Look, I had a Mac in 1984 and an SE a few years later. In the mid-90s I
moved away from the platform, but came back in 2001 because it had BSD in it.
The iBook didn't look like any thing else. I had a sunflower Mac: what the heck
looked like that? As I move further closer to my senior years, I got to tell
you,
that was the best as far as being easiest on a bi-focal guy. It's still
running, but I
can't get a safe browser to run on it. (Well... maybe Linux on
PowerPC would
work.) There was the white
G5, turns out the hardware wasn't
quite up to par, but again, it didn't really look
like anything offered at the
time. There was the PowerMac G5, did you ever look
inside one of those things.
Amazingly beautiful. I could go on, and
perhaps you could show me
how
someone else had products that looked like the products I mentioned. But,
then
we are quibbling over my use of "innovative" and I concede that it is a word
overused to the point of meaningless. What I was trying to say is
that
Apple wants its products to be recognizable, so any one walking past can
tell
with a glance that it's one of theirs. Apple would also like the person walking
by to think
"That's a nice looking computer." and by seeing it in use, receive
a passive
word-of-mouth endorsement. That's their plan. Many people resist or
place their
value in other things besides aesthetics and that's their
right. A few
days back someone noticed that the Braun style of industrial
design for other
devices was being mined by Apple. Copying! Now, I'd say it was
innovation
because it was bringing an external aesthetic into a new context.
When one
applies the sensibility used to design a razor or a toaster for
something else, that is moving the world forward. Now, over the past decade,
there has been a greater design sensibility brought to all computers. Apple led
the way and the others followed because they are hoping that individual,
recognizable design and branding can hold off the consequences of the race to
the bottom for being a
maker of an Intel computer running Windows. High
margins is the one Apple
feature other computer makers truly wish to
copy. Of course, others are
free to disagree,
and it doesn't really
matter if I'm right or wrong. Good design is subjective. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
| 
