As The New York Times reports, the long-rumored and much-ballyhooed Apple Watch was announced yesterday to great fanfare. While its feature set includes the latest technological advances, the Apple Watch is arguably most notable for what it omits: an “i” at the beginning of its name. For the past sixteen years, “iBranding” has been a central part of Apple’s success, with names such as iMac, iPhone, iPad, iPod, iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto, iLife, iWork, iBooks, iCloud, and iOS ranking among the most iconic and recognizable brands in the world. Apple has not publicly stated the reason for eschewing the iWatch moniker for its new device, but a contributing factor may have been a desire to avoid a threatened trademark dispute with Swatch over that company’s iSwatch product. Read the full article here.

Reposted from The New York Times.