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polyesterlester said:
We used to have a cell phone provider in Alaska called Mactel.
i was just about to say it sounded like one of those cheezy telecom names, e.g. nextel, acatel, etc.

could this be the beginning of a slow transition to PC lameness?
 
I seriously hope they're not considering actually using it. It's probably "just to have".

If they did do something completely stupid as officially name a computer like that, I'd prefer "Macintel". Macintosh, Macintel, it flows better. But hopefully it'll all be moot anyway.
 
dongmin said:
i was just about to say it sounded like one of those cheezy telecom names, e.g. nextel, acatel, etc.


I was thinking it sounded more like a medication than anything else. Something to keep you regular maybe?
 
I wonder why? They were never called MacIBMs or MacPPCs before.

Although, they are called PowerMacs and PowerBooks... shudder! (note: iBook, iMac, eMac, and MacMini break that pattern though).
 
Ha ha :D

Don't worry, it's just preventive. If people start calling Intel Macs Mactels informally, and then a company starts SELLING Mactels, that could be worth avoiding. Lots of confusion especially if people think you CAN buy non-Apple Macs. (Worse yet if some company in a country with unenforced piracy laws starts pirating OS X and selling it on their own machines--or selling machines targeted for pirates the way some Linux boxes are meant to run pirated Windows.) Maybe Apple will trademark a couple other variations just in case too.

Neither Apple nor Intel would actually WANT such a name to be used.

(It could be telephony product, but I doubt it.)
 
nagromme said:
Neither Apple nor Intel would actually WANT such a name to be used.

Exactly... that's why I'm turning mactel.name into a bastion of macness. (I'm not really, but any PR is good PR - just ask M.J)
 
The last computer company seems to have died during the early 1990s, so it's likely not to hard to pick up the trademark.

Don't know when the cellphone company bit the dust and sold out to Alaska CS Wireless.

Since the computer stuff is still for sale on eBay, it's likely some stupid customers would easily get confused.

But this is an easy way to kill people from selling any PCs under this name in the future.

Afterall Apple did pick up alot of domain names and never use them.

But they cannot get this one unless they can get Alaska Wireless to give it up.
 
snickelfritz said:
They already have "i" in practically every product name. "Mactel" sounds like a phone company.
That's because it was...

www.mactel.com

The other Mactel you'll find is a maker of monitors and video cards, cannot remeber if it was a Mac specific company from the late 1980's or not. :confused:
 
I am all for the switch if it means better computers, but I would hate this name. I only its a preventative measure. :confused:
 
I doubt Apple's ever going to use it. They're probably just registering it so someone else can't build a device and call it a Mactel or something, which would just confuse some people. Because Mactel is the dumbest name for a computer
 
Counter said:
Lets pray they do not use that name and are just taking it off the market.

Christ.
That there would be a Lanham Act violation. They've got to use it or lose it.
 
Dumb question: Was Wintel trademarked?

That's really the only reason Mactel is even bandied about-- people thought "Wintel" was so clever they want to make the same joke again...

What's with humanities insane need to conjoin words? Ramming them together into these really awkward strings of syllables but somehow thinking that the new word contains the "essence" of the original concepts...

The first time it was kind of clever, but doing it again is just too much of a not so good thing... Besides-- soft "n" hard "t" is pronounceable, but hard "c" hard "t" is awkward.
 
Why is there a need for a new name? "Mac" or "Apple" works. They didn't change the name IBMac when they started using IBM chips.
 
devman said:
Although, they are called PowerMacs and PowerBooks... shudder! (note: iBook, iMac, eMac, and MacMini break that pattern though).

did you not notice that IBM starts with I along with iBook, iMac ... the eMac is for educational purposes and MacMini is obvioiusly a mini - but - think about this: the eMac and Macmini are fairly new to the line... the iMac, iBook have been around a while.......

Maybe they made a contract with IBM where they started the names of the new macs coming out with I of that year or something... because didn't the iBook and iMac come out at the same time?

Just something to think about...

Kind of just an observation...
 
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