Listen, like Lex Friedman, I love knowing exactly what accessories I’m buying and whether or not they’re going to work with my device when I get home. I would love to know that the new DODOcase that I plan on buying will work with my new iPad. But on the other hand, I’m also like Dan Moren who prefers that Apple keep things simple and avoid confusing naming conventions for its products. The fact that I’m firmly in both camps — the camp that thinks the newest iPad should have been named the iPad 3 for clarity’s sake, and the camp that wants things left simple, also for clarity’s sake — tells me one thing: we all want the same thing, and that thing is clear information.
It seems to me that everyone’s arguing about the same thing, without even knowing exactly what they’re arguing about. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, who has chimed in on the iPad naming convention in the last twenty-four hours has argued, at length I might add, that the new naming convention is either clearer now, or not clear enough. Again, it’s about clarity. The entire Mac lineup hasn’t suffered from not having a number attached to refreshes. The iPod lineup hasn’t seemed to suffer from not having a number attached to each generation. Why then is the iPad any different? I’m not sure that it will be, and here’s the kicker: starting now, I’m not sure anyone really cares except us journalist types.
Everyone I’ve spoken to after the iPad event yesterday, excluding the journalist bunch, asked me what the new iPad had that was better than the old iPad. There was no iPad 2 references, or iPad 3 references, and there certainly wasn’t a mention of the iPad 1. All of them, and I do mean all of them, asked me flat out if this iPad was better than the last iPad and if it was worth an upgrade.
That tells me a lot. It tells me that the general population is a lot smarter than most of us Apple bloggers and journalists give them credit for. It tells me that they can manage without a number-based naming convention, and most importantly, it tells me that they don’t care one iota what the iPad was named. As long as this iPad was better than the last, and as long as the new iPad is worth the financial investment, the consumer doesn’t care what it’s called. They just care that it works as advertised and that they won’t waste their money. If everyone is running around referring to all the iPads to date as iPads anyway, why would Apple name this one the iPad 3? The only people who need to classify these things are tech journalists and salesmen. To everyone else, this new iPad is just an iPad; all the other stuff is extraneous at this point. Apple’s about separating the wheat from the chaff, and the 3 was all chaff. Good riddance.
