The 1984 introduction of the Macintosh computer featured the iconic and still-relevant Super Bowl commercial directed by Ridley Scott. More than 40 years later, this advertising masterpiece holds up, as does the brand it launched. Let’s dive into this week’s Tech Time Warp.
But how did the Macintosh get its name? It’s yet another interesting chapter in Apple history. The origin story of the company’s name boils down to “we couldn’t think of anything better,” with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak perhaps inspired by Jobs’ current fruitarian diet and also thinking the name was approachable. On the heels of the Lisa project, named for Jobs’ daughter and not a commercial success, in part due to an astronomical price tag, developer Jef Raskin wanted a different name for his project: an affordably priced, easy-to-use computer. He didn’t want to give it a female name, so he thought of his favorite variety of apples: the McIntosh. (The popularity of the McIntosh apple cultivar peaked in the late 1970s and is now hard to find in grocery stores today. Perhaps if Raskin had been working 10 years later, the computer might have been called the Honeycrisp.)
One catch, though: A company called McIntosh already existed (and still exists today as a standard-setter in the field of sound reproduction with its own beloved iconic logo). It took some hard-core negotiation from Jobs, an undisclosed financial settlement, and a spelling change to “Macintosh” to secure the name.
The spelling change worked out. Who says anything but “Mac” now, anyway?
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Photo: Audio und werbung / Shutterstock
This post originally appeared on Smarter MSP.