Seth Godin writes that Apple has spent (wasted?) millions of dollars in legal fees and settlements because it lacks a clear naming architecture for its products.
He also writes:
Then they went back to the Newton strategy, with a twist: Apple iPod. The thing is, the “i” in Mac modified something we knew what it was (a Mac). But what’s a “pod”?
I always figured the “pod” in iPod evolved from “personal audio” (PAud) or maybe “personal audio device” (PAuD). But according to Wikipedia, after a freelance copywriter “saw a prototype, he thought of the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey and the phrase ‘Open the pod bay door, Hal!’…” So now I know.