Ever wondered whom to credit – or whom to blame – for the “i” in Apple’s iMac, iPod and iPhone? It’s Ken Segall, a former creative director at Apple’s main advertising agency, TBWA\Chiat\Day, and now an employee at Dell. Leander Kahney, of Cult of Mac, interviewed Segall about coming up with the now-iconic prefix and working with Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Back in 1997, Jobs led Segall and others into a secluded Cupertino office, pulled a sheet off of the company’s new translucent-blue computer, and asked for suggested names, Kahney wrote.
From the Cult of Mac piece:
Segall says he came back with five names. Four were ringers, sacrificial lambs for the name he loved – iMac. “It referenced the Mac, and the ‘i’ meant Internet,” Segall says. “But it also meant individual, imaginative and all the other things it came to stand for.” (The) “i” prefix could also be applied to whatever other internet products Apple was working on.
Jobs rejected them all, including iMac.
The 1998 release of the iMac arguably turned things around for Apple, which then was on the verge of bankruptcy. As we all know, Apple applied the “i” prefix to a number of subsequent successful products, such as the iPod and iPhone, which earned Apple the reputation of being one of the most innovative tech companies.
