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If the order of events were different, what might we be calling smartphones? (lemmy.zip)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I had this shower thought earlier and I actually wanted to post it in that community. The name I came up with was SmartWalkman, but later I realized that Walkman is Sony specific, so I doubt other companies would’ve gone for that name, but I didn’t want to let this shower thought slip so here I am now asking you guys.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

iPods had an 82% share of the US market at the time the term was first used.

https://www.theregister.com/2004/10/12/ipod_us_share/

At the time a "broadcast" to you iPod made the name podcast pretty understandable.

And there's not much else I could think of to call it given technology at the time.

MP3 player was the generic term. But MP3 cast feels clunky.

I did hear audioblog used. But they weren't all blogs.

It really comes down to the fact that at the time everyone knew "pod" meant "iPod" and that's it.