Goal with domain a mystery

Apple has taken public ownership of the applepico.com web domain, records show. Many of the company's domain activities are handled through a San Francisco firm called MarkMonitor. Applepico.com has in fact been linked to MarkMonitor since 2005, but only today was Apple identified as the registrant. Previously the registrant was listed as DNStination, in reality a branch of MarkMonitor used to safeguard the anonymity of clients.

The reason for the change is unknown. On a simple level Apple may have simply owned the domain since 2005, and no longer had any reason to conceal it. The domain was registered just months after the introduction of the iPod nano; Apple may have wanted to ensure competitors couldn't exploit a similar name, or it might've wanted to hold onto "Pico" for another possible iPod. At the same time, ipodpico.com wasn't registered until January 2007, and still isn't under Apple's control.

Another possibility is that "Pico" is a recent interest of Apple's, referring to a product the company is planning or considering. In the past it has filed for patents related to pico projectors, but there has been no evidence of the technology being put into production.

by MacNN Staff