Similarly, Yahoo insists on being called "Yahoo!" in their branding guidelines, but it just makes the writer look like an idiot. There's no reason you have to stick to the chosen name of a corporation if the chosen name is cutesy and dumb. :-)
And on the contrary, it was rumored that Microsoft named Xbox One so that people would start calling it "the One." To my knowledge, this never worked, but instead "xbone" stuck better.
I've noticed this, bht ahve never been sure why. Maybe some marketing guy can offer insight here? I don't see this making a huge difference. It seems as though they want it referred to as a proper noun? I guess maybe it increases significance or something?
Foreigners, does Apple do this in other languages, too?
They've tried it in France but it didn't work at all and was joked upon (among other things). They now use a pronoun in marketing materials. Weirdly enough, they insist on using 'iPhone' as a proper noun in Canadian French.
