Why the name "iPhone 4"

[kdarling]

The idea that it's now "4" simply because it is the fourth generation, doesn't exactly follow previous naming conventions... and frankly, doesn't give Apple enough credit.

"iPhone 4" would've been more widely predicted if Apple had previously used "iPhone 2" and "iPhone 3". But they hadn't. They had instead been descriptive of network and speed, with 3G and 3GS.

Thus it made sense to everyone that a name descriptive of the new LCD display or camera would be used. Everyone was guessing "iPhone HD" or HV or the like.

Apple marketing is smart (the initial backlash against "iPad" notwithstanding). It seems quite likely that they chose "4" because it also sounds competitive against the EVO 4G and possibly other 4G phones coming after LTE hits this Fall.

Plus, as someone pointed out, it works out well later on when the iPhone finally can add a "G".

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

The idea that it's now "4" simply because it is the fourth generation, doesn't exactly follow previous naming conventions... and frankly, doesn't give Apple enough credit.

"iPhone 4" would've been more widely predicted if Apple had previously used "iPhone 2" and "iPhone 3". But they hadn't. They had instead been descriptive of network and speed, with 3G and 3GS.

Thus it made sense to everyone that a name descriptive of the new LCD display or camera would be used. Everyone was guessing "iPhone HD" or HV or the like.

Apple marketing is smart (the initial backlash against "iPad" notwithstanding). It seems quite likely that they chose "4" because it also sounds competitive against the EVO 4G and possibly other 4G phones coming after LTE hits this Fall.

Plus, as someone pointed out, it works out well when the iPhone finally does become 4G.

Perhaps it also has to do with the naming of the A4 chip.

 

[gianly1985]

2007: iPhone (no sense calling it any different)

2008: iPhone 3G (to STRESS the 3G network)

2009: iPhone 3G S (to STREES it was faster) (trivia: the first version of the name had a space before the S, as I wrote it, to stress it even more)

2010: this year what do we have to stress? Well of course the HD screen and HD recording capabilities, so iPhone HD would have been the perfect choice to follow the naming scheme of previous iterations, but the -HD naming has been WILDLY, WIDELY and BLATANTLY abused for years by many vendors and products, so there was no way that Apple could have gone for that! So they just started a new naming scheme based on the simple number of the iteration. Easy and you don't have to figure what feature to stress every year.

All of this is not related to the 1G/2G/3G/4G/5G not explicit naming scheme of iPods. I've never seen iPod Nano 5G in marketing material, just in support material. But you buy an iPod Nano, period. Completely different. In iPhone 3G, 3G was part of the name you see in commercials and on the box.

 

[sniffies]

I think they went with just "4" to stop any confusion, lots of people I know don't know much about phones and would think that a 4G iPhone means its 4G speeds not 4th generation.... lots seem to have problems grasping this with the 3G tbh....

/Rookie

Those who don't know much about phones don't know much about 3G either, let alone 4G.