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Comment by cubefox | Hacker News Reader

"Google TV Streamer" pretty exactly describes what this thing does. It's from Google, and it streams things to your TV.

"Chromecast" was more puzzling. What's "Chrome"? Isn't that a browser? What does this have to do with anything? And what is "cast"? Does it broadcast something? Etc.

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On the other hand, "Google TV Streamer" also describes Chromecasts and is immensely less memorable or distinctive.

It'd be like if Apple decided to rebrand Macbook to be "Apple Laptop". Sure, it's accurate. It's also crap.

Google TV was also the name of their failed settop box strategy like a dozen years ago.

I think they gave out one from Logitech (with a keyboard!) at an I/O one year.

To be fair, "MacBook" is basically a portmanteau of "Macintosh Notebook", so it's really not that far removed from "Apple Laptop".

But the point is that they're giving up distinctive, widely-recognized branding for a bland, flavorless alternative

> It'd be like if Apple decided to rebrand Macbook to be "Apple Laptop". Sure, it's accurate. It's also crap.

You get used to it. They also called the Apple smartwatch "Apple Watch" from the beginning, and nobody is complaining. So "Apple Laptop" or "Apple Phone" would be just as good.

You could say the same about "Chromebooks" -- but that doesn't matter anymore. Thanks to Chromebooks dominating schools and Google's general ubiquity, almost everyone knows what Chrome is if you've used a computer in the past decade.

The only market who wouldn't know is the same crowd that would never use a smart TV anyway.

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