Kara Swisher

Recent Posts by Kara Swisher

Memo to Geek Dudes (and Dudettes): The Inevitable Maxi Pad Jokes About the iPad Are Lame (And Steve Jobs Doesn't Care Anyway)

Well, that didn’t take long–even as Apple CEO Steve Jobs was launching the new iPad tablet computer today at an event in San Francisco, legions of geeky dudes–and also a lot of women too–let fly with the feminine-protection jokes.

It is the name, iPad, that Apple (AAPL) chose for its newest device that sent them deep into wink-wink-nudge-nudge territory about how it sounded like a Maxi Pad and would hurt the brand.

Get it? Get it! Like a tampon! My seven-year-old could come up with a cleverer comparison.

But Silicon Valley being what it is, this is exactly what you get. And that goony meme has definitely now swept out into the mainstream now.

But, visiting the demo room after the launch and chatting with my All Things Digital partner Walt Mossberg–with BoomTown listening nearby–Apple CEO Steve Jobs dismissed all the incoming he said he expected to receive about the name.

“You forget, but they made fun of iPod name when it came out,” he said, in part. “What matters is the product and what it means to consumers.”

Jobs noted that in a year’s time, the name iPad will become rote to people, as long as they like the mobile device and consider it innovative and its software useful.

In addition, he said it was an inevitable brand extension from iPod and iPhone.

“Plus the fonts look great together…iPod, iPhone, iPad,” he said.

As for the feminine-protection jokes, Jobs only smiled his patented “whatever” smirk.

Indeed, whatever, dudes.

In any case, here is that MadTV iPad video from the now defunct television show a while back, which is the only funny joke so far:

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There’s a lot of attention and PR around Marissa, but their product lineup just kind of blows.

— Om Malik on Bloomberg TV, talking about Yahoo, the September issue of Vogue Magazine, and our overdependence on Google