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Interview With iMac designer, Jonathan Ive
rleyton writes "The Independent has an interesting interview with Jonathan Ive, the designer of the new imac (and the iBook, the iPod and original iMac...)" It's actually a pretty interesting
even if you think the new iMac is repulsive. Personally I dig it.
This may have been the best trick of all. Forget the round motherboard or the pivoting head. This guy and his team kept the whole thing under pretty tight lip for almost two years!
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
Granted, the new iMac is beautiful on the surface. But that great design is not limited to the outer shell. Check out what the iMac looks like on the inside. This Apple draft service manual has great pictures of the guts of the iMac.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Because building decent speakers into a small design is pretty impossible. It comes with one speaker built into the housing, and the middle and high end models come with some reasonable sounding separate Harmon Kardon speakers. The fact is that most people will be quite happy with the sound that comes as standard, and the people that aren't happy with it are likely to have a decent stereo system to plug the iMac into anyway. You can't satisfy the budget conscious and the audiophile at once, so you might as well deal with the budget conscious and let those who want the best sound set up their own stuff, which they'll no doubt be much happier with.
This interview touches on a few concepts that I think today's geeks (and many of yesterday's geeks too) are no longer in touch with.
Quality. Art. The "soul" of a machine.
There is something to be said for the amount of sheer human effort put in to designing a product like this. A Quality product shines in it's attention to human-machine interaction, but is a result of "inner beauty". For those of you who haven't programmed using Cocoa or haven't messed around much with OS X or actually seen and used a recent iMac in person, there's no substitute for the tangible results of Apple's years of dedication.
When I use Mac OS X, I can *feel* that somewhere in Cupertino there's an English major who was losing sleep at nights trying to make the text in the dialog boxes as clear and understandable as possible. When was the last time you felt that way about the latest d/l off of sourceforge?
The subject/object duality is something that premeates the "geek world" - I beg of the programmers and techs out there try to move beyond it. Apple's certainly tried to.
(I'd post more, but I haven't had my coffee yet... )
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"...and Maddest of all, to see Life as it Is, and not as it Should Be."
As posted above even if you dont like his stuff, its different, there are some things I do and dont like, But he seems to be one of the few designers that takes any amount of function into account.
:()
Personally I dont like the new Imac, BUT that really dosent mean SQUAT since Im not a prospective customer. Ill stick with the UltraSparcs.
What matters is Mac people do, and they liked the original, and the I book, I have used both and I can say I came closer than EVER to buying a Apple for the Wife, Part of that was the integrated packaging, part of it "ease of use" etc.
If they almost had me hooked after my last Apple experience (I bought a Lisa when they were new
Im sure they wont have a problem hooking people in.
Does it remind anyone else of their home-ec project gone awary , a slunk of dough , then sticking a pencil in it with a sign, (insert team name here) RULE ! ??? No wonder I failed HomeEc....
Sig went tro...aahemmm.....fishing........
"The thing is, it's very easy to be different, but very difficult to be better. That's what we have tried to do with the new iMac."
Personally, I like the new iMac. Not enough to abandon my 6 month old PC and switch back to Macs, but I think it's a pretty cool computer. No matter what your opinion of Macintosh or their employees is, you have to like what the designer said. So many times in this industry (think about all Microsoft products) people forget that it's easy to make new and different things, the hard part is making reliable, efficient products that truly are "better." I say score one for Macintosh with this new computer, and even if it doesn't sell like hotcakes, they are in good shape if they all think like this guy does.
~ now you know
Say what you may about the new machine, but I've already purchased one for my parents. It's the logical next step, since my father's got an obscenely expensive AV center, and a nice Sony DV camcorder, all of which he set up himself, yet refuses to check his own e-mail because of some ingrained fear of computers being as hard to use as they were 10 years ago. I'm betting this machine will change that for him.
Michael C. Hollinger
Frankly, this is the dumbest design decision ever. If you're trying to make a "simple" computer, why use a dongle that consumers will most certainly forget or lose? What could be more simple than the same connector used on 99% of the world's personal computers?
This is extra stupid, since there is plenty of space to put a standard VGA-out connector on both systems. Additionally, making a custom port and dongle adds to the cost of an already expensive computer.
I'm all for design improvements, but there is no point being proprietary just for the sake of being different.
Virtual PC is a fantastic program. Adding it to the base config will mean:
1) Macs would become more expensive, by the cost of VPC+Win??? - and which version of Windows should they include?
2) every user who chooses Apple to avoid paying MS money would be unable to do so
All in all, this would shrink, not expand, their market share.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
When I use Mac OS X, I can *feel* that somewhere in Cupertino there's an English major who was losing sleep at nights trying to make the text in the dialog boxes as clear and understandable as possible. When was the last time you felt that way about the latest d/l off of sourceforge?
While I agree about SourceForge, OSX is a step down from OS9 in dialog box text (and help in general).
For example, I just love the error "No file services are available at the URL . Try again later or try another URL (server returned error 1)" OSX returns this when it can't connect to an SMB share no matter what the actual reason. Wrong password? Invalid user? No such share? Everything gets the same error.
Worse, the MacOSX Help files are nicely written, but there are so few of them that help is very close to useless. It will tell you how to copy a file, but for anything more complex you're basically SOL.
Still, compared to the average Open Source app, they're amazing.
Eric
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
However, since the introduction of the PPC, mac hardware has generally been respected by the geek community. Now that macs run OS X, the geeks like it even more.
However, there's always going to be somebody who has to bash the mac for whatever reason. But lets face it, in the year 2002 you can't show how cool of a computer user you are by simply bashing Apple.
Now Microsoft on the other hand....
/bin/fortune | slashdotsig.sh
Mostly Mac geeks, since many of us are graphic designers. It's no coincidence ;)
"Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
The trouble with LCD iMacs is the education market. Schools don't buy iMacs just because they are cheaper than iBooks, they buy them because they are more durable.The abuse that a computer takes in a school setting is enough to make me cringe.
Still, I like the idea of having a LCD iMac. It would be cool for me, I'm just not sure that it will work in the education market. (Yeah, I know. Maine bought 38,600 iBooks recently. Still, most schools buy iMacs.)
Despite that,are we facing an Apple come back?
Think about what they've done in the past couple years:
- Nice hardware, growing in leaps and bounds as the market for those things matures (pc133, yes it was late, and yes, it's slower than DDR, but hey, better than pc100), nice processors, removing all relic hardware as necessary (USB instead of ADB, etc). Apple has always done this.
- Making the powerbook g4 was the next step, making a laptop just slightly less powerful than a desktop, *AND* has a battery life to speak of.
- Nice software: OS X. BSD core. No need for them to figure out how to reinvent the wheel with their crappy old OS's--Simply change a few widgets, and call it Darwin, then add a GUI, and Voila! instant OS. With a *LOT* of software available, not to mention the 20 billion BSD hackers, the people that'll keep the Darwin OS up to snuff.
- Totally reengineered interface--Finally a command line that doesn't suck! And for that matter, a GUI that doesn't suck! And multitasking! And all sorts of neat widgets that make techies and non-techies alike scream out "I WANT ONE!"
- Giving computers to schools, making great leaps in hardware, standardizing their video system. I see this as a incredibly brilliant move for Jobs.
All in all, more power to them... They may live, they may struggle, or they may die. They are pushing the user's into a whole new realm; DVD-
R's in affordable systems, laptops that don't suck, and keeping up with technology a lot better than they used to.
What is the LCD drops a pixel or two? You're stuck with a proprietary solution that's loaded with all this great hardware, and you have to either hook up an external monitor, which would ruin the reason you got this thing in the first place, or get an authorized Mac replacement, which would probably be 3/4 of the original price.
... the monitor had to be put on some way, right? It can be taken off and replaced the same way. You'll just have to take it to someone who can do it, just like getting your TV fixed.
I can see your concerns, but
I know this means less control over our own systems, but the Mac crowd is used to getting their whole system in one package - this isn't new AT ALL. It's the PC-clone people that like that aspect, and in terms of Apple's target market, that's a small percentage.
This is why I don't see this post as "interesting", because it's the same "PC's are better because we have more control" argument. Some people don't want control - they want a box (or dome) that sits beautifully on their desk and behaves nicely. This is the Mac market. This will always be the Mac market.
For crying out loud, PC users, GET USED TO IT.
</rant>
----- rL
This isn't flamebait, but isn't this the situation with all laptop vendors? LCDs drop pixels, and on an all-in-one computer (desktop or laptop) you are stuck with it. Did you post this about the netVista or Thinkpad? =)
"You know why you do not see me styling wit my homies? Because I have no homies!!" -Mojo Jojo
I've ordered an iMac mainly because it's not much larger than the Pismo PowerBook I used to put on my desk, compared now with the Blue & White G3 I have (which takes up a lot more space). Then you have the G4 under the dome, with SuperDrive, and 60GB of space and it looks like a good computer.
I don't use my computer for gaming so much, anyway. That's what my PS2 is for. And, I'm more interested in using my computer for organizing media (pictures, mp3s, movies) and using it as my MP3 playback server using iHam on iRye. The iMac will serve this purpose very well.
Besides, it looks great.
Having unfortunately dealt with Compaq, I wholeheartedly agree with your assesment on Compaq. I also now own a PowerMac G4 (I'm a UNIX-head who caught the MacOS X bug).
There luckilly is a big difference between the Compaq's you speak of and the Apple's of today. The biggest difference is that you don't *see* the wackiness. Since
Apple both does the BIOS, and the OS, no nasty hack like hidden partitions or weird NT drivers to get things to work properly.
Unlike the Compaq of the past, Apple doesn't try to make every peice of the pie either. Apple doesn't try to do stuff like make video cards, NIC's, or FUBAR SmartRAID cards. They leave that to other folks. My G4 has a Broadcom Gigabit Ethernet chipset, a normal Geforce2MX, and some outsourced sound chipset. It takes normal PC133 DIMM's, etc. They've learned to outsource & standardize a lot more since Jobs has come aboard. Sun does now too more, but they still manage some of the items on their own (Sun GigE 2.0).
Apple just makes sure that everything works together nicely. From the case, to the chipset, to the BIOS, and to the OS level. They do a beautiful job at it too.
P.S.: I've got a Compaq Proliant 4xPPRO 200 at home. Guess what it's used for? A TV stand (it's covered by a black sheet). I hate those machines with a passion.
That simply is not true. We are obsessed with quantification, as Ive points out. You trust doctors to explain and cure illnesses, and you don't know the science behind it. You probably believe that the colors of your dwelling can have an effect on your emotional disposition
.. sometimes you must carry them, or tilt them, or upgrade them, etc) of tools have an effect on their interaction with them is one of the best illustrations of the complete lack of faith that North Americans exhibit in the importance of design. You may not be able to count your 'happy points', but to suggest that the look of your computer has absolutely no effect on you is rediculous. Just because you can't point the 'HowMuchMoneyDidItMakeMe-o-meter' or the 'HowHappyAmI-o-meter' at the box doesn't mean that the asthetics of a tool do not effect your efficiency, levels of stress, or usage endurance. To listen to designers and architechs proudly explain how the design of a physical environment or tool affected the behaviour of the users and dewellers of their creations is to understand that the less you think about design, and simply place your faith in 'the experts', the more successful it tends to be.
That people do not believe that the asthetics (nevermind that the physical representation, ie, design of a computer does not exist in a vacuum
The speed at which you dismiss design vs. function suggests to me that you've never really given thought or faith to design, and thus never really experienced the benifits of proper industrial design. There is no clear line between function and asthetic, as you put it; a painting is a tool to stimulate parts of your brain that you want to stimulate, where as a tool is no good unless you can stand to look at it, use it, and spend time with it. Given the increase in stress of the average office worker, and the number of hours he or she spends with the tool known as the computer, it is a shame that people seem so quick to dismiss evironmental factors as having an effect on their emotional disposition.
To take it a step furthur, your bedroom is nothing but a tool to get some sleep in, so why not paint it completely black?
"Old man yells at systemd"
Oh come on, I understand arguing performance-vs-costs issues regarding macs vs pcs, yes you can argue that you get more performance for less out of a PC.
But please, please... don't just say you can go and install Linux or *BSD on your Dell machine and boom there you go. That just oozes complete ignorance. Linux/*BSD is not a consumer desktop OS. You know why I like MacOSX? Because with it, I can boot my pc, run Internet Explorer while running Photoshop (the GIMP does not compare, and only geeks that never do any real production work would say it does,) edit my perl code, and then check out my work on my apache server, which includes photos imported from my camera and stills captured from my Digital Video camera. Oh, and then I can edit and save (sucessfully I might add) that word or excel document attachment sent to me by a friend in Office.
Now let's see Linux do that, and better yet... Do it OUT OF THE BOX.
Oh and I don't think Linux has a WM (or more likely X Server) that produces vector-based images for it's windowing architecture.
So NO... you CAN'T JUST install Linux on your dell (which costs pretty much the same, if not only about $100-$200 less)
You are quoting a Microsoft software designer on software design. Wow, that has to redefine either "guts" or "insanity".
Every machine is the creation of a human. Some of those creations have a beauty and functionality surpassing that of others. Part of that can be unquanitifiable, and it is that that is a machine's "soul" - the very essence of what makes it different that cannot be summed up in numbers. Not every human has a mystical bent, but the vast majority do, even in this cynical time. This is why most people buy tables, instead of putting plywood on a bunch of cinderblocks.
Obviously, because you've never used either, and from this and your other comments have no idea what constitutes worth.
Cocoa, meaning the frameworks and objective C language in this case, is the best object oriented programming environment I've ever seen. Perhaps the problem is that it is not difficult enough for you to use? Perhaps you couldn't get enough "cool points" by accomplishing something easily, when there is a harder way to do it?
And "not where the money is"??? OK, it's true you can make more money if you use VB than if you program in Cocoa. I'm not aware of any decent programs written in VB, or any decent programmers who use VB, but whatever floats your boat, I guess.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits