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It’s sad that a company of very smart people can’t figure out coherent naming. Can you imagine Apple causing confusion like this? I know it’s not a like-for-li
by ra7 3y ago
It’s sad that a company of very smart people can’t figure out coherent naming.
Can you imagine Apple causing confusion like this? I know it’s not a like-for-like comparison, but everything Apple does it seems like they have a grand strategy that’s clear for everyone to see. Things build up in a modular way to fit a big puzzle.
Google, on the other hand, constantly makes up things on an ad hoc basis.
- deprecative 3y agoThis has to be what it's like at Google. You have marketing on one end of a table and developers in another county.
- ramraj07 3y agoAll the non programming intelligence in a place like Google likely goes into figuring out how to protect and expand one's turf, which will explain this emblematic mess.
- kevinventullo 3y agoMaybe not quite the same, but I will point out that “Apple TV” and “Apple TV+” are not just two distinct products, but are in fact entirely different categories of product. One is a piece of hardware akin to a Roku. The other is a streaming service akin to Netflix.
- lupire 3y agoThanks to Disney, "+" is the industry term for "Streaming"
- sofixa 3y agoOne company using it doesn't make it the "industry" term. It was the copycats that followed like Apple and Paramount that made it into an industry term. It kind of makes sense for Paramount, but really doesn't for Apple. Par for the course for Apple TV+, barely baked content on a barely baked poorly named service.
- BrazeBeefNoodle 3y agoOdd, I’m not a huge fan of many things Apple is doing these days, but I’ve consistently found their homegrown content to be very high quality.
- sofixa 3y agoI've watched 3 shows on Apple TV+ - Extrapolations, The Morning Show, and Ted Lasso. All of them start very promisingly (as in, the premise is good, the initial setup of actors/sets/etc. is promising, there is lots of potential ways it could go) but they're all superficial, get very predictable, and then the quality steeply goes downhill after a point. All three could have been way better, and had vastly more promise than what they delivered. It was enough to make me cancel the service.
- als0 3y agoI didn't think Apple copied anyone. Pretty much all their subscriptions have had plus like iCloud+ and Fitness+.
- ceejayoz 3y agoThat was them copycatting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney%2B https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney%2B "Disney+ was launched on November 12, 2019" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICloud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICloud "In June 2021, Apple introduced iCloud+..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitness_(Apple) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitness_(Apple) "Apple Fitness+ is an ad-free video on demand guided workout streaming service announced during Apple's September 2020 Special Event"
- rafark 3y agoApple has been using + way before Disney. Apple care+, iPhone 6 Plus and I’m pretty sure they had another plus product or service in the 2000s or earlier that I’m forgetting right now. Edit: it was the Mac plus from 1986. I’ve always associated “plus” with Apple, not with Disney.
- chimeracoder 3y ago> Thanks to Disney, "+" is the industry term for "Streaming" Google+ was too far ahead of its time!
- rvnx 3y agoIsn't it closed ?
- ra7 3y agoI use both and I haven’t found it too confusing, to be honest. I just think of it as Apple TV (streaming device) gives access to Apple TV+ (streaming service).
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- iopq 3y agohttps://www.apple.com/apple-tv-app/ https://www.apple.com/apple-tv-app/ Apple TV (app) gives access to Apple TV+ (streaming service)
- tavavex 3y agoApple TV is mostly associated with the hardware streaming boxes they've been releasing for a long time, Apple TV the app is just an app that performs a similar task on non-TVs. TV+ is available on both of them. Still, there's a bit of confusion around the naming.
- geodel 3y agoIt would just mean there are somethings you found confusing but others don't and vice versa. But you come swinging like you have done survey of Fortune 500 companies and Google stood out in naming confusion.
- ra7 3y agoI don't have to survey Fortune 500 when things are plainly obvious. Hangouts, Allo, Duo, Buzz, Google Talk, GChat, Inbox, Messenger, Messages, Bard, Gemini, etc. Who else has a track record of chopping and changing like this?
- relativ575 3y ago
- lobsterthief 3y agoApple TV is also an iOS app, macOS app, tvOS app, and [other generic TV OS] app which allows you to access Apple TV+ content if you have a subscription, but otherwise lets you access services connected to your Apple TV [hardware].
- hbn 3y agoActually it's more that Apple TV is both a piece of hardware and an iTunes-like service, while Apple TV+ is a subscription service akin to Netflix. The Apple TV hardware and the Apple TV app on your iDevice can both be used without paying a subscription. The hardware has all other streaming apps a la Roku, and both it and the app on your iPhone can be used to purchase and watch TV shows and movies.
- travisgriggs 3y agoIn my mind: - AppleTV - the all things tv stuff from Apple that I pay once for - AppleTV+ - all things tv stuff from Apple that I have to pay every month for
- azinman2 3y agoInteresting framing! I guess the + is like the + sign on a calculator ;)
- electroly 3y agoIf you ever take a customer survey for Apple, for the "which Apple products do you use?" question they always have to write something like "Apple TV (a streaming box that plugs into your TV)" and "Apple TV+ (an online streaming service)" because they know the names are so confusing.
- atkailash 3y ago[dead]
- s3p 3y agoHello, would you like to watch Apple TV+ or Apple TV Channels on your Apple TV app on your Apple TV?
- islewis 3y ago> Messy branding is now par for the course at Apple. The iPad line alone is something out of a Dell catalog: iPad, iPad 10thgen, iPad Air, iPad Mini, iPad Pro. a comment from another thread this morning- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39300741 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39300741
- skywhopper 3y agoI mean, Air, Mini, and Pro are all distinct form factors. It's confusing only to the extent that you might not know which one is "best" from a CPU/memory/storage POV. But Apple has succeeded for iOS products at least at making that distinction mostly meaningless: pick the form factor you want, then pick the storage capacity and sometimes the color, you're done.
- sofixa 3y agoIs the Air, the Mini or the no-named one the smallest?
- codezero 3y agoMy answer was that it was obvious but I went down a rabbit hole of comparison pages and learned the current Air is higher end than the current iPad.
- TylerE 3y agoMy suspicion is that that there is no iPad 11 and the iPad Air 6th Gen (with an M3 or something, maybe an M1 still) is the base model going forward. iPad 10 is still A14 Bionic, not Apple Silicon.
- ianburrell 3y agoiPad is the cheap one, the 10th generation is $449 vs $599 for Air. And the 9th is still being sold for $329. Lots of people want a basic tablet for browsing and don't need power for pseudo-laptop. The iPad Mini has A15 Bionic.
- ysofunny 3y agonaming things is hard is one of the cultural difference between a computer-first logical mindset contrasted with the mathematics-first mindset the mathematics first mentality does not properly recognize the importance and the difficulty of having good names for things, whereas the computological view recognizes both: the importance and the difficulty
- thfuran 3y agoHow many mathematicians do you know? All the mathematicians I know are interested in both notational and linguistic clarity.
- ysofunny 3y agolucky you, all the mathematics proessors I've had scarcely know how to work a computer another cultural difference is the kind of homework they hand out; the difference boils down to whether you hand over a printed (or printable) proof checked by reading through it, or a runnable program or script checked by running it
- smabie 3y agoWhat does this have to do with naming things
- chatmasta 3y agoInsofar as naming things is basically applied category theory, I'd trust a mathematician to name a set of products more tersely and understandably than I would an English major.
- ysofunny 3y agoI'm running a contest in my head: "which academic discipline can transfer more information with less text" so far it's a close race between philosophers and mathematicians. I'll take your comment as a vote in favor of mathematicians
- thesuitonym 3y agoIt seems to be something all large software companies struggle with. The product team comes up with some cool or interesting thing, gives it a decent name, then some marketing manager trying to justify their position decides everything needs to be rebranded under the same umbrella, and a wave of product renames gets started, but never fully finished. Then, two to three years later, some marketing manager needs to justify their position again, and so decides to rebrand everything under a new name, even though the last name change hasn't even been fully finished yet.
- travisgriggs 3y agoThis in a nutshell. What I’ve seen, is that when consensus can’t quickly be reached among different naming factions, someone will say “well our customers know and love Brand Word XYZ, let’s just bolt a qualifier on that and win for us!”
- apapapa 3y agoMS does the same thing... Look at Xbox naming history https://recordhead.biz/history-of-microsoft-xbox-consoles/ https://recordhead.biz/history-of-microsoft-xbox-consoles/
- hbn 3y agoIt's really not that bad. Nintendo's got more confusing SKUs in some of their product lineups than that. The only thing that was stupid with Microsoft's naming was this latest generation that they call it Series S and Series X, which is bad for 2 reasons: - No one knows what to call them as a general term. You can say "this game is for PS5" but for them it's like "this game is for Xbox Series"? I guess they just want you to call it "Xbox" cause that's all it says at the top of the game cases now. - They just came from selling the One S and One X, which was a mid-lifespan hardware update, the S being a smaller formfactor Xbox One and the X being a spec bump. Confusing that they continue to sell and S and an X but it's a whole new console. They should have already learned from Nintendo who made this mistake several times with the 3DS (which many didn't realize was an entirely new but backwards compatible system from the DS), new 3DS (yes that was an actual system's name that had exclusive games that couldn't be played on the normal 3DS), and Wii U (which everyone thought was a tablet controller for the Wii)
- everforward 3y agoAs someone without an Xbox, nor friends that play Xbox, Xbox's naming is terrible and confusing. It used to not bother me when I followed Xbox news and was "in the know", but now it's irritating. Xbox -> Xbox 360 -> Xbox One -> Xbox Series (?). I still don't know whether S or X is the "good one". Compare it to Playstation: PS1 -> PS2 -> PS3 -> PS4 -> PS5. The upgraded line is "PS $number Pro". Someone can tell me they have a PS5 Pro, and I know what they mean. They could tell me they want a PS6 and I know what they mean, even if the PS6 hasn't even been announced yet. Someone tells me they have an Xbox One X and my eyes glaze over. Prior to now, that means nothing to me. I don't know when the Xbox One came out, I don't know if it's their newest line, I don't know if X is the Pro or if it's the budget. The S and X may not even indicate pro and budget, but I think they do. At least Nintendo's names are kind of cute. It's still silly, but at least Wii or Switch is kind of endearing. Xbox Series X sounds like they let an edgy teenager name it; having X on both ends reminds me of the days of xX420ShadowRanger69Xx usernames. Also doesn't make a clean acronym; XSX is both hard to say and makes me think more of SXSW than Xbox.
- nextworddev 3y agoMaybe they are just book smart..
- bearjaws 3y agoThe naming on iPhones and Macbooks is terrible, and confusing now that the M3 Pro offers quite different CPU and bandwidth limits compared to M2 Pro...
- vineyardmike 3y agoWhat? These are the easiest products ever. Compared to the crap that every other company generates. Like the Pixel 6 vs 6 pro vs 6a vs “Fold (no number)” The iPhone is literally just iPhone <Number> with Pro for high end, or no modifier for low end. Add “max” for big screen. The only confusion maybe is “max” isn’t obviously referring to screen size. iPhone 15, 15 Pro, 15 max, iPhone 15 Pro Max. Macs are the same way. I don’t think it’s fair to say it’s confusing that “M3” processor has different specs than “M2” processor. Beyond that, Mac laptops are Pro vs Air, defining how powerful vs portable they are with associated screen size variant 14, 16 and 13,15.
- Me1000 3y agoM2 Max, M2 Ultra. Which is better? MagSafe means two different products. The current MacBook Air is thicker than an older MacBook. I’m not even sure what a “pro” phone is, but okay. The iPad lineup has been a total mess for years. I’m not saying these names are impossible to decipher, but they do require some research.
- l33t7332273 3y agoTo be honest I think it’s clear that something called ultra is better than something called max. If it were called super-max or turbo-max or something I’d see your point. > The current MacBook Air is thicker than an older MacBook I feel like you’re just looking for things to be mad about here; it’s thinner than _current_ MacBooks. > I’m not even sure what a “pro” phone is, but okay Okay this is just ridiculous. It seems you would be unhappy with any naming convention other than “iPhone Good”, “iPhone Better”, and “iPhone Best”.
- Me1000 3y ago
- snapetom 3y agoI’d like to direct you to the current lineup and features of Apple iPads and the various pencil/pen options.
- StevePerkins 3y ago> Can you imagine Apple causing confusion like this? After 14 years of using Siri, I can't imagine Apple developing any competent AI tools in the first place.
- sholladay 3y agoMy impression is they haven’t focused much on general purpose AI. But Apple actually has a lot of very good AI models sprinkled throughout its products. Just a few that come to mind… - Tap and hold an object in Photos and it will figure out how to separate it from the background for you - AirPods noise cancelation - iOS 17 autocorrect is based on a transformer model and works noticeably better - Optimized Battery Charging, which learns your charging habits and tries to delay putting a full charge into your battery until just before you unplug, in order to avoid damaging the battery - Detection Mode is an awesome accessibility feature where you point the camera at something and it will describe what it sees Apple calls all of these things Machine Learning instead of AI and they are all optional features within an existing product. Seems like a very deliberate strategy. But they are utilizing the latest techniques. CoreML and the M series chips are also very competent at training and using AI models. Maybe the reason Siri is stuck in the dark ages is because it would be entirely AI dependent. They could have a “no generative AI” mode but nobody would use it. I’m guessing Apple is looking for a breakthrough in how to prevent it from hallucinating / lying.
- shadowgovt 3y agoYes. Google's approach (especially on the research side) is "Make cool stuff; we'll figure out what to do with it later." That's sort of always been the case, and it does lead to brand churn because the branding people aren't brought into the conversation early.
- danielrhodes 3y agoThat's because this is an org chart, not a cohesive product.
- potatolicious 3y agoIt's the org chart. Google doesn't have a centralized marketing department that governs all of the company's products. Marketing is handled at the PA level (or sometimes even lower). Likewise for engineering, Google is organized into Product Areas (Geo, Search, Cloud, etc.), which also explains why one product would get some feature that would really make sense integrated into another... but it never happens. Google is exceptionally good at making its products be near-perfectly reflective of its internal organization scheme. So reflective you can brush your teeth with it. I'm often a broken record about this on HN - but IMO the PA organizational structure is a strong inhibitor to Google's success and ability to create coherent suites of products.
- gmerc 3y agobingo. Google has long been reduced to ship their org chart. Visible every single time - hangouts to chat to whateverthe hell
- mushufasa 3y agoOn the flip side, which large tech companies that have have an equally high velocity of shipping do this well? Amazon?
- potatolicious 3y agoMmm I don't really agree with the premise of the question at all. In my experience Google doesn't ship significantly faster than any other FAANG. Meta for example ships extraordinarily quickly (see: Threads) but their products are considerably more tightly integrated and demonstrate an ability to leverage across the ecosystem (see: Instagram-Threads integration) that Google has trouble with. More to the point (and extra points in favor of Meta for this): Google's apparent product velocity is a bit deceptive? The company ships a lot of ill-considered product. Is it superior product velocity if the product is consistently half-baked (and maybe more importantly: will die before it ever becomes fully baked)? If you put those two factors together and consider product velocity as how quickly a company ships stuff that actually sticks (as opposed to a simple exercise in how quickly one can release code), Google's product velocity is IMO substantially inferior to all of FAANG. Meta, Apple, Amazon, and MSFT at this point are generating sticky product at a substantially greater pace.
- recursive 3y agoI take it you didn't see the story today about how iTunes will no longer be used to play music. (tunes)
- m2mdas2 3y agoCompare it with Microsoft's copilot branding. It's simple, both casual and business people can understand what it does. Also appending it to other services like github or office adds more value to them.
- iamdelirium 3y agoLiterally a few days ago: https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/15/23960517/microsoft-copilot-bing-chat-rebranding-chatgpt-ai https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/15/23960517/microsoft-copil... Then you have also under Microsoft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GitHub_Copilot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GitHub_Copilot (not to be confused with Copilot X).
- georgemcbay 3y agoWhy bother intelligently naming things when you're likely to just kill them off in a year because they don't drive advertising?