Why Did Apple Register ApplePico.com?

[MacRumors]

Apple has understandably long had an interest in controlling domain names associated with its products and features, as recently evidenced by the company snapping up 50 new domain names immediately following its announcements at WWDC earlier this year. Most of Apple's domain name holdings are managed by MarkMonitor, a San Francisco-based brand protection firm that handles such tasks for a significant number of major companies.

We noticed today that Apple's name has appeared in the public WHOIS listings for applepico.com, a domain that has been controlled by MarkMonitor for a number of years but which neither hosts its own content nor redirects to any other site at the present time.




Given that the domain has been associated with MarkMonitor for many years, it is possible that Apple has owned the domain right along, but it is somewhat odd that the WHOIS listing was modified today to make Apple's position as registrant publicly visible. Prior to today, the registrant had been listed as "DNStination, Inc.", an arm of MarkMonitor's brand protection services used to provide anonymity for the company's customers.

With the change in WHOIS listing, the door naturally opens to speculation on exactly what product or feature with a "pico" name Apple might be interested in protecting.

One natural avenue for such speculation leads to pico projectors, tiny image projectors that can be built into handheld devices such as mobile phones and cameras. Apple patent applications have revealed that the company has at least thought about how such a feature could be incorporated into an iPhone, but there has been essentially no evidence that Apple is in fact looking to add the capability to the iPhone in the near future.

A second possibility relates to Apple's iPod line and is sparked by the fact that the domain was initially registered back in December 2005, just a few months after Apple released the iPod nano. At the time, Apple had been releasing increasingly small iPod devices and had just replaced the iPod mini with the iPod nano. Consequently, Apple could simply have been looking to preserve the possibility for a future "iPod pico" device if the company was indeed responsible for the initial registration of the domain name. Of course, if that were the case, Apple would presumably have been more interested in the ipodpico.com domain name, which was not registered until January 2007 and is not owned by Apple.

We hesitate to read too much into today's development and do believe that Apple has owned the applepico.com domain name for quite some time, and thus it is likely that no specific announcement of a product or feature related to the name is imminent. It is interesting to note, however, that Apple does indeed own the domain name and that there has at least been some recent shuffling of the registration information for it.

Article Link: Why Did Apple Register ApplePico.com?

[DrJohnnyN]

A handheld projector built into the iPhone 5?

:-)

[res1233]

AppleTV + projector? No TV Needed!

[homsar]

iPod shuffle + multi-touch screen = iPod pico.

[aprofetto8]

Originally Posted by homsar

iPod shuffle + multi-touch screen = iPod pico.

You just described the iPod nano.

[interrobang]

1. Pico: the SimpleText of the command line world
2. It's actually sort for "Apple Pie Company." Steve Jobs' backup plan is to make pastries.

[maattp]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A5274d Safari/7534.48.3)

I think it would be cool if Apple made their own pico projector. Make it fully compatible with iPhones and iPads, as well as MacBooks. This would be very useful for students

[andi242]

Pico a.k.a very small.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pico-

leads to smaaaaallest iPhone ever...!

[silentnite]

The only gadget I've ever heard of with the name Pico was a small projector. Somethings cooking?

[cms2]

Doesn't seem to be much to this rumor, but at the same time I'm grateful to macrumors for bringing even little rumors to its readers' attention; it allows us to notice trends that might have otherwise been below the radar. If we start to see more rumors relating to "Pico" then we might be on to something... Who knows with Apple!

[applesith]

LOL MR hesitates to read too much into it, but makes a massive post about it on the front page.

[dumoon]

Or maybe they are opening the 'largest Apple store ever' on one of the mountains on the Moon (Mons Pico)....I mean really, who knows?

Nothing to see here...move along.

[kwiiboy]

Because they are PurchaseanythingthathastheApplenameinit whores.

[EmpyreanUK]

BREAKING UN-NEWS: Sky still blue, grass still green.

[cms2]

Originally Posted by applesith

LOL MR hesitates to read too much into it, but makes a massive post about it on the front page.

Well, we don't really have a page 2 anymore. Since MR has no idea what this relates to, it would be difficult to assign it to any of the new Page 2ish blogs. Mac? iOS?

[swarmster]

Oh man! Their game console is finally here!



And through buying Sega, no less!

[centauratlas]

Apple Pico
or
Apple Pi Co -- a pun perhaps?

Whatever it is, if anything, the speculation is always fun.

[res1233]

Originally Posted by dumoon

Or maybe they are opening the 'largest Apple store ever' on one of the mountains on the Moon (Mons Pico)....I mean really, who knows?

Nothing to see here...move along.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pico

Take your pick.

Pico (Boku no Pico), a character in the Japanese video series Boku no Pico

That settles it. Apple is going into japanese video games.

[markcres]

It could be:

Apple PIe COmpany.....or something to do with Pi (Apple Pi Company)

Apple is rich enought to 'own' Pi...and all the devices and inventions that incorporate it.

[res1233]

Originally Posted by markcres

It could be:

Apple PIe COmpany.....or something to do with Pi (Apple Pi Company)

I love pie.

[aprofetto8]

Now with more gallo.

[notjustjay]

I think they just registered "pico" at the same time as "nano". Nothing to see here, folks.

[Samuriajackon]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_10 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8E600 Safari/6533.18.5)

Applepico sounds like a speical high tech salsa...

[diddl14]

"We hesitate to read too much into today's development.."
So why this lengthy article with all the speculation?

[Chumburro2U]

Maybe more on the lines of Peek-a-poo?