iPod Air: Prophetic Or Wishful Thinking? You Decide
Posted on 24 March 2008, at 1:48 pm, by Judie Lipsett
Back in January, I wrote:
Of course Mike has has own take on everything: he opines that the MacBook Air is the first in a line of possible thin and light Air-branded devices. Could he be right?
“Nevertheless, I believe that the Air designation will not be limited to the new MacBook. I firmly believe that an iPod Air is coming and that it will be the rumored tablet computer from Apple.”
And now today, he writes that Apple now owns the iPod Air domain:
Click on this: http://www.ipodair.com and watch where it goes!
Oddly, this Whois record doesn’t state Apple ownership.
My questions: can anyone point a website that they own anywhere they want, and pay for the redirection? If so, why would anyone bother?
Or could Mike really be on to something…
Related posts:
March 24th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Yes – Macrumors.com did this with the macbookair.com (which Apple doesn’t own) — and they publicly stated that they did the same (and admitted ownership)…..
March 24th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Sorry just looked – Apple apparently does own Macbook air — see this thread for the background on the Macbookair domain:
http://forums.macrumors.com/sh.....p?t=414134
March 24th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
I guess we shall see what unfolds…
But thanks for the redirect clarification – I never knew you could do that.
March 24th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
As for why someone would want to redirect ….
Suppose you want to keep others from registering a name similar to yours – for example geardiary.org or geardiary.net – you can register them yourself, then redirect all traffic to them to geardiary.com
March 24th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Hi Bill, I understand redirecting in the circumstance you mentioned, but I was wondering why someone would redirect to a site they don’t own.
For instance, if I had bought http://www.ipodair.com, and instead of doing something with the site, I redirected it to http://www.apple.com – which I don’t own.
Obviously this is a hypothetical, as I certainly didn’t buy and don’t own ipodair.com.
March 24th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Maybe somebody is hoping that by registering and popularizing a name that Apple might want, they can charge a nice sum to sell it to them at some point in the future. Apple’s web master(s) should be able to tell where people coming to their site come from, and they might want to preclude the owner from doing something less friendly than a simple redirection should they have a mind to do that later. After all, Apple undoubtedly spends huge sums to create their brands, so why run the risk of letting someone else have control of a name they’re promoting, even if it is only a web address.
March 24th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
I bet that the owner is trying to avoid the wrath of Apple while trying to sell the domain (assuming Apple hasn’t already taken control)..
March 24th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Hmmmm. Then that might explain this –
Reposting a portion of an email from Mike Cane:
April 9th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
The 7th Gen iPod (The new Apple Tablet Mobile Wi-Fi ?)
The iPod Air name? now that everyone is now becoming acclimated with the ” Air ” moniker.. maybe the future holds a branding by Apple with the ” Air ” name following the iPod, thus iPod Air.
Several Months ago…
Quotes regarding the Macbook Air name (MacRumors):
Thread:
http://forums.macrumors.com/sh.....mp;page=11
” Now I read messages on how MacBook and MacBook Pro name are “timeless” and such, but MacBook Air name is lame. And the little sheep goes “baaaa, baaaa, baaa” all day long.”
“MacBook Air would indeed be a ridiculous name… forgivable only if this machine actually replaces the battery with a built-in compressed air energy storage tank (and microturbine generator). ”
“I really doubt it would be called Macbook Air, because the domain name was JUST registered yesterday. I don’t think Apple would be so dumb as to not pre-register the domain name, even if they did it anonymously.”
Hmmm this sounds all too familiar… doesn’t it?
Maybe Apple has learned to register the name and/ or aquire it before product release. Albeit it’s is easy to create a sub-domain i.e., http://www.Apple.com/ipodair , thus direct users from the homepage to sub-pages.
Does the iPod Air name still sound ridiculous? Sure sounds like it’s becoming a solid possibility/reality..I would’nt count it out so fast. In the Fall of 08 we may all be hailing this new iPod Air (Mobile Tablet PC.)
Regarding,
URL iPodair.com
Some are saying that the domain iPodair.com is cybersquatting by some random individual. I think not because the user is NOT gaining any revenue from such actions by forwarding it to Apple.com/store etc. The true act of cybersquatting, technically speaking is earning revenue from it’s own respective website to gain revenue from a copyrighted name/image. So this theory is negated.