what I thought, and then it sounded wrong.

Marco Arment (0:10)

No, you had it.

Casey Liss (0:11)

No, we're gonna try it again, and f*** you, because I just need to do that, so Marco-

John Siracusa (0:14)

You could just pick a different word, too.

Casey Liss (0:16)

No, we're gonna reboot it, but I need to swear-

Marco Arment (0:18)

We're going to eschew follow-up.

Casey Liss (0:20)

Yes, eschew. I needed to swear so Marco wouldn't use it. All right, and then that's not a challenge, not a challenge, Marco. Oh, yeah?

John Siracusa (0:27)

Because he never uses the audio when you curse.

Marco Arment (0:29)

Yeah, right. We never keep those parts of the show. Don't worry.

Casey Liss (0:32)

Not a challenge. All right, let me reboot that whole damn thing. Hello and goodbye, future Marco.

Marco Arment (0:36)

I'm totally using that.

Casey Liss (0:39)

All right, with that in mind, we are going to eschew follow-up for this episode. We will keep it askew if you will. But we're going to go straight into the not event event, and we're going to talk about Apple's new home products.

We're going to start with HomeView, which is a name that doesn't offend me, but doesn't really rev my engine either. What do we think about the name?

John Siracusa (1:01)

It was like HomePod with a screen, is what we've been calling it for years, right? Because the rumors from years and years ago, it's like a HomePod, but it has a screen. And that's its distinguishing characteristic. As the date approached to when this was supposedly going to be announced, I started to see more people saying HomePad, which makes some amount of sense. But if you're listening to this, you're like, they would never call it HomePad because they already have HomePod. And who would make two products with such confusingly similar names? Well, if you're new to Apple, they used to have a product called the iPod.

And then at some point in the future, they were going to make a tablet. And everyone was like, what are they going to call the tablet? The iSlate? Certainly they're not going to call it iPad. They called it iPad. So they made the iPod and they made the iPad. They made the HomePod, they did not make the HomePad. They called it HomeView, which it's got a screen, so you view it, makes sense.

Apple's really not, if you think you know what Apple's going to do with names, they usually zig when you think they're going to zag. I think HomeView is better than HomePad, but it's not a great name.

Marco Arment (2:11)

I think one of the challenges with HomeView is that it doesn't have any unique or interesting words. Apple's product naming strategy for a long time has been just putting Apple in front of a generic word, Apple TV, Apple Watch.

John Siracusa (2:29)

Apple Music.

Marco Arment (2:30)

Right, Apple Music. Apple was the brand, but these were all pretty boringly named. They, for a little while, could have a little bit more of a trademark unique name, iPhone. Obviously, back when everything was i-something, those all kind of had those, iPod, and that led to HomePod, which still using pod is like the unique Apple version of this. It's like generic word, but pod, so that helped. iPad, again, the pad was kind of, and both of those. But I feel like HomeView, it's like no part of this name is interesting or unique to Apple. It's just like when you're filing a trademark, forgive me, I'm not a trademark lawyer, but I filed a bunch of them, and so I know that the gist of it basically is like if what you're filing is too descriptive and not like unique enough, if it just describes what the product is, you generally can't get a strong trademark on it or even maybe any trademark on it. And I feel like HomeView, it's almost that boring. It's not quite to that level.

I'm sure they secure the trademark. But it's just describing with two boring words glued together what this is. Like, okay, it's fine.

I do wish there was a little bit more personality in the name, but what the hell?

It's not a bad name. It's just a name that we, even as Apple nerds, are going to almost immediately have trouble remembering. And civilians aren't going to stand a chance. Ask anyone who's not an Apple nerd what this product is called in six months. Nobody will know, I guarantee it.