Legal tussles over trademarks aside, it's hard to imagine the iPhone ever being called anything else. But Apple had some alternative names up its sleeve, and longterm commercial collaborator Ken Segall — author of Insanely Simple — has shared some of the potential options at a talk attended by 9to5Mac.

Apple apparently wanted to leverage the iPod brand directly; "Telepod" and "Tripod" were all on the table at one point, the former obviously referring to the product's phone capability, with the latter calling out its three discrete functions as a phone, iPod, and internet communications device. Another mooted name was "Mobi," a "creative" play on the word "mobile." And finally, Segall revealed that the iPhone could have been called "iPad," highlighting how the two products shared an intertwined development process.