Over at Spyglass this week, M.G. Siegler broke my brain with this paragraph:
“Imagine the year is 2034. Apple has just held their event to unveil the iPhone 26 and the iPhone 26 Pro and the iPhone 26 Pro Max. They are powered by the A28 and A28 Pro chips. Perhaps an A28 Turbo Bionic for the iPhone 26 Pro Max Ultra. That chip is similar to the M14, but different. All of these devices run iOS 26 featuring Apple Intelligence X. Also new this year: the AirPods 14 and the AirPods Pro 11 and the AirPods Max 7. Most of these have the H8 chip, which can run Apple Intelligence 7, but some have H7 which runs Apple Intelligence 6. And we have the Apple Watch Series 20. And the Apple Watch SE (6th generation). And the Apple Watch Max 8. These all either run on the S20 or S19 or S18 chips. And they run watchOS 21, which features Apple Intelligence 8.”
Um, yeah. So, I think Apple will need to reset its naming/numbering conventions before things get out of hand. Siegler isn’t exaggerating as much as he is extrapolating.
Why can’t the iPhone drop the numbers and just go by release year, similar to Macs and iPads? I have a 5th gen iPad Air (released 2022; I had to look that up). It’s not “iPad Air 5.” It’s just iPad Air. (Colloquially, I call it M1 iPad Air.)
Ford has made Mustang cars for many years, starting in 1964. If numbered annually, it’d now be called “Mustang 50.” As it happens, the first car I ever owned (bought with my own money) was a 1984 Mustang, so you might say I owned the “Mustang 20.” Coooool.
Sure, yeah, I’d like to buy the iPhone 50…in 2057.
- iPhone
- iPhone Plus
- iPhone mini
- iPhone Pro
- iPhone Pro Max
- iPhone Air
- iPhone Ultra
- Apple Phone
Simple.
I think whenever Apple next “re-invents” the phone, like maybe iPhone’s 20th anniversary in 2027, it should reset the name by calling it “Apple Phone” and dropping the numbers (and “i” prefix). It’d be like “Apple Watch” but without the “Series #.”
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