Ken Segall’s new book, Insanely Simple, is absolutely packed with interesting and little-known nuggets of knowledge about Apple and Steve Jobs. One of the more interesting stories in the book is about how Steve Jobs wanted to call the iMac MacMan.
Segall used to work for Apple, and is the man credited with coming up with the iMac name, so if anyone knows the true story, it’s him. In an exclusive interview with Ars Technica, Segall shared the details:
“We went through scores of names, but the one that I hit on early on was the iMac,” Segall said. “Steve didn’t like any of our names, including the iMac, and said, ‘if you can’t beat MacMan, that’s what it’s gonna be.’ We came up with a few more names and came back, but still brought back some of our old favorites. At that point, Steve said, ‘well I don’t hate it this week, but I still don’t like it.”
Segall says he never heard from Steve on the topic again—one day, he woke up and the product was just called the iMac. “And that was the end of the story.”
Apparently Steve Jobs ended up deciding that MacMan really wasn’t that great of a name after all. And it’s a good thing – MacMan is in absolutely hideous name! If Steve Job hadn’t eventually settled on iMac, the companies entire naming scheme could be different today.
iMac, iPhone, and iPod could have become MacMan, PhoneMan, and PadMan. That’s an alternate future I don’t want to visit, thank you very much!
