Most tech companies adopt curious names – Netflix, Flickr, Microsoft, Bitly. Some choose names for their futuristic sound; others drop vowels in order to secure cheap Web addresses. Either way, few embrace the extreme simplicity of a moniker like Apple.
Steve Jobs and co-founder Steve Wozniak almost went with "Executek."
Isaacson writes that "the Steves" had that Hollywood-villain-sounding name on their short list. Executek, which is actually now the name of a different tech firm, was passed over, of course, along with "Matrix Electronics" and "Personal Computers Inc."
So, why Apple?
Before the company took off, Jobs would visit the commune-style All-One Farm in Oregon for months at a time. The name came to him during one of his stays there.
"I was on one of my fruitarian diets," he told Isaacson. "I had just come back from the apple farm. It sounded fun, spirited, and not intimidating. Apple took the edge off the word 'computer.' "
