Stupid Question 147: What does the lowercase letter i in iPhone stand for?

[To celebrate my first year of programming I will ask a ‘stupid’ questions daily on my blog for a year, to make sure I learn at least 365 new things during my second year as a developer]

iMac, iPhone, iPad, iCloud i…. like in I or something else? What does this lowercase letter stand for?

The 1998 iMac

The first iMac was introduced by Steve Jobs on May the 7th 1998. The Mac was called the iMac and started the i-line of products. But what did the letter stand for? Watch this video from the launch:

The i was for internet, but was later expanded to also stand for “Internet, Individual, Instruct, Inform, and Inspire”. Why internet? Internet was the hottest thing at the time, and this machine would allow the users to access that easy and fast. It was the main selling point at the time, and the meaning of the letter was later expanded to symbolize other things the users might perceive perceive as important.

Comments

Funny thing: Jobs originally wanted the name of the iMac to be MacMan!
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/05/is-it-macman-or-imac-the-creative-director-behind-apples-turnaround/ 

You have what appears to be a typo in there -- the first Apple Macintosh computer was introduced in October 1983. 

Ironically I forgot an i :D 

I'm pretty sure the i stands for idiot, since i devices seem to make idiots out of my teenagers. 

Last modified on 2013-02-10