When the iPhone 3G S was announced at this year’s WWDC conference, I first wrote it as the “iPhone 3GS” and was corrected by a colleague that according to Apple, there was a space between the “G” and the “S.” That seemed to be the case on Apple’s entire website. But today, with its million units sold announcement, I noticed that Apple has apparently moved to calling the device the iPhone 3GS — with no space. And I’m hardly the only one who noticed the change.
So which is it, Apple?
Obviously, this isn’t a huge deal, but considering how many people are writing stories, posts, tweeting, etc, about the device right now, you’d think Apple would like to have one correct name out there. But it seems that it’s not even sure. While the press release this morning has “iPhone 3GS,” the website still has “iPhone 3G S.”
As I’ve said from when the name was first rumored, I think the iPhone 3G S (or 3GS, for that matter) is kind of a silly name. Already, I’ve heard some people who are unclear if “3GS” just means multiple iPhone 3Gs. And then there’s the whole issue of writing iPhone 3GSs, plural. Plus, having played around with the device all weekend, I’m still not sure they shouldn’t have called it the iPhone 3G V — for Video.
I’ve contacted Apple for some clarification.
Update: According to a tweet from The Washington Post’s Rob Pegoraro, Apple has made the change to “iPhone 3GS,” citing Apple’s Greg Joswiak. Someone should probably let their website know.
whole issue of writing iPhone 3GSs, plural = “iPhone 3GS Phones” : as simple as that!
actually, the plural if 3GS is threejeezys.
Running low on stories Siegler?
That line has long ago lost its meaning. I post a lot of things both small (this) and big (http://www.tech...august-for-199/). Get over it.
Just a friendly tip: you seem to take most of your time reading tweets and visiting any apple site (store, itunes, website). You could instead write about a few more tech startups, it will greatly benefit those small websites struggling for traffic and will give an interesting break to your readers.
Now, seriously, i think this article should be shrunk to 140 characters at most.
So your response has to be 379 characters?
I think that as long as the search engines don’t differentiate between the two, it doesn’t matter …
what? Techcrunch doind SEO bait? no really impossible
Seriously. I wouldn’t even expect TUAW to report this.
who’s TUAW
The Unofficial Apple Weblog
I love how he links to retweets of this very story.
MG – the g is for genius!
Here’s TechCrunch without Siegler: http://feeds2.f...urner.com/no-mg
Awesome.
A little harsh.
wow…
You’ve contacted Apples for some clarification?
Yes, how do you like them Apples?
Good one
http://www.yout...h?v=WLG3S5WzHig
Slow day MG?
At least it’s not about Twitter again…
Oh how the mighty Techcrunch has fallen over the last couple of years… The quality of content on TC continues to dive, when are you folks going to get back to your roots or is it too late for that?
This post takes the cake… WOW! MG does it again..
s hit — (no spaces) .. I wonder what your advertisers that spend money with you are thinking, certainly not renewing I hope..
hey… its an interesting point he is making. someone has to post it, or we would never even know.
yea, i agree with you.
I’ve nothing against MG but Techcrunch is becoming more like Gizmodo day by day. While it’s okay at times, i’m starting to feel like i’m reading more of a gadget/tech news blog rather than a blog about start ups, new companies, the entrepreneurial community, etc.
*sigh* What can we do?
A simple name-change, or an entire change of semantics?
You be the judge.
(P.S. It’s probably just a style thing — seriously, who wants a name that comes in two parts. They probably condensed it to simplify the look.)
If I were them, I would do without the space. It makes most since. As the 3G part is also two separate words—third generation—yet it doesn’t have a space. So, it only makes sense that the third word—speed—follows the same pattern.
Another interesting point (by Shanky Baba), in your screenshots, the name appears without a space in plural cases (i.e. 3GS models), but with the space in other cases.
Bottom line, looks like it’s an accident but it could very well very be intentional. You should certainly contact Apple.
3G != third generation. The iPhone 3G is the second generation iPhone. 3G refers to the network that it works on.
…and the network that it works on is called “third-generation”, which is what “3G” means.
Yes, 3G = “Third generation” of wireless networks that it runs
Oh My God! No Space! Oh My God! xcuse me, i think i will just pass ou…
Get a life man. I could give two sheits what way it is writen. Write it however you want to and you could have still writen the same story that you did here. A BIG FAT CIRCLE OF CRAPOLA!!!
Lamest post EVER who cares, seriously?
then again, this may be the only article in history written about a space.
seriously, this calls for trolls
They didn’t want people confusing them with iPhone IIes.
Seriously. Is this news?
Where the hell is your website going? Let me guess. In the hole.
Just FYI: 9 to 5 mac has a similar story. (They probably copied you though
)
Also, AllThingsD has posted a story about the phone and they are not using a space.
Look, MG clearly named this post. It took less than a second to know what it was about. You didn’t need to come here if you aren’t interested in the subject.
AND… regarding the fall of TC, I notice that lil’ ticker counting RSS readers is quickly nearing 3,000,000…
Lies, Michael said RSS is dead.
Thanks for yet another interesting piece, MG. Don’t listen to the haters. Sure, maybe I’m a bit obsessive-compulsive, but this issue has been bugging me and I appreciate any attempt at clarification.
I think this is a perfectly legit topic for a post. It just should have been a lot shorter.
After reading I can definitely say that there are quite a few people here who love to hate MG Siegler’s post
that was: after reading all the comments here
LOL! I know, it’s kind of charming.
To all the comments hating on MG: it’s long been clear that TechCrunch no longer covers new startups — they cover Twitter and Apple and Google. And that’s fine. There really is ample opportunity for a new tech blog to come up that covers startups; hopefully someone will come along to fill the void.
http://www.killerstartups.com
I’m a “only Apple” user, but come on, this is the 5ft Apple related post in 2 days. And Apple is not a startup anymore.. come guys! This is getting boring…
maybe it’s because iPhone 3Gs is more search engine friendly than 3G S because Google also finds old iPhones with the query (3G S).
Maybe they’re following in the footsteps of the Apple 2GS.
i couldn’t care less. i’m putting that space there. that’s how it should be.
I had an Apple IIGS back in 1987. Can’t believe it took over 22 years to come out with the 3GS!
This article is truly not worth the time it took to write it. I mean seriously, the issue discussed here is the name. You guys are kidding, right?
Sucker Seigler strikes again. Seriously man, WRITE ABOUT STARTUPS!!! Thats why you were hired by this blog. To write about startups… feature them. Not about Apple (which isnt a startup) or iPhone or MS Hate. And for crying out loud… Twitter isnt the only startup Seigler.
Mike, this guy needs to fired… ASAP. Unless you hired him not because of his knowledge, but because of his tabloid writing skills (that generates good traffic). Then it’s downhill from here.
Is there a way to filter off Seigler’s post? This punk is irritating.
You seriously think he writes what he wants and doesn’t need to check with the powers before an article makes it?
This is easy — I can solve this for all of us, ladies and gentlemen (including our friends at Apple, of course)…
It should be Apple GS: the S stands for “S”ame as the last phone (more or less), so we’re good with that moniker…
And there should be no confusion with the plural form, as that would be “Apple Gs” (or “Apple G’s” if you’re from the UK), so no confusion there.
And much more importantly, it would avoid the confusion caused by pronouncing it “Apple G Esses”. Which, come to think of it, is what we’ll all feel like (myself included) when one day we wake up and notice that we have been reading every single inadvertent smoke signal and tea leaf that Cupertino sends us to find significance. Yep, we’ll feel like total “esses”.
Meanwhile, yes, I pre-ordered one of those and I love it.
Alex S. (Make that Alex Ess.)
That’s the funniest comment I’ve ever read! Thank you
I think that they realized that search engines are easily confused by the string “3G S”.
Anyway, I definitely consider it the worst example of Apple’s branding. Quite strange for a company so famous for its marketing… Is this what we might expect by an Apple without Jobs?
waste of space on this article, next time write about some twitter app or better yet a new short URL service
should be iPhone IIIgs
Between the awkward naming convention and the fact that no clear guidance has been given on whether the S (and 2X faster processor) in the iPhone 3GS constitutes a new development platform (akin to the PS3 vs PS2), it’s hard to imagine that Jobs oversaw this rollout…
Am I the only one who had an issue with this?
I was telling everyone “They called it the ‘3G S’”!
So glad to see it changed, as 3GS is much better.
This is one of those “who cares?” articles… It’s not like they changed the S to and R or Z or whatever! A space between 2 letters!? Is this really “newsworthy”?
TC was a better place without this guy; I know for sure it’s all about $$ x posts… but somebody must moderate this dude asap.
I think it stands for iPhone 3G for Smart people! Hence, the “S” for Smart!
Say what you want but MG gets the clicks for TC!
Since MG came on board, TC has started getting more traffic.
I like MGs posts as long as he doesn’t write about Twitter. Twitter’s just an inane fad.
” I’m still not sure they shouldn’t have called it the iPhone 3G V — for Video.”
Here’s one reason, because 3G V sounds like crap. Seriously, it does.
It’s still the iPhone 3G [S] no matter what! That is how it was written first and it does not matter what Apple refers to it as now it stays iPhone 3G [S]. END OF DISCUSSION!
Years ago at IBM we had various naming families and we went nuts when the press didn’t get it right. “Systems” had to have a slash and a number, such as “System/390″. We allowed spaces for things like the “PC XP” (Extended Performance), or “PC AP” (Advanced Performance). While we naming people went crazy when people got it wrong, all of our thrashing was for naught. At the end of the day, the law was based on what was stamped on the product. My personal favorite was the “PC Jr” which followed the architecture but then lower-cased the last letter. The product itself was a complete disaster, and partly because the name was so diminutive or misunderstood, the product was only released in the U.S. That however was enough to tarnish IBM’s image in the PC business for quite sometime, until we came up with the brilliant retrofit name “Thinkpad”. A Thinkpad was a standard issue 3×4″ leather notebook we all carried around in our suits.