iphone xs
iphone xs

I will admit, at the top of this article, that I love Apple products. No, I’m not getting paid to say that, but Apple if you are reading, that’s not a bad idea. That said, what I don’t love is how they have been naming their iPhones lately. I mean, I kind of can’t keep up. Sure, they made an iPhone 8, and then skipped right to X, which presumably stands for 10. But what happened to 9? Should the X not have been an iPhone 9? Maybe you’re not a stickler for order, but I think that it would have been better to call it that, and then all the new iPhones from 2018, could have been called X, or X with another letter after it, and no one would really have been worked up.

I mean, not that I’m worked up. If I did get upset about this kind of thing, it would certainly be time to increase the amount of therapy that I’m receiving. But is it really trivial to discount the names of phones? I think they’re actually important tools for brands to entice buyers and convey certain values and characteristics about the brand. That’s why the iPhone X is good, but the iPhone XR, or XS or even XS Max isn’t as good.

https://youtu.be/d8LJXcQhD0k

As I’ve mentioned, the whole idea of the iPhone X is that it’s confusing. It looks one way (like you’re supposed to pronounce it as an X), but then you are actually supposed to use the number 10. And maybe that’s not super confusing, but what about when you add an R or an S beside it. Is it the iPhone 10-R? Or the iPhone 10-S Max? Where this might get confusing is that people will likely say “excess” for the XS, and “ex are” for the XR. In fact, its possible that people will refer to the phone as the “excess max”, and that’s why it’s confusing.

Why is this happening? In my humble opinion, this began when Apple skipped over the iPhone 9, in order to release the 8 and the 10. They wanted a 10th-anniversary phone, which I can completely understand, but now Apple has created a ripple effect and they will have to come up with more creative names for their next iPhone. Sure, at some point naming the phone with a number will have to stop. Who wants to say “I have the iPhone 354s”? No one, if my thoughts are correct.

But what does all this mean for iPhones in 2019 and beyond? Well, Apple could get back to their numerical order and come out with an iPhone XI, or would it be an XII at this point? They could put a date after the name. For example the iPhone X (2020). Apple has done this with iPads and MacBooks, but it’s kind of confusing. If someone says “which iPhone do you have?” your response is not necessarily to say the iPhone X 2020. But we’ve seen this with cars. You could drive a Mazda CX-9, and so could I. But the difference is mine is a 2018, and yours is a 2015. So it’s not all that confusing.

Or maybe Apple will blow us away with a phone with an entirely new name? That is my hope for all of you in 2019. We will all have to wait until September to find out what the new phone will be called. Until then..!