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Comment by laurent92 | Hacker News Reader

I have just noticed that they say “iPhone” not “the iPhone”, “the iPad”, “my iPad”. It’s as if they were talking about a person, such as “I’m using Hal”.

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The Verge also noticed this back in 2016⋮

> Here's the essence of Apple's grammar rules: its product names should be entirely unadorned. You didn't buy "an iPhone," you bought iPhone. You don't own two iPads, you own two iPad. (Editor's note: Apple hates articles, both definite and indefinite. It definitely is going to hate this article, too.)

https://www.theverge.com/2016/4/30/11541268/apple-grammar-is...

The name of the band is 'Pixies', but it's simply easier from a sentence-formation POV to refer to them as "The Pixies". Much as it may chagrin the purists.

Do people say "On the Windows 11 we ..." or do they say "On Windows 11 ..."? It's a name, you don't have to put "the" in front of a name, the laurent92 (of course, the Ohio State University would disagree with that idea).

It's software vs a physical device. Windows 11 on the computer. iOS on the iPhone.

Isn't it because it's a plural?

This has been the case since 2007 with "iPhone"...which mimicked the naming for "iPod" since 2001 [0]...which mimicked the naming of "iMac" since 1998 [1].

All of these, of course, go back to Steve Jobs' introduction of "Macintosh" in 1984 [2].

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN0SVBCJqLs

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BHPtoTctDY

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B-XwPjn9YY

They also have marketing rules they stick to regarding pluralization: https://twitter.com/pschiller/status/725791354769399808

This is normal. E.g. cars are the same way. It's not "The Mustang" it is "Mustang".

It is? “The Mustang has a new engine this year” “I’m going to take the Mustang today” - those sentences sound very strange without “the”. Yet Apple does this consistently, referring to each product as a singular proper name (which sounds weird because, like cars, there are millions of them with many variations over the years all with the same name).

”We have redesigned the Volvo XC60” is absolutely a normal way to talk. You are specifying a particular model from a line of models. “Volvos are some of the safest cars” is the way I would expect one to talk about Volvo’s cars in general. Companies don’t want their products to become generic names, that’s why they make these nonsense rules.

Huh? I’ve never heard anyone refer to a car model without an article. If you purchased a Mustang you’d say “I got a Mustang”, not “I got Mustang.” Even when talking about the model in general rather than a specific car, it’s “The Mustang gets 30 MPG”, not “Mustang gets 30 MPG.”

(I’m from the PNW, in case it’s a regional thing.)

I noticed higher end brands start to do this about 10 years ago. It’s really weird in my opinion.

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