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Earlier this week, Apple announced the “iPhone 3G,” which will, as of July 11th, be sold in Apple and AT&T stores instead of the “original” iPhone, which has since ceased production and is now being referred to as the “2G iPhone.” See what they did here?

The “xG” identifier follows the word “iPhone” in one instance, but precedes it in another. The confusion isn’t just in the word order, but in what they mean by “xG”. This is because “3G,” in the iPhone’s case, refers to the ability of the device to utilize the third generation of cellular network technology (i.e. UMTS). By “2G,” Apple refers to the device being able to utilize only the second-generation of cellular network technology (i.e. GSM). Yet, the 2G iPhone utilizes EDGE, which is faster than other 2G services, and is more commonly considered a “bolt-on” technology for 2G or 2.5G networks (i.e. a 2.75G network technology). Marketing types at Apple clearly don’t like the idea of calling the original iPhone the “iPhone 2.75G,” so they rounded down to make the difference in number more appealing to simple-minded consumers.

Then there’s the fact that the 2G iPhone is the first-generation of iPhone, adding confusion since “2G” preceding “iPhone” implies that we’re talking about the second-generation device, not second-generation network. Obviously, there is no third-generation iPhone, and there likely won’t be for another year. Regardless, the whole iPhone naming scheme is broken, and that’s pretty sad considering the line has only been around for a year. Apple may release pretty devices, but they hit a bump in the road with their name scheme this time around. “iPhone 2″ would have worked better, and that’s not even original.

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