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Comment by astine | Hacker News Reader

Apparently this is already part of their naming scheme, but 'WePad' makes them sound like such a knock-off. I wouldn't want to be seen as a knock-off of a brand as recognizable as Apple.

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I think the term "pad" describes a product like this very well.

Apple was now first, but after the wePad, xPad, multiPad, netPad, etc., related names will just be other generic terms...

I'm not sure about that. My girlfriend and her coworkers complained about the name instantly because of similarity to a certain female product.

It's odd that the iPad invites that comparison, but the ThinkPad and CruchPad apparently did not (at least not that I recall).

Probably the "pad" is more dominant in iPad than in CrunchPad or ThinkPad.

Eh. People love to talk and repeat jokes they heard on the TV or the Internet. If someone was actually offended/upset about the name they certainly wouldn't be happily joking about it in public. Just a classic "I have nothing else to say so let me repeat something I heard once" type of reaction I suspect.

It does make sense, considering the notepad vs a notebook. Slate harkens to the old single room school days. Frame might make you think it's only for pictures or be hung on the wall.

Pad's pretty good I suppose. People will get over the hygiene aspect of it.

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/PADD

Yes, a very good name.

And Neofonie makes them sound like, well...

It doesn't sound that bad in German.

I would have preferred "DasPad" though

I am sure, that will be the name for the international release. (Because DasPad sounds absolutely phony in German. But at least the grammatical genders match.)

It never stopped Apple from delivering products which actually infringe on others copyrights, not just sound similar (iPhone-> Cisco, iPad->Fujitsu).

I think wePad is a great name, if Apple's legal-hounds can leave them alone.

And all producers should probably stop naming their phones phones, because that is reminiscent of iPhone? If it is only the name that is a problem, I can live with it.

That's not the part that sounds like a knock-off. Take the 'i' in iPhone or iPad as the first person pronoun and the names wePhone or wePad sound like puns, like they're actually referencing Apple's products.

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