Wired
I have a mobile phone number that I have been using since college. The first reaction to almost everyone seeing it is “a lot of 4s.” There are already three 4s in just 11 digits. As for why there are so many 4s, it’s not because many people feel that this number is unlucky and unwilling to use it. At the time, I was 18 years old and I was still a firm materialist. It.
Speaking of this kind of taboo on numbers, of course the West also has it, that is the famous “13”. They think this is an ominous number, so they will avoid it in many places. You will not see “13” on the floor, room number, address, and seat. Even Microsoft Office has jumped directly from version 12 to 14.
The new iPhone is about to be released, and the “Thirteen Fragrances” that have been highly anticipated by Chinese users seem to be unsavory in the eyes of European and American users. In a survey of 3,050 Apple users in the United States initiated by SellCell, about one-fifth of the users would be disgusted The name “iPhone 13”.
If nothing unexpected happened, the name of the new iPhone in September should have been “iPhone 13”, but the road to the naming of the iPhone was a lot of surprises.
On January 9, 2007, Apple released the iPhone. Yes, it was simply the word “iPhone” without any suffix. A new generation of iPhone was released the following year, but it was not called iPhone 2, but was named iPhone 3G because of its support for 3G networks. So, should the next iPhone be called iPhone 4? No, Apple chose to add the “S” suffix, which means “Speed”. As a result, iPhone 3GS pioneered the product upgrade strategy of iPhone “S suffix”. The appearance of digital models was updated, and the experience of S models was upgraded.
Until 2017, Apple launched a new generation of iPhone, which is no different from iPhone 7 except for the glass back cover. It is such an iPhone that can no longer be “7S”, but it is directly named iPhone 8. At the same time, Apple also made a decision to “fight against ancestors”. In order to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the birth of the iPhone and skip the number 9, it directly named the new iPhone iPhone X with the 10 “X” in the Roman numeral. For the first time. Later, iPhone expanded a lot of suffixes in addition to “S”, such as mini, Pro, Max and so on.
Although it is uncertain whether there is an iPhone 13 or not, Apple does not look like a superstitious company. After all, “13” has long appeared in the A13 processor and iOS 13.
Let’s take a look at whether other mobile phone manufacturers have used the name “13”. First of all, I found it from the previous absolute overlord Nokia. After more than a dozen pages, there was no “13”, except for 5132, 6131. In the middle of the number. Then I went through Samsung, Motorola, Sony… and none of them!
In fact, the naming methods of major mobile phone manufacturers that adopted machine-sea tactics were quite complicated. It was not until the advent of the iPhone that the names of mobile phones became simple. But I looked through the flagship products of mobile phone manufacturers over the years, and I still couldn’t find a model named “13”. They let themselves go one by one.
Take Huawei’s Mate series as an example. The first generation of Mate was released in 2013, and Mate 2 came out in March 2014 a year later. It stands to reason that Mate 3 should be next? But Huawei didn’t. It straddled the three numbers of 4, 5, and 6, and released Mate 7 in September of the same year. Later, 8, 9, and 10 are still playing cards according to common sense, but after Mate 10, Huawei directly launched the Mate 20. Good guy, this directly counts up to ten. The same is true for Huawei’s P series, after P2 is P7, and after P10 is P20.
Samsung’s Galaxy Note and S series jumped directly from 10 to 20. They were all followed by 20 after 10, and 13 did not even have a chance to play.
There is a more confusing vivo. X1 is followed by X3, and X3 is followed by X5. I was about to think that it only used odd numbers, X6 appeared, followed by X7 and X9… The most powerful thing is that vivo did not give it at all. The chance of X10’s appearance was directly introduced to X20, and then there were totally irregular numbers like 21, 23, and 27 all the way to 30. However, after X30, it is not X40, but X50… The number used for naming gradually expands, and it feels like the next step will have to be 100 or 200.
Anyway, after going through such a big circle, I still haven’t found a mobile phone named “13”. Do you think the iPhone will be the first? And will the name of the phone affect your purchase choice?