WePad changes its name to WeTab. Did Apple force it?

Neofonie, the company behind the WePad has just announced that the name of the device has changed to the WeTab.

While the name “WePad” was pretty silly and sure seemed close to “iPad”, it’s awfully late in the development cycle to be changing the name of the device.  They won’t say why they changed names (other than marketing jargon to back it up), but one has to wonder if Apple forced them to.  It’s also possible that they were concerned that Apple might force them to change it later, and they figured that a pre-release name change was better than a post-release change.  I agree.

Here is their official statement, which can be found (in German) on their Facebook page:

To clearly differentiate our products within the international market for tablet computers, as of today we have changed the product name of our tablet computer from WePad to WeTab. Similarly, the company formerly known as WePad GmbH will now trade under WeTab GmbH. This change only concerns the name of the product and company. All other particulars and pre-orders are not affected.