orthography - How do you spell wifi / Wi-Fi / WiFi?


This is probably related to whether one should capitalize Internet or not. I am looking for the correct spelling of wifi when referring to a wireless connection to the Internet. I want to tell the users of my iPhone app that they cannot use their cellular network to watch the HD videos.


If I use the capitalized and hyphenated version as seen on Wikipedia, will I be referring to the Wi-Fi brand rather than the concept of wifi?



"Wi-Fi" is a trademark of the Wi-Fi Alliance and the brand name for products using the IEEE 802.11 family of standards.



Some dude on Meta.stackoverflow made this claim with no explanation:



WiFi" is a bit better than "wifi" as it asserts the etymology, compare history of usage of "hifi" from which it derives. – Steve-o Aug 29 at 3:59




Answer



Since you have an iPhone app and it would seem that Apple/iPhone use the term "Wi-Fi" throughout then I would use the same for consistency. iPhone users expect to see "Wi-Fi".


However, there could be a regional difference...



Note: iOS devices sold in China may use the term Wireless LAN (WLAN) instead of Wi-Fi.



Reference: http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1398


(EDIT: For comparison, my Nokia E65 (sold in the UK) uses the terms "WLAN" or "Wireless LAN" exclusively, no mention of "Wi-Fi" or its derivatives.)


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