It might also be interesting to note that Apple licenses iOS from Cisco [0].
[0] https://appleinsider.com/articles/10/06/08/cisco_licenses_io...
Also, Apple no longer has iLife or iTunes, and "iWork" is no longer a bundle, but even if it was, its apps are Pages, Keynote and Numbers. No "i"s there.
They use the "i" prefix more sparingly now, as the original post said.
I've never heard of iLife, iTools, iWeb, iWork or iSight so its use in flagship products is even more sensibly sparing.
iTunes has been replaced by Apple Music, and possibly iMovie too???
It's also worth noting Apple has been somewhat mocked got their overuse of i. Despite the sparing use. So KDE tacking it onto everything is even less sensible in this context.
I think the K naming has probably hampered adoption of KDE products in the long term: I was always resistant to install K* apps when I was using a non-KDE desktop due to compatibility paranoia, something I tended not to even consider when installing gnome/gtk apps for example (which tend mostly not to be prefixed with g or gtk- or similar)
The i-branding was very, very effective. Apple was one of the very few brands that really managed to "own" the internet in the mind of the average consumer. Which is one of the reasons it was wildly successful.
The new branding, in comparison, is meh. They now just leverage "Apple". Nothing else, because they think they are too good. Creating new brands is difficult and risky, so they just don't do it because "we don't need it".
It's a sign of decadence, and you can see it in the history of all corporate behemoths. Once Microsoft became huge, everything became "Microsoft This" or "Windows That" - they stopped making bets, and just leveraged their established brands. The rebirth was a fountain of fresh brands: Azure, Surface, Office365.
"Apple Music" and "Apple TV" are one of the many symptoms of a culturally-dying corporation. Like Microsoft, they will continue to be fabulously rich for decades, maybe score the occasional win like the move to ARM. But the new booms will come from elsewhere.
Neither is what KDE are doing with their persistent k* prefix: it's not decadent nor innovative. It's just stagnant.