Jobs iMac codenames revealed!

11/05/09 11:36

Cutl of Mac has an interview with Ken Segall, a former creative director at TBWA/Chiat/Day, best known as Apple’s longtime advertising agency. The major focus is Segall’s claim to be the man responsible for virtually every major Macintosh marketing idea of the past decade and a half. Says Ken “I’m the author of the Think Different campaign, and the guy who came up with the whole ‘i’ thing, starting with iMac.”

It sounds a lot like a guy who’s now stuck creating web ads for Dell reliving his Glory Days, though Segall does drop the revelation that Steve Jobs originally hated the name iMac, and had a list of his own names -- which the rest of the team thought were absolute high-tech horseapples. He describes one Steve-generated name as so bad “it would curdle your blood.”

Okay -- now we’re interested.

Ken doesn’t get specific about the SteveNames, but thanks to a guy we know who used to ride-share with a chick who once dated the landscaper at One Infinite Loop, we’ve managed to track down a copy of Steverino’s original baby-name list for the iMac. With apologies to David Letterman, here they are...

Steve Jobs’ Top Ten iMac Name Suggestions Rejected By Ken Segall

10. Avatar
9. Synergy
8. MacNext
7. Rounded, Flattened Cube
6. Lisa 97
5. James Bondi
4. MobileMe
3. MacGoldblum
2. Chumby
1. iPod

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