I was in a store today buying a blender, and I walked by the washing machine section, when I saw this:

At first I sort of laughed, because they even used the Apple font, but then I started thinking about the way they were using “i”, and realized I had no clue what the eff it even meant anymore. The washing machine people are using it to mean “intelligent”, but is that what it really means to people?

Wikipedia told me that when the first iMac debuted, Apple used “i” to stand for “internet”. During his introduction of the first iMac in 1998, Steve Jobs does say that the iMac was created as “a marriage of the excitement of the internet and the simplicity of Apple”, but he notes that “i” not only stands for “internet”, but also for “individual”, “instruct”, “inform” and “inspire”. (click the pic to watch it).

What’s interesting here is that all of these things are focused on the individual consumer - what the iMac could do FOR them. Given that Apple’s brand proposition is “Tools for Creative Minds”, it seems appropriate that they would use “i” to convey action and meaning on the part of the consumer, whatever the specific words were.

But now that we see “i” everywhere - random washing machines, iRobot ( the company that makes Roomba, not the Will Smith movie), even iRiver, a competitor product to the iPod - do people even know what the “i” is supposed to mean when they see it?

No. Not really. Well I guess “i” is certainly open for interpretation, as evidenced above, but brands that have co-opted “i” to mean something particular to consumers aren’t really getting what they bargained for (meaning…whatever they thought “i” meant…?).

But even if we can’t all agree on what exactly “i” means to us now, I guess one thing that remains true (aside from “i” being interpreted as branding nonsense) is that “i” generally implies that something is good, smart, and modern.* So even though people may be confused, they probably still come away with the notion that a product with “i” as a prefix is better than one without. I usually fall for it - do you?

*( this is actually the second time I wrote this post, because after getting most of the way through it the first time, my MacBook Pro crashed. So right now, I would say that “i” stands for irritating, ill-performing, and ironic).