We’ve been arguing for months about whether or not this new tablet that Apple may, or may not be announcing is going to be name an iTablet, or an iSlate, but now we have a third option to add to the mix. The — wait for it — iPad.
Obviously references aside the name is still… terrible. Sure, it’s a cousin to the iPod, but do we really need people walking around referring to things as their Pad? Really?
So why the iPad you might be asking? Well apparently some people spend a lot of time looking into Apple patents, and they seem to be pretty damn good at it. So good in fact that they’re making a lot of us web journalists look bad. What they turned up was a dummy corporation owned by Apple called Slate computing (go figure), who has apparently applied for a trademark on iPad in 2009 in Canada. But, the shenanigans don’t end there, similar companies have also filed trademarks in Europe, Hong Kong, New Zealand, and Australia. The filings in New Zealand, and Australia were submitted on Friday, January 15, 2010.
Internet sources need to be taken with a giant bag of salt, but there’s a lot of trademarks pointing to the same thing now. I hope that Apple’s just trying to throw us off the scent, because I’m not sure I can stomach all the Pad references over the next 5 years. If you know what I’m saying.
[via MacRumors]
