Get your Apple device model name in a readable format

With OSX Lion, when you select « About this Mac » => « More Info » (or open the System Profiler), it displays your computer model name in a readable format.

After a little snooping with HTTPScoop, I found that the name comes from an Apple server.

System profiler will send the last 3 characters of your machine serial number and the server will send back the machine name, in xml format.

My iMac serial ends with « 5RU » so calling the url below and passing « 5RU » as a parameter:

curl -o - "http://support-sp.apple.com/sp/product?cc=5RU&lang=en_US"

gives:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<root>
<name>CPU Name</name>
<configCode>iMac (27-inch, Late 2009)</configCode>
<locale>en_US</locale>
</root>

 

Changing the locale works:

curl -o - "http://support-sp.apple.com/sp/product?cc=5RU&lang=fr_CH"

gives:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<root>
<name>CPU Name</name>
<configCode>iMac (27 pouces, fin 2009)</configCode>
<locale>fr_FR</locale>
</root>

 

It works also with the iPhone:

curl -o - "http://support-sp.apple.com/sp/product?cc=A4S&lang=en_US"

gives:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<root>
<name>CPU Name</name>
<configCode>iPhone 4</configCode>
<locale>en_US</locale>
</root>

Enjoy.