[pohl]

Having been named after the PowerPC architecture probably accounts for that one.

[philwelch]

No, that's the Power Mac. The PowerBook predates the PowerPC by years--the first PowerBook was in 1991, and the first PowerPC-based PowerBook was in 1995, while the first Power Mac was in 1994.

[pohl]

You're right, the first was released in October of 1991. But look at what else Apple joined in the same month:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM_alliance

Looks to me like they were just establishing the brand in advance of the first chip.

[philwelch]

That makes absolutely no sense--the "Power Macintosh" wasn't unveiled until the PowerPC chips were actually shipping, because the brand denoted the presence of the new processor. Why would you name a computer brand after a processor it doesn't have? It's like calling a 386-based 486-era laptop a "Penta" because you anticipate that future versions of it years in the future will have Pentium processors.

[pohl]

Well, branding is about many things, but making sense is not among them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand_management#Functions_of_b...