If things had gone a little bit differently in a fight between Silicon Valley lawyers, techies would be making calls, sending texts, and playing games on their “Telepod,” “Mobi” or “Tripod.”
That’s because those three names, along with “iPad,” were the alternative names for Apple’s game-changing iPhone, according to 9to5Mac.
The alternative names were revealed for the first time in a talk that former Apple advertising executive Ken Segall gave at the University of Arizona where he explained the runup to the iPhone’s release in 2007.
In the talk Segall explained that the company had chosen the name “iPhone” but was in a legal fight with Cisco about the name because the competing tech company already had an Internet phone on the market with the same name.
As the lawyers battled it out for control of the “iPhone” name, four alternatives were heavily considered by Apple.
The four alternatives, and the reasons for considering them were:
Mobi — A play on “mobile” but with a “with a little personality,” according to Segall.
Tripod — The iPhone, “was a combination of three things: a music player, a phone, and the Internet,” Segall explained, so it made sense to highlight that fact in the name. Although the Tripod name was not ultimately used, the term was a favorite at Apple because the three features it emphasized were the center of the smartphone’s initial marketing campaign.
Telepod — Similar to the Tripod name, this was supposed to focus consumers’ attention on the smartphone’s iPod-telephone combination.
iPad — The widely popular tablet computer hadn’t even been invented yet, so the name was still up for grabs at Apple.
Segall also presented the fake name “MicroMac,” but the name was never actually considered by Apple.
In the end, the four alternates were never needed because Cisco and Apple agreed to a deal where both companies could use the name.