How do you say iPhone X

by Volker Weber

Sketch

Last night I started this Twitter poll to find out how many people say 'iPhone 10' vs 'iPhone X'.

Apple reps are trained to say 'iPhone 10' and they will even correct you when you say 'iPhone X'. It's a fun game. You can try it as often as you like and they always respond with 'iPhone 10'. I did this recently in a briefing and then I confessed I was trolling them. We had a good laugh and one admitted it took her a while.

We have been there before with OS X, which followed OS 9. Apple went through 12 versions (10.0 to 10.11) until they called it macOS again. It is going to be interesting to see how Apple brands the successors to the iPhone 8 and iPhone X.

PS: Best comment was from Scott:

My initial reaction was to think "but they're both pronounced the same!" I guess Roman numerals are a bigger thing in the US than in Germany. :-)

Apple trying to make Germans say 10 seems futile. For Americans it's completely natural. The 51st Super Bowl was called Super Bowl LI and Americans have no difficulty decoding this as 50 plus 1.

Speaking of numbers: about one in ten people who saw the poll voted on it. And the results are stable after about 50 votes.

Comments

Aus meiner Sicht müssten es 3 Optionen sein.

1. iPhone 10 "ten"
2. iPhone 10 "Zehn"
3. iPhone X "ixs / exs"

Sascha Westphal, 2017-10-11

Deshalb steht da 10. Da kann jeder in seiner Sprache entscheiden, wie er es sagt. Mir ist gleich, ob es zehn oder ten ist.

Volker Weber, 2017-10-11

What happened to iPhone 9?

Andy Mell, 2017-10-11

My initial reaction was to think "but they're both pronounced the same!" I guess Roman numerals are a bigger thing in the US than in Germany. :-)

Scott Hanson, 2017-10-11

iPhone Xing

Volker Jürgensen , 2017-10-11

I want to say X but I’m anal and I know the correct pronunciation is “ten.” Or maybe that’s just the engineer precision in me.

Bill Greenberg, 2017-10-11

I know it's supposed to be called "ten" but I think it's much cooler to say "x". Should be followed by the iPhone XX (Double X) and XXX (Triple X) in the next years.

Jochen Kattoll, 2017-10-11

iPhone Ching
(given the price)

Craig Wiseman, 2017-10-11

Da steht X also sage ich auch X. Es heißt ja auch nicht Malcolm Zehn.

Christian Just, 2017-10-11

I call it the „beta-iPhone“. ;)

It‘s nice and all ... but I have a feeling like this iPhone isn’t ready yet. The next iteration will be though. And then i might go for it.

Johannes Matzke, 2017-10-11

Ich sage iPhone X, genauso wie ich Mac OS X sage.
Wir sind doch hier nicht bei den Römern ;-)
Und die heise Zeitschrift heißt ja schließlich auch nicht 9 (iX). Oder doch?

Manfred Wiktorin, 2017-10-11

Did anyone ever say 'Mac OS ex' when that arrived back in 2001?

Nick Daisley, 2017-10-12

It's just inconsequent and that makes it so weird: Counting Arabic from 1 to 8 and then switching to Roman for '10'.
And why not iOS X? In this case Apple kept to numbers.

A loophole in Apple's CI-guide.

Thomas Langel, 2017-10-12

Nick, sure, why? 🤗

Hubert Stettner, 2017-10-12

I think it should be called 10 (in whatever language you will) - just think about it, as "X" in russian will sound like a crow will talk to you (russian x = ch as in german aCHt).

Michael Witzorky, 2017-10-13

For me, the "X" represent the availability of the product..


:-)

Roland Dressler, 2017-10-13

Ich dachte das X steht für 10 Jahre. Vielleicht heißt dann das nächste iPhone 2018

Volker Jürgensen , 2017-10-14

the X stands for eXpensive :-)

thorsten ebers, 2017-10-16

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