It hardly matters if thehumor is juvenile or can be logically argued against (notepad, mousepad, etc.) the bottom line is that folks are making the jokes and it is becoming a bit of a meme and therefore, yes, it is a marketing blunder. How damaging, probably not much if at all, but a blunder nonetheless.
I heard the same thing about the Nintendo Wii. Didnt seem to hurt it at all.
You’ll take my mindless toilet humour from my cold, dead hands. 
The Register today reports that Apple doesn’t quite own the name iPad. There is a Fujitsu point of sale terminal, handheld, called that. It has a keyboard and runs Windows CE.
A Canadian company an iPad bra btw.
Speaking of juvenile humor…
Thanks for keeping us abreast of the situation!
I read El Reg for good technical coverage and snarky subheadlines on the main page.
The other night Jon Stewart did a bit saying that Apple had just released the iPad, “the name narrowly losing out to ‘TamPod’”.
You know, I don’t remember anyone making fun of the IBM Thinkpad.
It’s just not funny. I mean, seriously, we’re not allowed to use the word “pad” anymore without people making kid jokes? Who the fuck is embarassed by that word? You can’t use the term “writing pad”? Pathetic. Since the jokes aren’t funny, the jokes will go away soon. Everyone made fun of the Wii, and now Sony and Microsoft only dream of the Wii’s sales numbers.
Apple are marketing geniuses. Whatever you wanna say, the fact is the release of this product was front page news in almost every news publication in the world. What other company can say that?
If the iPad is a disappointment - and maybe it will be, not everything about this rollout was handled the way it should have been, most notably the absurd tone of the hype - it won’t be because of the name.
Maybe the real reason people are making fun of the name is because it’s being perceived as a lame product.
That’s because “Thinkpad” is a compound word. The “i” prefix is generally understood to be not part of a compound word, meaning the iPhone is just a phone and iPad is just a pad. When “pad” is inside a compound word it doesn’t carry the feminine hygiene connotation. When “pad” is all by itself – as it is in the name iPad – it generally means sanitary napkin.
No matter how much you huff and puff about how this isn’t the case, it is.
There’s only one way I can imagine for this not to be considered a marketing blunder (yes, even if you personally think the iTampon stuff is stupid and juvenile, the fact that it went viral in a matter of hours does make it a failure on the part of Marketing, aka the people whose job it is to avoid giving the unwashed masses low-hanging fruit like this). And that’s if Apple intentionally announced the iPad three months early to give people time to adjust to the name, a la the Wii. I suspect this theory gives them way too much credit, but keep in mind that Apple often announces products on the eve of their release. The iPhone 3GS was officially unveiled less than a month before its release in the USA. Same with the unibody Macbooks. In both cases, virtually all specs and designs were leaked before the announcement, but they sold like hotcakes anyway. So why not similarly wait to announce the iPad? Maybe because they realized that their product had an easily mockable name, and wanted to get that whole rigamarole out of the way before actually having to sell it.
Let me put it this way: if I was an Apple marketing exec who realized the comedy potential of the name “iPad,” but was faced with an obstinate Steve Jobs who refused to change the name, I sure as hell would demand that we announce the thing early, to give the internet time to empty its clips before the damn thing appeared in stores.
A year from now, when the silly jokes are long forgotten, we’ll see who’s right.
Still owned by IBM, but marketed as the Lenovo Thinkpad, which I’m typing on this very moment.
After reading this article, I’m not convinced that the iPad will still be around in a year to be made fun of.
Normally I’d be right with you on that one.
Except that my first reaction, upon seeing the name, was “Sounds like feminine hygiene product”.
It doesn’t have to be a logical association; it just is.
Yet another iPad commercial.
A review of the iPad from that famed tech reviewer, Pee-Wee Herman.
The hilarious part of that article is AOLnews wondering if Apple is about to flop
A year from now isn’t relevant. The name’s association with feminine hygiene is an indiputable fact observable in the media and on the internet. Your denial of it is simply denying reality.
We could quibble about why it has that association, though I think the compound word explanation is pretty obvious. But there is no disputing that the association exists. If the association fades over time so that a year from now nobody makes the connection anymore it still won’t prove you right because the association is already here.
Your premise attacking the idea that nobody can use the word pad is flawed. Pad is perfectly fine to use as a compound word, ala notepad or writing pad. What you can’t do is use only the word “pad.” That’s the problem with the name iPad.