Intel was the first to come up with the iPad name in 1994, not Apple

[RaduTyrsina]

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Apple is known for branding its products and services with the letter “i†in front, with some saying that it stands for "internet", “intelligence†or “innovation†while others are suggesting that the "i" stands for the first initial of Apple designer Jonathan Ive's last name. The most notorious products that Apple has ever created are without a doubt, the iPhone and the iPad. However, only few know that Apple wasn’t the first one to come up with the name “iPhone†as Cisco owned the trademark on what they called I-phone.

Now, Matt Nowak from Gizmodo’s PaleoFuture publication has dug up an Associated Press article from 1994 which describes Intel’s vision for a home of the future with the “I-pad†being one of the most interesting devices. Avram Miller, Intel’s vice president back in 1994 is apparently not only the first one that has come up with the “I-pad†name, but also one of the first to have described pretty accurately what it would do:

One of the devices that's interesting, we call it an I-pad, an information pad. It would be a device that has a flat-panel screen. You can write on it, touch it. You might be able to speak into it and it might speak back. It would be wireless, cheap and have different forms in the house. Some early forms of an "I-pad" are Apple Computer Inc.'s Newton, Motorola Inc.'s Envoy and IBM's Simon devices, which have both computing and communication features.

So, mister Miller had guessed plenty of the original iPad’s features - flat-panel screen, touch interactivity, speak assistance, wireless and affordable. Not only this, but he actually admitted that Apple had already created something similar to an I-pad in the Apple Newton. Could it be that Steve Jobs was inspired by this? We will probably never find out.

Source: PaleOfFuture