Quite a few years ago I can remember watching a snippet of an interview with the pop group S-Club 7 where they were asked what the “S” stood for. Now we’re having to ask the same question of tech manufacturers.
When S-Club 7 answered that question, they laughed and said it could stand for whatever you wanted it to – which I thought was a particularly brave answer considering some of the pretty choice words that immediately sprung to my mind.
In the last year or so, technology companies seem to have taken a leaf out of the bubblegum pop group’s – undoubtedly ghostwritten – book and began liberally applying nonsensical Ss to any product they like.
First of all it seemed to just be limited to mobile phones, with the Samsung Galaxy S and the HTC Desire S being the most notable examples. But now we are being “treated” to even more, and it’s not just mobiles.
So far at the Berlin technology show IFA 2011 we have seen the Sony Tablet S and the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S and now it is even spreading to accessories with the Samsung Galaxy Note coming packaged with an “S Pen”.
What’s with all the letter suffixes?
Al Warman has spoken before about the ridiculous product names that pieces of tech are subjected to and I don’t think that will ever change. What makes me even more annoyed is that now they seem to be so low on ridiculous names that they are just starting to add ridiculous letters to the end of old names.
Samsung recently announced its latest naming “convention” for its mobile phones and finally got around to saying what its S stood for. The system consists of each mobile having a letter at the end of its name that stands for either S (Super smart), R (Royal), W (Wonder), M (Magical) or Y (Young).
Now yes, that means these letters actually do stand for something, but they sound perilously close to the lyrics of a certain late 90s pop group. Is it really that difficult to come up with a name that doesn’t sound like a theme park ride?
Are you wowed by the chance to own a Magical mobile? Or will a Royal phone get you upgrading early? It’s all a bit random, but better than slapping an “S” at the end of everything.
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