People are only just realizing what the ‘i’ in iPhone means after Steve Jobs revealed it years ago

So many Apple products since the first iPod have been called i-Something, including iPhone, and Steve Jobs once explained why.

However, even though Jobs explained the meaning behind the ‘i’ ages ago, for some reason, everyone sort of ignored the information until years later.

Probably because it’s so automatic, we don’t even notice anymore.

But the truth is the ‘i’ might soon be gone.

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Steve Jobs once explained why Apple products are called ‘iSomething’

Apple has become so synonymous with the ‘i-Product’ nomenclature that it’s almost like a meme.

When you want to talk about something Apple-related, all you have to do is add an ‘i’ at the beginning, and everyone gets it.

For years, before it was canceled, some publications even used to refer to the Apple car as ‘iCar’.

But that letter actually has a meaning, and Steve Jobs himself once explained the idea behind it.

In an interview with the Reader’s Digest in 1998, Jobs said the ‘i’ stands for ‘internet, individual, instruct, inform, and inspire’.

So it’s more than one thing, especially because, in the same interview, he also added that none of these words has priority over the other meanings.

The reason why the ‘i’ might soon disappear

Today, most Apple products don’t have the letter ‘i’ in the name.

After retiring the iPod, the only two products that still have the letter ‘i’ in the name are iPhone and iPad.

Mac is another example.

Then there are several Macbook models, but only one of them is called ‘iMac’.

And then there’s a swathe of Apple products that aren’t called i-Something, like AirPods, Apple Watch, Apple TV, and even the Vision Pro.

Crucially, even the iPhone might soon be called ‘Phone’.

Steve Jobs may well have explained the meaning behind the letter ‘i’, but he didn’t come up with that idea.

The credit for that goes to Ken Segall, the creative mind who worked with Jobs for years.

However, not long ago, Segall said it’s now time to drop the ‘i’ in iPhone.

In his view, the name iPhone is no longer aligned with the times.

Mainly because Apple’s identity – including outside the tech world – is so strong it no longer needs to be defined or explained.

And yet, that letter ‘i’ is still plays a key role in customers’ perception when it comes to these products.

Go iFigure.