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Industrial Design Excellence Awards 2004
burgburgburg writes "The IDEA 2004 awards (Industrial Design Excellence Awards) have been announced. Apple won 2 Gold (for the iPod Mini and the G5), a Silver (for the iSight) and a Bronze (for the Apple Wireless Keyboard). Some comments: 'Like a modern touchstone the iPod Mini is a product people will love to hold. The designers skillfully integrated the satin aluminum case with flush controls and a simple touchpad interface to create a jewel-like piece of technology.' - Monty Montague, IDSA, Design Principal, BOLT. 'The G5 is impressive with visually lithe qualities and a host of thoughtful and innovative user features wrapped in aluminum. Its well-engineered technical features, such as its cooling system and internal component mounts, are honestly and elegantly executed. The G5's aesthetic is a pure and graceful expression of Apple's philosophical precept of leaving no detail un-designed. This is what results when engineering and design play nice with each other.' - Christopher Alviar, IDSA, Principal, CG/A"
I have friends who never even WANT to open their computer, and they happen to have Macs. Want to add storage? Buy an external, supported FW drive. Network? Built in.
PC owners are a different breed. They LIKE opening the case. They LIKE planning their next upgrade. They LIKE replacing heatsinks and then benchmarking the performance improvements.
This being said, the vast majority of people really should buy Macs.
But don't pretend that PCs and Macs are the same, just with a different OS and mouse - they're different concepts.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
The reason Apple make good designs is that rather than trying to fit as much as they can onto everything, they try to take as much off, so that there isn't anything unneccesary.
;)
Take the iPod Mini for instance, they only have one control, but they have all the functions that you could do with 6 buttons (left, right, buttons 1-4).
However, The most important lesson is that we should all make everything out of Aluminium. take a look at Lian Li cases, which are also very attractive
Well Slashdot could be like some other sites and just put out news of all the cool stuff and awards that Microsoft produced and won. Apple products are often ahead of its time in a lot of details. So viewing apple products is like seeing what will be available in the future. Besides there is a lot of stuff that Slashdot doesn't display on the site that is apple related. Checkout out macslash and many of the apple related sites it will make slashdot seem calm in comparison. Basically now that OSX is unix based it has became Geek Friendly.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The fireWire and USB2 Ports are there to be used.
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While the removal of a PCI slot and a second 5.25" bay is a slight tradeoff I don't see it as a major step backwards. While anyone can blurt out a hundred of reasons why you may need the extra bays and slots. But the truth is that most people won't use them. External USB and Firewire devices are getting more affordable and closer to the prices of internal equipment (unlike 10 years ago where where was a huge difference) PCI slots are no longer as important as they were before especially with integrated Modems, Sound, Ethernet, and Video (Well Video is rarely pci based anymore) There isn't much need anymore for PCI like they use to. With USB memory sticks becoming very affordable with a large sizes (a 512k stick $80) There is not much of a need for extra 5.25 bays for extra Optical Drives for most uses. Yes there will be some people who will need more space but most dont.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
It's price, in my experience at least. There are standard PC component manufacturers who come close to (although not quite as good as, IMO) Apple but to build a system using absolute top quality bits you'll be paying a similar premium to buying an Apple. Apple don't just invest money in design, they put it into making their hardware from the best materials - you won't find liquid cooling in a Dell, Toshiba notebooks don't come in titanium/aluminium cases. Equally though, Dell and Toshiba machines don't cost anything like Apples.
As for the removal of a PCI slot, how is even the rather above-average user held back by this? The G5 has on-board optical in/out, FireWire 400 & 800, USB 2.0, Serial ATA, GHz ethernet, modem, bluetooth (opt), 802.11g wireless (opt), and all AGP vidcards can drive two screens. What, exactly, does even the hardcore Mac user need in the missing 4th PCI slot? 3 PCI-X slots seems not even remotely a limitation.
There is and always has been a distinctly superior "feel" to Macintosh hardware. It is a fortunate thing that now that feel is matched by unmatched stability, functionality, and performance.
blakespot
-- Heisenberg may have slept here.
iPod Hacks.com
If you notice, everything that won an award, is, no matter how complex, relatively simple.
None of the winning products had useless features or sails hanging off the side. These products had what they needed, and only that, to fulfill their purpose. take the winning website design, it is one of the most basic and simple designs for a site you can probably find, its simple to navigate, and is quite fast.
What is hard to understand is that why more compaines - mainly pc hardware companies don't take note. There weren't any tower PCs on the list, or websites filled with pop-up and banner ads. I think we can all learn alot if we just pay attention.
By the same logic, the hood of your car should be bolted shut, only to be opened using a wrench or some other more specialized instrument.
Making it harder to get inside of your computer is just silly. If you don't want someone getting inside, put a lock on it. The "Access Is Everything" section shows that the latch on the G5 has a spot for a lock.
How did you learn how to fix hardware? I'm guessing most of the people on slashdot started by fearlessly cracking open their computer case, without any real clue what they'd find inside. And I bet I'm not the only one that first did it at least 10 years ago, before we all had easy access to the internet, where we could quickly find lots of specs and photographs to help us. Trial and error is one of the best ways to learn, and computers are getting cheaper all the time, so why not let someone poke around inside?
Yeah, if someone in my family was touching the inside of my computer, I'd be upset too. Not because they didn't know what they're doing, but because it's MY computer, paid for by me, and them messing with it is just disrespectful. If I was still living at home, and it was the Family computer, I don't have much right to complain, even if I did spend most every waking hour on it. My mom has just as much right to look inside that computer as I do. In fact, I wish she would, because the more she learns, the more she can fix herself, and the less I get annoyed.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
It no longer matters how clean the code is; it matters how nifty the case is.
Completely untrue, both in the case of Apple and Google.
For Apple, the software they write is tight, powerful, well designed, and elegant. You can reach common functions easily, and the consistency between applications means you don't ever have to do such things as guessing whether "Preferences" is under "File" or "Window".
OS X, iLife, and other Apple software are examples of what well-designed software should be. As a software architect, I am consistently impressed at the dedication Apple has for putting out not only beautiful but rock-solid pieces of software.