Gender, Product Names and the Apple iPad

The consensus amongst the public, especially amongst women, is the newly announced Apple iPad was a poorly named product; the palm-to-forehead negative association with with "pad" and our female friends was something mentioned over and over via Twitter and Facebook updates on the day of announcement. We wonder if Steve Jobs even consulted any of his female team about this glaring issue.

Will name alone deter women from adopting this piece of technology, or does name of a tech product have little to do with the purchasing habits of either gender? Our recent polls amongst Unplggd and Kitchn readers reveal Apple has some work to do with making the iPad the success the iPhone has become. All we know is Apple has a long road of jokes coming their way at the expense of their product's name, as noted by this Mad TV skit above (created long before the iPad was announced).

Comments (7)

And yet, all of the complaints I've seen about the name have been from men...

Any geek who's old enough will realize that the name was lifted directly from Star Trek. In fact, the case for the iPad makes it look exactly like the pad device from the original series. That was a stylus-based device, but Next Generation pads all used touch inputs.

In any event, Apple may not be able to keep the name anyway given Fujitsu's prior claim to it.

Did people complain about IBM's Thinkpad in the 90's? Or what about the design blog, "Lushpad"? Have we really been reduce to Beavis and Butthead...."Snicker, snicker...You said Pad".

@Paladin, if you remember that Apple didn't have the rights for the iPhone name either, and had to settle with Cisco to share the name.

the above two comments echo what i've heard from a few female comments yesterday. it really is just men (present company excluded) who snicker at the name.

there has to be some strategy towards the name. iPod - iPad. LaunchPad, notepad.

but will it really matter? i used to own a PowerBook and was put off by the MacBook Pro name. or how about the nintendo wii?

@FightTheFuture : Nintendo Wii. Exactly. That name got so much flack when it was announced, but we're over the "Playing with my Wii" jokes now.

That said, like the Wii, they could've chosen something better. But we'll get over it, too.

I-Pad only bothers me in terms of it's similarity to everything Mcdonalds has beginning with "mc". I find it really tacky.

ridiculous. as a woman, the name ipad does not offend me one bit. much ado about nothing.

Seriously, you're blaming all the name titterings on men? (pun intended, yes).

Hasn't most of the discussion been in forums like this, and I generally can't tell gender from screen names like peahen, Laucus or Paladin (not to single you out for your comments, just for your naming androgyny).

Me, I'm holding out for the iJock.