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"

Comments

fp

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple: Winner of the 2004 Homosexual Design Excellence award

Anyone know

[Sir Haxalot]

When the next generation of iPods will be out?

Who is tired of the billions of Apple articles ?

[phoxix]

I sure am

Go ahead, mod me down, but I'm pretty damn sure loads of other slashdot folk agree with me on this one.

Sunny Dubey

iPod Minis...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to troll, but am I the only one who thinks the iPod minis look like crap? They resemble cheap plastic toys and seem to have been drawn in Photoshop by just drawing a random rectangle and filling it in with an ugly gradient, then pasting the iPod control wheel and screen on it.

The first time I saw a picture of one, I thought it was some amateurish spoof.

Re:iPod Minis...

[Anonymous Coward]

no you're not and between the new river everyone says looks like crap and the ipod/mini ipod, I know which one I like the look of a lot more.

Re:iPod Minis...

[zors]

I thought they werent that great either, but once you actually hold one, you see what they were talkking about. i wouldn't trade my 40 gig ipod for the world, but the mini is a pretty well designed music player.

Re:iPod Minis...

[Anonymous Coward]

I never realized that you could photoshop a physical object.

I generally don't pay attention to marketing pictures, and they really are nothing special in the pictures, but hold one in your hand.

Re:iPod Minis...

[Anonymous Coward]

I was just talking about the aesthetics.

Hooray for Apple

[neuro.slug]

This, of course, is not surprising news to most of us. What's confusing to me is the complete inability of other PC manufacturors to produce intelligently-designed computers. I mean, c'mon ... most PCs nowadays still require you to remove a handful of screws to get inside the case. And once you're inside, it doens't get any prettier. I have yet to see any other computer maker come close to Apple's design.

-- n

Re:Hooray for Apple

[lachlan76]

Should we make it any easier for the average user who doesn't know what they are doing to get into the computer case? Or would we all be better off by only allowing people who at least have a screwdriver or a hex driver into the case. I would really be scared to see someone in my family touching the inside of my computer.

Re:Hooray for Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

what? you mean like the early imacs that used to overheat so much that you couldn't upgrade the cdrom to a burner. yeah, great design by them there.

"most PCs nowadays still require you to remove a handful of screws to get inside the case."

for the average computer user who doesnt upgrade his computer all the time whats the downside? And for those who mod there computers, they would get the right case for there needs.

for others, the more screws the better. I dont want some casual thief getting quick access to computer to nick its parts. 6 screws in the back, a padlock on the top lid keep the case shut and its bolted to the 24' long table.

Re:Hooray for Apple

[Grant29]

The Ipod has been the subject of many different discussion on how simple it is to use. It elegant, feature packed, and only takes a few minutes to learn to use. I'm sure Apple probably has some patents on it, but I wonder why other's don't try to copy the design. Even if it's just minor changes, you should still be able to get around the patent infringements.

--
11 Gmail invitations availiable

Re:Hooray for Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Please tell me again how easy it is to change the battery on an ipod.

Most people don't care how easy it is to open up the case of a computer. The average computer user doesn't. and when he does it's NOT hard to use a screwdriver. The modder who opens his case a lot would probably buy a case thats quick to open though so it's not gonna affect him when theres so many to choose from.

Re:Hooray for Apple

[Col Bat Guano]

You can have security without screws. Apple tower cases have provision for a padlock that prevents easy access to the internals.

Re:Hooray for Apple

[MoonBuggy]

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.

Re:Hooray for Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

I would really be scared to see someone in my family touching the inside of my computer.

To your delight I announce my new patent pending innovation: a lock!

Re:Hooray for Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Hrmpf. Apparently you have never replaced a dead battery in an iMac...

Re:Hooray for Apple

[Matey-O]

Because the single most compelling feature is the wheel...a feature that's patented to within an inch of it's life. _it_ is what allows you to select from one of 4000+ songs with only an occasional glance at the screen (when driving, say)

What surprises me is that noone has tried to _LICENSE_ the wheel from Apple.

Re:Hooray for Apple

[Nonoche]

Haha, bad faith in all its glory. They used to say that Macs were for wanabees that didn't know shit about computers, and that PC s were much better since you could tweak its guts all you wanted. Now it looks like PCs are for average computers who do not want to open their machines.

Okay so, removing screws is easy. So what's wrong with having something even easier? And if you have to buy an additional case to have one that opens up easily, well, what's wrong with having one that does it in the first place?...

Re:Hooray for Apple

[trashme]

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.

Re:Hooray for Apple

[TheGavster]

This is why we have Torx, and for really critical applications, Torx with the little peg in the middle. The more important the component, the more obscure the fastener should be (pozidrive, anyone?)

Re:Hooray for Apple

[cowscows]

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.

Re:Hooray for Apple

[lachlan76]

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

While this is true, anyone working on the inside of a car should already have a wrench. But also, normal people do need to get into a car engine (wiper fluid, brake fluid, power steering fluid, etc.).

I'm not saying that making it harder is intentional, but if you don't know that you need a screwdriver to work on a computer, you don't know how to work on a computer.

Re:Hooray for Apple

[lachlan76]

It's not the people that don't know what they're doing that should be kept out, but the people that think they know what they're doing. I'm sure somepeople think that understanding what the CPU and RAM is is enough experience to just upgrade without any understanding of how everything goes together.

You are not stupid if you don't know, only if you don't try to learn, or you think you know more than you do.

Would you give someone the root password if they didn't know what they were doing?

I probably should say that I am only 14, and I can't afford a new computer. If someone breaks mine, I've lost just about the only thing I have to enjoy (I'm still single, and I don't go out much). Also, the first time I worked inside my computer, it didn't work afterwards, so I have been forever living in fear of killing it again after I got it fixed by someone who did have a lot of experience (there was dust in the DIMM slot). When people touch it, I'm scared shitless.

I do expect people to start complaining about my outlook on life, just like This comment, my point is that if you don't understand something when there is plenty of information available, you should try to find out first. And, I also think that I have every right to be embarrased when someone sees me carrying around girls music (I don't know if you've heard about Guy Sebatian over in America, but there are plenty of artists like him).

Re:Hooray for Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

"Dell, Toshiba notebooks don't come in titanium/aluminium cases."

no but IBM & a few no-name OEM laptops do, if thats a feature that you want (& are willing to pay extra for)

Re:Hooray for Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

pozidrive? obscure? Try coming to europe.

Re:Hooray for Apple

[Klanglor]

Yep! but IBM has that booring Standard Formal Business Design. You do get Air-Bag technology inside your Harddisk, Titanium Chasing wrapping the case...

But the Notebook itself is ALWAYS BLACK since a good five 10-year.

Re:Hooray for Apple

[cowscows]

I wouldn't give them the root password to my computer, but I'd certainly allow them root access to their own computer if that's what they wanted. I'd just inform them that with it, they have the capability of really mess things up, and so they should be ready for the consequences of it.

Hey, I hear ya with the being 14 and a computer is the focal point of your life. I'm 24 now, but I was the exact same way (actually, I was 15 when it started, but close enough). I still spend most of my free time on the computer; and I'm still, for the most part, too poor to buy a new one, so I try to be very careful around my stuff.

But I think the point still is that the computer manufacturers should not take the responsibility for keeping people out of a machine by making it hard to open. Almost every computer you can buy (including the G5's), has some of locking mechanism by which you could keep others out. Usually it just involves throwing a padlock on a latch, but it's quite effective.

Although the whole music thing you mentioned is sort of off-topic, I'll comment on that too. I've never really cared all that much about music, but I do remember being your age, and how important music was to my classmates and all. Whenever you talked to someone (especially girls), the third or fourth question was usually "soooo...what kind of music do you like?". I'm guessing it was some sort of ice-breaker comment, but I remember not liking it, because I never had a good answer for it, and it seemed like a pretty shallow question anyways. But don't worry about that too much, music stops mattering in that way when you get older. I mostly just listen to it on the radio when I'm driving nowadays, and I listen to everything, from classic rock, to contemporary whatever it's called now, and even a lot of that 60's and 70's oldies stuff. My mom would always listen to that when driving us to school or wherever. So it's kind of like it's the music I grew up with, even though it was written when my mom was young. I don't think knowing that helps you at all, but I'm just sharing.

I'm not trying to complain about your outlook on life. I was just suggesting that an opinion you expressed about a very specific aspect of computers was incorrect, and I tried to offer reasons why. Please don't take debate or criticism as complaints about your outlook on life.

Re:Hooray for Apple

[waynelorentz]

Should we make it any easier for the average user who doesn't know what they are doing to get into the computer case? Or would we all be better off by only allowing people who at least have a screwdriver or a hex driver into the case. I would really be scared to see someone in my family touching the inside of my computer.

Sounds like Microsoft's philosophy towards software.

Re:Hooray for Apple

[Ed Avis]

IBM's PS/2 series were designed so that no screwdriver was needed for any user-fittable upgrade (which means most upgrades, in case you're wondering). Some of the server models did have screws to open the case but chunky ones where you could use a coin, AFAIK.

Re:Hooray for Apple

[BlowChunx]

...ah yes, just build a better mousetrap.

I think that you just advocated DRM for hardware.

If I own it, and want mess with it I should be able to (just not under warranty).

Re:Hooray for Apple

[TheGavster]

You're telling me you don't have a tamper proof torx set?

Unlike RIAA/MPAA DRM, the key is in the hands of those who own it and are qualified to mess with it. Its much like restricted user accounts; some things the average use should not touch.

Re:Hooray for Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

> I mean, c'mon ... most PCs nowadays still require you to remove a handful of screws to get inside the case.

OTOH, most laptop hard disks can be swapped in 5 minutes, but the iBook's takes at least half an hour.

Re:Hooray for Apple

[Lars T.]

So I take you are not one of those complaining that "you can't upgrade an iMac"?

Re:Hooray for Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

> 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.

The metal bodies may be pretty but that doesn't make them good. I suggest you go to google and search for "powerbook paint". Many long time Powerbook owners will tell you that in terms of build quality many of the old plastic Powerbooks (especiall the Wallstreet and Pismo) were better than the recent metal ones.

Re:Hooray for Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

On a Mac, at least, you have absolutely no need of a screwdriver to install RAM.

Re:Hooray for Apple

[Smurf]

(...)Toshiba notebooks don't come in titanium/aluminium cases.

The metal bodies may be pretty but that doesn't make them good. I suggest you go to google and search for "powerbook paint".

The Titanium Powerbooks had a coat of paint, that, as you say, sometimes cracked and peeled. The Aluminum Powerbooks are made of brush aluminum, with no paint to crack or peel. I guess bare titanium is too ugly while brushed aluminum certainly isn't.

As a matter of fact, all the Al Powerbooks I've seen have their cases in prime shape (including the 1st gen 15" I'm writing this from). And I've only read (in the 'net) about one guy who apparently has some dermatologic problem because his sweat causes the Al handrests to deteriorate.

Re:Hooray for Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

The Al PB's will dent much easier if they fall than the old plastic PB's.

Re:Hooray for Apple

[Jeff DeMaagd]

you won't find liquid cooling in a Dell, Toshiba notebooks

Dell and Compaq have been using heat pipes in _some_ designs as far back as five years ago. That is techically a phase change cooling, one of the phases are liquid. :)

You can get some IBMs and Toshibas that are designed ruggedized, I think they can be run over with heavy machinery.

Re:Hooray for Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

This goes to show how many retards there are in the IT industry...

Re:Hooray for Apple

[steeviant]

No, not heat-pipes - Liquid-cooling; That's when you have a pump and a radiator and (usually) a coolant that's liquid at normal pressure/temperature.

Apple have been using heat pipes for years as well, but their latest desktop enclosures have water cooling built in.

Re:Hooray for Apple

[Moofie]

And security by obscurity is a great idea, too.

Tool-less access is a prime requisite for any computer I want to own. You're welcome to buy any sort of case you want, of course, but I'll continue to buy quality cases that don't require screwdrivers. (Mostly because I think putting threads in aluminum is always a Bad Idea.)

Sure, the G5 is nice...

[Anonymous Coward]

but still only room for one optical drive.

Re:Sure, the G5 is nice...

[alfredo]

The fireWire and USB2 Ports are there to be used.

Re:Sure, the G5 is nice...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hint: fire wire and usb is slower than ide/sata/scsi

plus the drives will run hotter in a caddy than they will inside the case.

Re:Sure, the G5 is nice...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you fucking retarded? Yes, yes you are.

Re:Sure, the G5 is nice...

[JeffTL]

I suppose that if you actually need two you can either use FireWire 800 or add a SCSI card.

Re:Sure, the G5 is nice...

[Anonymous Coward]

Show me a CD Drive that can saturate a Firewire bus.

And of course the temperature will depend on the design of a enclosure.

If your talking vs. the G5 case, of course, the G5's pull/exhaust systems move a lot of air where it is needed.

If your talking vs. say a Dell Dimension 8300 case, I'm not sure. Most of the internals seem to concentrate on CPU cooling. Any cooling of the drives is purely by accident.

Re:Sure, the G5 is nice...

[Anonymous Coward]

CD drives aren't the only optical drives morn. plus with ever faster dvd burners coming firewire just isnt fast enough.

Re:Sure, the G5 is nice...

[Gary Destruction]

He's right. Both Firewire and USB measure speed in Megabits, not megabytes. That makes a huge difference.

Careful Now

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll have to link to this at AlbinoBlackSheep... The Truth About Apple Users (Flash required).

:-P

Get off your high horse

[Anonymous Coward]

you assume that everyone that holds one will like it which won't always be the case.

Re:Get off your high horse

[rich951]

Very true. But every single person who has had a play with mine loves it :) That's obviously not a statistically significant sample size, but I'd still love to be the one taking the money when they are finally available over here in the UK (I got mine on holiday).

Re:Get off your high horse

[zors]

i'm just saying that they ought to reserve judgement until they've taken one out for a spin. What's so bad about that?

Apple Wireless Keyboard

[kinema]

Is the Apple Wireless Keyboard a standards abiding Bluetooth device? Is there any reason I couldn't use one on a PC running Linux? I just wasn't sure that Apple had used the standard keyboard profile (or whatever it is called in the Bluetooth spec) or if they had 'improved' it in some way that would keep me from using it with another OS.

Re:Apple Wireless Keyboard

[adzoox]

You can use it on a PC - but note that the windows key (command key) is out of place.

You might need a keyboard remapper kext to remedy tht and might want to take mineral oil to the two keys that are out of place.

It's the same thing though as PC keyboards.

I use an Eluminx glow keyboard that is PS2 with my Macs. The Windows key is on the keyboard and I just did what I told you above.

The Apple bluetooth keyboard even works with my Ericsson cellphone.

Re:Apple Wireless Keyboard

[shione]

You can use it on a PC - but note that the windows key (command key) is out of place.

As an FPS gamer, I see that as a blessing :)

Re:Apple Wireless Keyboard

[Chucker23N]

As the Apple *wired* Keyboard and Mouse work just fine with most USB-supporting operating systems (the Apple button gets turned into a Windows button, etc.) without any need for additional drivers, I doubt it'd be different for the Bluetooth versions.

On the other hands, the FireWire iSight does currently, AFAIK, *not* work with other operating systems.

Re:Apple Wireless Keyboard

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure you do but the apple/command/windows-button is located next to space, not between ctrl and alt as on pc keyboards.

Re:Apple Wireless Keyboard

[Anonymous Coward]

It works just fine as a camera, although it's not DV so people who assume any video over firewire must be DV will be frustrated, there's just no software that I'm aware of that supports it's microphones.

Re:Apple Wireless Keyboard

[KH]

It's a bit of off-topic, but I'm using my Apple Extended Keyboard II with my PC through iMate (ADB USB converter) :)

Re:Apple Wireless Keyboard

[cebarro]

"The Apple bluetooth keyboard even works with my Ericsson cellphone."

It Damn well better, Broadcom designed the chipset(s) that work in both devices.

Re:Apple Wireless Keyboard

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a Logitech keyboard, and since it's cross-platform, some of the modifier keys have more than one label. The pc start button looks like:

(win logo) start
alt
option

The pc alt button looks like:

alt
(mac logo) (command symbol)

some mac modifier keys are already more than one label. On top of that, there are pc labels. BTW, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who thinks the caps lock key's location is a waste of good keyboard real estate. may as well remap those caps lock keys while one's at it!

Re:Apple Wireless Keyboard

[line.at.infinity]

As the Apple *wired* Keyboard and Mouse work just fine with most USB-supporting operating systems

I know OS X has support for multi-buttoned mice, but Apple makes only one-buttoned mice, AFAIK. This might be a problem because non-mac apps are designed with the expectation that users have at least two buttons.

Re:Apple Wireless Keyboard

[Analog Penguin]

I have a Logitech keyboard as well, and one irritating thing is that unless you have Logitech's (absolutely shit) drivers installed, the key labeled Alt/Apple/Command actually acts as an option button, and the Start/Alt/Option acts as Command.

Re:Apple Wireless Keyboard

[fyonn]

On the other hands, the FireWire iSight does currently, AFAIK, *not* work with other operating systems.

I don't have any specific proof to the contrary (I don't on an isight), but I was under the impression that the isight did work with pc's fine, but they they didn't support the mic on it. the video should work correctly though.

maybe I'm wrong

dave

Re:Apple Wireless Keyboard

[jlaxson]

Out of curiosity, in what manner does the keyboard work with the cellphone. IE, what exactly does it do?

Re:Who is tired of the billions of Apple articles

[phoxix]

I suppose I should justify myself for the above. This isn't an anti-apple, and I refuse to block apple stories. But i'm tired of lots of useless Apple news being posted to slashdot right next to the stuff that actually matters. (Ie: This story versus Xgrid info.)

Its kind of like what has happened to the hardware topic on slashdot. Most of those stories aren't even that useful. ("OOoh! its another cool mod!" BLEH!).

There needs to be some sort of story-moderation mechanism by the readers on slashdot.

Sunny Dubey

Re:Who is tired of the billions of Apple articles

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish there was some way to modify the categories you want to follow. Some way. Even if it required me to log on and customize my preferences. Some kind of dynamic front page, I think its doable. And some kind of moderation of comments, maybe based on mod points? To MOD DOWN stupid comments.

Who would of thought?

[CrackedButter]

An mp3 player, a webcam, a computer case and a keyboard would of got such praise from many people?

Other Cool stuff as well

[jellomizer]

Going thew the site I have found some real good ones (Non Computer related) Like a Hammer I find it amazing that after millions of years of humans making hammers that they can still improve on it. It really gives me great faith in the advancement of science that we can improve anything for years to come. Also I found it odd that the best interface was for Mohawk Paper Mills While it is nice and all I didn't find the interface a wow that is so much more intuitive to use then any other site. But still I find it is nice that it won because I drive by the mill every day to get to work (With its huge smoke stacks billowing out tons of steam).

Re:Other Cool stuff as well

[general_re]

I find it amazing that after millions of years of humans making hammers that they can still improve on it.

Define "improve". These are design awards, not necessarily functionality awards - it's a very pretty hammer, I guess, but it also costs three times more than an ordinary claw hammer that will last just as long. Something makes me doubt that it's actually three times better at pounding nails, and the guys I know who regularly work with hand tools really don't strike me as the type to worry about whether their hammers are pretty enough.

Re:Other Cool stuff as well

[Halo1]

I agree that hammer is really cool, but the quote at the end completely obliterates any positive vibes you may get from looking at that picture:

Takes technology to the next step to meet the demands of today's market

I guess it was even cut off and originally continued as

... in a synergy of modern aesthetics and traditional craftsmanship, culminating in improved productivity by addressing contemporary challenges and empowering businesses everywhere by enabling them to evolve new paradigms in creating powerful convergences for businesses and consumers alike.

Now where did I leave my toothbrush...

Re:Other Cool stuff as well

[trashme]

What about the hammer moving the center of gravity towards the head of the hammer? Or the curved top so nail removal has a smaller chance of damaging the surface?

The hammer may not be worth its price, but don't say they did not improve functionality when designing this hammer.

Re:Other Cool stuff as well

[general_re]

What about the hammer moving the center of gravity towards the head of the hammer?

As long as it's putting its mass on the nail, that should suffice. I'm sure we can imagine perverse hammers that don't really do that, but truthfully, ever since some guy first added lever action by tying a handle to his flat rock some thousands of years ago, everything since then has just been tweaking ;)

Or the curved top so nail removal has a smaller chance of damaging the surface?

Virtually all claw hammers have a curved top for that reason. Besides which, a surface that you're removing a nail from is already "damaged" in some reasonable sense of the word - it's got a nail hole in it ;)

I'm sure there are some minor improvements in functionality, but enough to justify the price? I don't think so, ergo what you're paying for is the aesthetics of it, and very, very few people buy hammers for the looks of the thing, now that Martha Stewart is out of business...

Re:Other Cool stuff as well

[cosmo7]

Define "improve".

Improve used to mean to make good use what was available (this meaning lives on as improvise).

So when Washington said "True policy, as well as good faith, in my opinion, binds us to improve the occasion." he didn't mean he was bound to make the occasion better, rather he was bound to make good use of the opportunity presented.

Now improve means to enhance, so the word is recursive.

Re:Other Cool stuff as well

[Taos]

The balance of the hammer plays a large part in how it feels to handle at the end of the day. With more weight toward the head of the hammer, your wrist will tire faster. However, it does feel heavier to the user, and when pounding nails through 2x4's, it seems faster.

Go to Home Depot and pick up two 20 oz hammers. One with a wooden handle, and the other with the head formed as a single piece with the shaft. You'll be able to tell the difference immediately. Preference is up to you.

Now, as for functionality, this hammer doesn't have a magnetic nail holder on the head, therefore, I won't buy it.

Re:Other Cool stuff as well

[karstux]

That sounds like a bowl of well-stirred buzzwords. God, I'm so tired of these... but it is a nice hammer. :-)

Re:Other Cool stuff as well

[Chalex]

The hammer sure looks nice. The Home Depot site already has it for $30.

Re:Other Cool stuff as well

[pipingguy]

I found it odd that the best interface was for Mohawk Paper Mills While it is nice and all I didn't find the interface a wow that is so much more intuitive to use then any other site

No kidding - Flash main page with no link to a site map or an HTML version.

Re:Other Cool stuff as well

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I was baffled, too. At the entire description. Their claim that it has made functional improvements is simply false. Any hammer that wasn't designed by a moron would have a heavy head. It describes the fact that the handle extends to the hammer's head as something we should be amazed at. The only part of the description that won't apply to a generic hammer is the part about the hammer being curved and beautiful. The awards seem to have been given out by morons who have a love for eye-candy. Coincidence?

Dear Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Apple,

I am a homosexual. I bought an Apple computer because of its well earned reputation for being "the" gay computer. Since I have become an Apple owner, I have been exposed to a whole new world of gay friends. It is really a pleasure to meet and compute with other homos such as myself. I plan on using my new Apple computer as a way to entice and recruit young schoolboys into the homosexual lifestyle; it would be so helpful if you could produce more software which would appeal to young boys. Thanks in advance.

with much gayness,

Father Randy "Pudge" O'Day, S.J.

Re:Who is tired of the billions of Apple articles

[pedantic bore]

Well, the Apple-is-pretty (and Google-is-blessed, and SCO-is-evil) articles do serve one useful purpose: they remind us that the success of the personal computer and related techno-gizmos has brought powerful forces to bear on the nerdly world. It no longer matters how clean the code is; it matters how nifty the case is. It's no longer just enough to come up with a good idea; it must be marketed. And it's no longer as easy as creating something useful and sharing it with the world; now there are lawyers involved.

An Idea

[cpuffer_hammer]

Since lots of design focused people may read this.

Build cell phones with the number pad at the top and the screen at the bottom. this makes using the keys on a small phone easy for western hands that are often bigger.

Charles Puffer

Re:An Idea

[CrackedButter]

How would this help, i only imagine people being confused because their phone looks upside down?

Re:An Idea

[Qbertino]

Right on. Mod parent up.
I had that Idea myself. Maybe we should put together and patent it. :-)

Re:An Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

how does that make the buttons any easier to press? all it seems to do is block the display with my hand/wrist

Re:An Idea

[lachlan76]

this makes using the keys on a small phone easy for western hands that are often bigger.

There is the slight issue of my thumb covering the screen. Hard to SMS when I can't see. And I do have a small phone, a T100, so I would know.

Re:An Idea

[fermion]

I have often wished that apple would build a cell phone, and the buttons are a big reason why. The form factor of the phone is determined by the buttons and the screen. The buttons are getting smaller and the screen is getting larger. In fact, the buttons are so small as to be useless.

I almost never dial a call. The only reason the buttons are needed is to program the phone. Otheriwse the phone features often negate the need to manually dial a call. If the phone synched with my mac, then there would be little reason for them. If I do need to dial the phone, perhaps a touch screen can be used that will display a numeric or full alpha keyboard. This would also allow notes to be taken during a conversation, something that is very difficult to do with current phones.

In fact I envision this phone to be the size of an ipod mini, and have all the feature of the most advance phone, without the anachronistic 'features'. For example, I would replace a built in speaker and microphone with a bluetooth headset. All the buttons and gizmos could be replaced by the ipod nav pad. A 1-2 gig hard disk could hold all your pictures and even record conversations. I can even imagine an optional bluetooth keyboard for those would want one, for texting and the like.

Re:An Idea

[Anonymous Writer]

According to this article, "Apple has just hived off iPod into a separate division under Jon Rubenstein, formerly head of hardware development. Despite protestations, maybe there really is a video iPod (or PDA-Pod or mobile phone-Pod) in the works.".

For all you know, there will be a cellphone designed by Apple. I imagine if they use the iPod Touch Wheel for an interface, it would bring back the act of rotationally "dialing" a phone number.

Re:Who is tired of the billions of Apple articles

[GerbilSocks]

go stick an apple in your butt you fucking wank.

Dear Randy "Pudge" O'Day

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Father O'Day,

Thanks for your letter. Being Catholic myself, I know exactly what you're talking about! It has always been our plan here at Apple Computer Inc to revolutionize personal computing with our high-quality and highly gay products.

I'm happy to answer your letter by letting you know that YES we will be releasing an entire hLife ("homo-life") software line. You'll be able to recognize it in stores by the small stylized logo depicting a large cock entering a tight anus with an Apple logo on it. ("Suddenly it all comes together" indeed!).

Anyway, I hope you and other members of our community will join us on our mission, and purchase the exciting new hLife boxed set. Only the boxed set comes with translucent cock rings!

Sincerely,

Harry Rodman
Vice-president
Homosexual Liaison Services
Apple Computer, Inc.

Actually in the past year or two

[adzoox]

Actually in the past year or two -

Apple designs have been very lackluster in my opinion.

The G5 is nice looking but was a BIG step backwards. Removal of one PCI slot and removal of a second 5.25" expansion bay.

The keyboard that won here doesn't match - the white does not match the Pro line like the silver and black Pro input devices did.

The only real update to the iMac line in the last year has been a 20" screen - which is nice but that design one it's awards 2 years ago.

If the rumors are true about the new 20 23 & 30 inch displays coming - they too will be a step backward from the current design.

Apple should be winning kudos for software lately. Hardware, I'm not so sure

The iPod has admittedly gotten better.

Re:Actually in the past year or two

[jellomizer]

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.

Re:Actually in the past year or two

[blakespot]

It is part of the elegance of the Apple solution to offer as the standard solution a combination CD/CD-RW/DVD/DVD-RW drive, the SuperDrive. There is no elegance in splitting this across two optical drives. Yes, doing so will allow you the user the absolute fastest CD writer and the seldom-used speed advantage in a disc-to-disc copy scenario, but for the VAST majority of users, there is zero benefit to two optical drives.

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

Re:Actually in the past year or two

[adzoox]

There are other things that go into a bay besides optical drives - but a second optical drive that rips faster than the SuperDrive is a big plus.

A second bay on a Mac is different than a second bay on a PC. Apple chooses the drives for you by default and leaves no room for expansion.

I agree that external drives are actually better and more useful, but clutter is an issue with most of my clients in ad agencies. There are 15-20 packed in a 20x30 room. Having zip drives, card readers, CD burners strown about really makes for clutter.

As for the PCI slots - extra firewire - extra USB 2.0 ports and extra PCI video cards - where's the room for pro audio card, the IDE ATA card, the SCSI card?

I would say it's not most - it's actually about half - at least as far as the 300 to 400 people I serve here in Greenville SC with Apple technical service.

Re:Actually in the past year or two

[cowscows]

Other people have already spoke about the G5, so I won't say too much there.

About the keyboard not matching with the aluminum of the mac...so what? I wouldn't want an aluminum keyboard anyways. And besides, it matches with the imac and emac just fine. My white iPod doesn't match my 4 year old black powerbook, but you know what? They look just fine sitting next to each other on my desk.

Yeah, the iMac design hasn't been changed in a while. That's why it didn't get any awards this year. If you're hoping for a new machine sometime, that's fine, but the fact that they haven't released one doesn't speak poorly of their design abilities.

And it's not really fair to criticize based on rumors. The closest thing to pictures that we've seen on the rumor sites are "artists renditions", which we've seen before, and which have had varying degrees of accuracy. Wait till they're announced in a few days, then feel free to bash them ;)

Whether or not you like all of Apple's designs, you have to accept that they're trying a lot harder than any other computer manufacturers, and it seems to be working for them. Sometimes with awards (G5), and sometimes with awards and lots of money (iPods).

Re:Actually in the past year or two

[Anonymous Coward]

>Apple should be winning kudos for software lately.

Does anyone give design awards for software these days? If not, doesn't that say something about software? :-)

Re:Actually in the past year or two

[fermion]

This again shows the difference between the Mac and PC design. In most cases, the PC is designed to meet a low price point. Anything that can be removed is removed. Extra expansion slots are important because what is being sold is a bare bones system. To gain reasonable functionilty, boards will have to be added. This is not neccesarily a bad thing. It does require a level of technical know how.

OTOH, Apple tries to include the basics. This is not always possible, even at the higher price point. However, as you say, you almost never have to add a board to get basic connectivity. I was reminded of this recently when someone asked me if I my Mac was easy to network. This reminded me that Macs were always easy to network. Perhaps it was not a fast network. Perhaps in was not a widely compatible network. But everything was there for plug and play.

Re:Actually in the past year or two

[Anonymous Coward]

But the truth is that most people won't use them

1) Standard Apple Retort of "Steve says you don't need it". Maybe that's not what you meant, but we've heard it too often.

2) Since this is a $3000 Pro Workstation, we're already out of the realm of "most people". In fact, the target market of video/audio people are very likely to load up on PCI cards and extra drives.

3) It would be nice if Apple made both a cheaper mini-tower and a full to-the-gills pro machine. Current PMac line is too One-Size-Fits-All.

Re:Actually in the past year or two

[Anonymous Coward]

Your rant is a couple years out of date now. Any reasonably high-end PC motherboard now comes with firewire, SATA, and GigE -- just like the Mac board. Apple compares the PowerMac to a Dell workstation that has 3 external drive bays, 3 internal, and 5 slots, AND has firewire & gigE & SCSI.

I suppose there is a philosophical difference: The first Mac had 0 slots and Apple has always sold slots as a premium feature. The first PC had something like 9 slots and has only gone down from there.

Re:Actually in the past year or two

[TheNetAvenger]

elegance of the Apple solution to offer as the standard solution a combination CD/CD-RW/DVD/DVD-RW drive

Wow, never thought of it this way, espeicially the "elegance" of it.

When I bought my Windows PC two years ago that came standard with a CDRW/DVRW, I didn't realize it was such a great and "elegant" solution that Mac users would get a couple of years later.

Re:Actually in the past year or two

[mgv]

yone 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.

I have to agree. Apple does remove things when they aren't needed. They got rid of the floppy drive.

I don't hear anyone on /. saying that that was a step backwards, although it raised a few eyebrows at the time

Same goes for PCI slots. The bandwidth of Firewire (more than USB 2.0, which is a bit of a hack) plus its expandability in the future to 800 and 1600 MB/s means that most users don't need the speed of a PCI slot.

Note that they have done much the same on their iBooks and PowerBooks - Go find a PC card slot on them - because firewire and USB2.0 provide sufficient bandwidth to replace the PC card slot need. Plus all the above comments about integrated sound/video/ethernet/modem and so on.

The need for these older technologies just isn't there anymore.

Michael

Re:Actually in the past year or two

[Anonymous Coward]

I know I'm not the average Mac user, but I work in the professional audio and post-production industry. This industry has been headquartered on Apple machines damn-near forever.

We still run ProTools, yes there are other alternatives out there budding on the horizon, but there's not ready for prime-time yet. PT requires PCI cards, the largest of the systems uses three cards. That fills up a G5.

We also need to add a SCSI card (we still use scsi for a variety of reasons, mostly on removable storcase carriers) and a Video output card (like a Fuse or Igniter). We also typically replace the internal modem with a Serial port, and that ties up a slot. This is used for MIDI, MMC, and other serial devices that may be connected.

Even a "bare-bones" system for us requires 4 slots, 3 for Protools and a SCSI card.

On G4 based systems, which we still use (we don't use G5's because there's not enough slots and they don't run 9, and Protools for X is quirky, not to mention the HD plugins) We get 4 PCI slots, so we use a PCI expansion chassis, which takes a slot, then SCSI, then Video Out, then serial. The G4 case is a better case for expansion purposes.

True, most people don't need all the slots in a G5, but Apple is limiting the professional audio market, which the G5 is targeted at, and does not offer a comparable solution.

Re:Actually in the past year or two

[jellomizer]

• I wasn't listening to Steve (I never listen to Steve because he is in marketing I tend to wait for the product to prove itself), I was going from my own professional experience with companies and individual people. Most of the time when people decide to buy a computer they get it pre-installed with all that they want and will not add extras. Perhaps 1 or at most 2 will be added for the functional life of the Computer but that is usually rare
• There is a "Snob Factor" that you are forgetting. Where people will buy expensive things to show off and say see mine is better then yours (Directly or indirectly) That is the same reason why people buy new cars when their old ones work fine or ware fancy stuff. There are a lot of people out there who go I want the best I can afford. So that is what they get. How many G5s are being sold to college students who just want to show off their computers or individuals who can go mines faster. If it was only in the realm of what most people needed a PII 300mhz would be enough.
• I agree with you on that one. It would be nice. To have something for people who knows what is out their and get what we want. I would defiantly want something cheaper then the PMac but can offer a little more juce then a G4 iMac.

Re:Actually in the past year or two

[Anonymous Coward]

> [...] is a slight tradeoff

Ok, but what are you trading it off against? The case is enormous. Better airflow? I've seen PC cases with more expansion options that are stil very quiet if you use a big slow rotating fan.

Re:Actually in the past year or two

[line.at.infinity]

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.

Cost-wise, memory sticks are still extremely godawful. In comparison, a 20GB iPod costs $10 per 500KB, CD-Rs go for 0.04 CENTS per 512KB. And DVD-Rs are way cheaper. But I don't see how a second burner could help too much for normal users. All macs come with a burner these days.

Re:Actually in the past year or two

[steeviant]

Note that they have done much the same on their iBooks and PowerBooks - Go find a PC card slot on them - because firewire and USB2.0 provide sufficient bandwidth to replace the PC card slot need. Plus all the above comments about integrated sound/video/ethernet/modem and so on.

Only the 12" PowerBook is missing a PC Card slot, and that's probably because there wasn't room for one. Every other PowerBook in the last 10 years has PC Slots, including the latest 15" and 17" models.

Re:Actually in the past year or two

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with the "Snob Factor" -- although the G4 Cube seemed to indicate that the actual number of Steve Snobs is pretty low. There's also the "If you want a Mac where the CPU is not 4 years behind, Apple says have to buy the Pro machine." factor as well.

If Apple thinks the Snob customers are more important than the A/V production users, that's a bad sign. Which is why the PMac G5 is a wierd machine -- limited expansion for a Pro box, but still has PCI-X and other features that the Snob Crowd wouldn't really care about.

Re:Actually in the past year or two

[mgv]

Only the 12" PowerBook is missing a PC Card slot, and that's probably because there wasn't room for one. Every other PowerBook in the last 10 years has PC Slots, including the latest 15" and 17" models.


Well, I stand corrected in this case. I never noticed a PC slot on any of the 15 or 17 inch models, I'll look again.

However, neither my 12" powerbook nor my wifes 14" iBook have them, and neither does the 12" iBook.

I cheched the Apple web site and it does describe the PC slot on those two models. However, they make no other mention of them and in fact boast of how there is nothing that sticks out on the laptops. Which is probably the whole problem with most PC card slots.

Anyway, of the Six base models of laptop (3x iBook, 3x PowerBook) that they sell on the website, two of them have PC slots and 4 do not.

They certainly dont treat them as essential items.

Michael

Re:Actually in the past year or two

[line.at.infinity]

memory sticks becoming very affordable with a large sizes (a 512k stick $80)

After searching around @ froogle, I think you meant to say 512 MEGABytes for $80.00. ahhhh, 1,00 times cheaper now. :-O

Re:Actually in the past year or two

[Anonymous Coward]

2-bay enclosures you can add two drives in one enclosure. pretty effective for reducing clutter, although it loses portability of more compact designs.

Re:Actually in the past year or two

[steeviant]

They certainly dont treat them as essential items.

I have to confess that I've never used the PC card slot on my powerbook for anything except reading flash cards from digital cameras that don't have OS X drivers. :)

Re:Actually in the past year or two

[Dog135]

Is there a reason you don't use a SCSI to Firewire cable?

http://www.macmall.com/macmall/shop/detail.asp?dpn o=943905

If you're using a G4 just for the extra slot, you look into some of the adapter cables available.

I thought I saw external PCI boxes before, but I think it was just the external IDE boxes. (for adding an internal CD-drive or HD as an external firewire device)

http://www.macmall.com/macmall/shop/detail.asp?dpn o=68161

Re:Actually in the past year or two

[jellomizer]

Well the G4 Cube wasn't a good "Snob Computer" the G4 Cube was low profile compared to say the iMacs which just say "Hey Look at me I am a Mac" or the powermacs with their large cases that hard to miss. The G4 Cubes sold mostly to Apple fans who liked the technology side. For a good "Snob Factor" you want to invite a person to your house and have them go "Wow that is a fancy looking ..." That way you can talk about it without seeming to be conceded.

Well I dont think Apple is going that Snob customers are more important then A/V production users. But styling up the case and making everything pritty is not much of a tradeoff because the A/V people still have all they need. But you can get the say extra 25% more sales just from snobs.

PC is a component, Apple is an appliance

[Gothmolly]

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.

Re:PC is a component, Apple is an appliance

[Stevyn]

That's a pretty unrealistic generalization in my opinion. I know few people who will crack open their case. I think you could make that generalization about linux users and further geek-ify that operating system. I've always thought that mac owners are people who are willing to spend the extra money for style and for a computer that generally works with no effort at all. I don't think that's bad at all. If you're not interested in computers then why should geeks on slashdot care? I enjoy cracking computers open. I enjoy overclocking my 500 Mhz K6-2 in the box I use for linux "projects" and just messing around with. I enjoy when I get a problem and I fix it. But to claim we're somehow better people because of our predilection of getting down and dirty with our computers is absolute nonsense.

Re:PC is a component, Apple is an appliance

[Anonymous Coward]

no, you like doing those things and there are a small minority of people who share that interest as well. however, the vast majority of users have no interest in opening their computer and never upgrade their system.

Re:PC is a component, Apple is an appliance

[Gothmolly]

I rarely reply to my own posts, but since people seem to be Missing The Point, I'll clarify:
This being said, the vast majority of people really should buy Macs.
Most home users WANT the appliance. Geeks and businesses want functionality; in the case of the geek (no pun intended) they want to fiddle. In the case of businesses, they want a box that does stuff for the cheapest cost.

A home user, a typical user, wants a box thats quiet, looks nice, doesn't crash or get viruses all the time, plays MP3s, video games, and sends email. Thus, most people SHOULD buy Macs.

The GP claimed that PC makers should build sexy machines like Apple. I was pointing out that there IS a market for the industrial, function-over-form PC.

Re:PC is a component, Apple is an appliance

[trashme]

The GP claimed that PC makers should build sexy machines like Apple. I was pointing out that there IS a market for the industrial, function-over-form PC.

You also seem to be missing the point. Both the form and function of most PC cases has sucked for many years. CPUs, hard drives, RAM, they have all gotten better through the years. I think it's about time we expect the same from the cases.

Re:PC is a component, Apple is an appliance

[hitmark]

heh, what they should buy is a console system like xbox where they slot the cd for the office pack and save the files on the drive, no installing, no programs run from a RW media, get rid of the macro viruses and your all set :)

sure, one could say that the "old" imac was this, alltho you still had to install...

actualy i agree that people go for the appliance aspect of computers. and given the net there is no real need to argue over what kind of hardware or os to use as long as they can read and write the same kinds of files. still, i can make a linux box on x86 hardware do just the same as the mac so i dont agree that people should buy mac in the way you put it (given that you worte should useing capital letters i read it as one bit before must).

storage of software on a RW media is what makes viruses happy. and the only reason for macs not being targeted by viruses are that they have so low a market penetration, just look at the fact that most mail viruses target the windows platform, most worms target some sort of linux server and so on. as mac marketshare grows so will the number of viruses that target the platform as there is a bigger chance of it actualy spreading.

Re:PC is a component, Apple is an appliance

[hitmark]

http://www.suntekgroup.com/stk6551.htm

my current case, and im very happy with it :)

Re:PC is a component, Apple is an appliance

[Chief Typist]

This is so true.

I also find it interesting that the typical car analogy fits in with this thought. Apple is like a BMW -- it comes from the factory configured with good components that you don't NEED to mess with it. I own a 1995 M3 and have never wanted to add or change anything -- it's the best damn car I've ever had.

A 1995 Chevy/Ford/Chrysler, on the other hand, has been (or will soon be) modified.

Nothing wrong with either approach -- just like the parent post says: it's a different concept.

-ch

Re:PC is a component, Apple is an appliance

[lawnboy5-O]

This is not so insightful as you score permits... I have been hacking Mac's(and PC's) for over 20 years... and the Mac's are more fun to hack at that. My pride and joy is a G4 Cube mobo in a 1989 color classic case with a 9'' LCD screen running at 1024x768. Custom fan and chasis desgin by yours truly.... I also love playing around with th pismo and sawtooth mobo's as they are totally "modable" and with any insight into electronics and circut design, you may find you enjoy it more in the mac; they are deginded better even at that level! Both the PC and Mac are the same in this respect: you can modify them and upgrade them to your hearts content if you know how. To say this is only the way of the PC (mcsofty winJunk) community is a mistake. For the most part PC's are cheaper becuase in the end, those mfg'ers expect you to buy it more often. And lets face it - how many 4 or 5 year PC's out there can actually be said to have value? Why is it that a mint 68030 Color Classic still fetches more $$ than a 1997 PII? My point is that its not about whether or not you WANT to open your case and be a gear head, or whether you are after high price and better features, etc... Its whether you CAN do such mods and if you know how to use all the tools available. It has nothing to do with which platform you use. If you chose a PC thinking that was the way, you were misleading yourself.

Re:PC is a component, Apple is an appliance

[Anonymous Coward]

My 8 year old P200 can run Windows XP. Discuss.

Re:PC is a component, Apple is an appliance

[lawnboy5-O]

I doubt that since i have a PII 233 as well - XP boots - but is unusable... very slow - like running through a tar field. runnable and usable need to be defined here... XP blows. period. i rarely use any of my PC's anymore 'cause i dont need to.

Re:PC is a component, Apple is an appliance

[Glendale2x]

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.

I wouldn't generalize that much. I use a Mac as my primary system and I love to crack open the case on my PC's and screw around with the insides. Just recently I replaced some fans in a server, added some FXO cards to build a home PBX, and fixed a power supply with my trustly soldering iron because I didn't want to buy a new one and they're easy to fix. Did I mention I use Macs?

That's exactly me, the Mac user. I like that stuff, too. the Mac has nothing to do with it. I have Sun hardware, too. Sparc is truly a different breed.

Re:PC is a component, Apple is an appliance

[commodoresloat]

PC owners are a different breed. They LIKE opening the case.

I see your point, but what mainstream PC manufacturer builds a case that you can open with a lever, without even touching a screwdriver? I like opening my computer case. That's one of the many things I love about my G4.

Re:PC is a component, Apple is an appliance

[steeviant]

most worms target some sort of linux server and so on.

Bullshit. In fact, Apache accounts for more than half of all websites, but is still targetted less by worms, but the number of worms targetting Apache is still somewhere around the 2 or 3 mark, as opposed to well over a dozen for IIS.

That kinda puts paid to your whole argument about market share having anything to do with viruses.

Maybe the reason windows is targetted so much by virus writers is because it's security actually does suck big sloppy donkey dick rather than just because it's so k3wL that everyone uses it.

And people accuse Apple users of blindly accepting anything.

Re:PC is a component, Apple is an appliance

[BigASS]

Dell.

The lesson

[lachlan76]

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 ;)

Re:The lesson

[genixia]

The iPod's interface is beaten by the Rio Karma and Rio Nitrus. And since the Nitrus (1.5GB) was out a long time before the iPod mini you have to wonder about the impartiality of the results.

Re:The lesson

[Twirlip of the Mists]

It's like some kind of reflex for you, isn't it?

Re:The lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

They even have a G5 rip off case.

Re:Who is tired of the billions of Apple articles

[jellomizer]

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.

Great for apple...

[swiftstream]

I love apple products. They're beautiful. And I'm just hoping I won't get modded down for what I'm about to say, given that this is the apple section.

However, of all the things there, I really think this one is the coolest. I want one of those!

And there's a cameo appearance by apple as well.

Then you have at least two options

[Anonymous Coward]

1. You could write to your local congressman asking him or her to pass a law that compels the owners of internet sites like Slashdot to make provision for editorial control for story selection to be vested in the hands of the users (specifically, you).

Or 2. you could just scroll down to the next story.

Also important to mention that...

[Anonymous Coward]

...iSight got the same award as an angle grinder, and the iPod mini took the same award as a heavy duty thickness planer... and a salad bowl.

To be honest, looking at all the winners in the different categories, the Apple ones aren't anything special. Looking at Computer Equipment category, I see Samsung, HP and Logitech alongside Apple's G5 - all worthy of equal praise IMO.

Re:Also important to mention that...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow some one is really an apple zealot who was moderator to give that a flame bate. I guess Apple is the only company that can deserve to get rewards.

Re:Also important to mention that...

[Moofie]

Ah yes. And where did you study industrial design?

They forgot another 'feature'

[Qbertino]

The Apple Wireless Keyboard is a full-size, full-featured keyboard that takes up very little desk space by limiting the footprint to the keys themselves. It works with Bluetooth at up to 10 meters and has a secure 128-bit, over-the-air encryption. ...And due to it's nifty extra-strong forward slant you can enjoy a full blown RSI even sooner than with usual cheapo keyboards.

Space saving is ok. Wireless with encryption is the only acceptable solution. But the Apple KBs extreme forward slant is nothing but super-crappy ergonomics. Period.
That this KB wins a prize goes to show that design juries usually don't know squat about the subject they're ruling on.

Re:They forgot another 'feature'

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless I'm missing something, most ergonomics experts recommend that your keyboard is in a position that keeps your wrists from bending; i.e. without the back of the keyboard elevated.

Re:They forgot another 'feature'

[kps]

And doesn't it have the same overgrown-TV-remote rubber-sheet action as all their (and nearly everyone else's) current crap?

Proper keyswitches register well before the end of their stroke, and provide gradually increasing resistance the rest of the way down. Rubber-sheet keyboard register at the end of their squishy stroke, so you have no choice but to bash your fingers against the bottom all day long.

Apple used to make decent keyboards - the Apple Extended Keyboard is wonderful (once modified to put the control key in the right place). The Extended II is almost as good. The smaller M0116 and the compact Apple ADB Keyboard - the obvious inspiration for the physical form of their latest abomination - are good too.

If you plan to keep using your fingers, get one of those old Apple keyboards and an ADB-to-USB converter. Or get one of these. Or, for that matter, get an AT-to-USB converter and an IBM Model M, a Fujitsu FKB4700 (OEM, many labels), or that skinny one with the fold-over function key templates.

Re:They forgot another 'feature'

[lawnboy5-O]

your english is good but you are misled about carpel tunnel syndrome and RSI... certain people are just prone to it - no matter WHAT keyboard, fretboard, mouse, pointer, pencil etc.. they use, they would develop it. truthfully, most get it because they way the approach their mouse or keyboard. they are usually way uptight about grabbing the mouse with way to much force, or pound keys to hard, or sit in bad positions, hold their guitar wrong, etc... and of course there is that little something called personal preference - just because you dont like doesn't mean its bad design - clearly you are the very small minority here... and that's ok too... you just dont like it - so what - keep it to your self instead of wasting valuable /. time for us! ;-)

Re:They forgot another 'feature'

[WorldRimWalker]

Have to to agree - I'm totally underwhelmed by the feel of my G4's keyboard. I'm surprised that more people haven't complained about it.

Re:They forgot another 'feature'

[Moofie]

Me, I don't much like keyboards that sound like machine guns.

But that's just me.

Now, my Apple Extended Keyboard II is very, very nice. But it's not substantially nicer than my Logitech Wireless Keyboard.

Anyhow...good luck finding one that works for you.

Great book

[tsangc]

If you're interested in Apple's corporate design, there's an excellent book called Apple Design: The Work of the Apple Industrial Design Group--

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/18 88 001259/103-7823380-3150263?v=glance

I found it while ago at a bookstore and it's quite good.

Re:Great book

[AnalystX]

If you're still interested, try a link that works.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/18 88 001259/qid=1088253394/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-299918 9-2810521?v=glance&s=books

Re:Great book

[AnalystX]

Actually either link will work if one takes out the stupid spaces Slashdot's code inserts into the URL.

Re:Great book

[CrackedButter]

I thankyou for the link, but $188 for a book about Apples design history? I wouldn't mind so much if there was an ipod mini that comes with it. It's even worse for price when it got so many negative reviews. I'm a mac user and it could be an interesting read, but i think only the die hards would get this to fuel their showboating skills towards other mac users.

Re:Great book

[Echnin]

Though one of the links has the words "ref" in it...

Re:Great book

[lewp]

I'd give you the referral if you were bright enough to make it a clickable link. Alas.

Re:Great book

[tsangc]

I thankyou for the link, but $188 for a book about Apples design history? I wouldn't mind so much if there was an ipod mini that comes with it. It's even worse for price when it got so many negative reviews. I'm a mac user and it could be an interesting read, but i think only the die hards would get this to fuel their showboating skills towards other mac users.

It wasn't $188 when I bought it a few years ago...more like $48 Canadian. About right for a design/architecture book.

I don't even own a Macintosh, but personally, it was worth the $50 (but not $188). Not a "collectors item" like a 20th Anniversary Macintosh or a Cube, but enjoyable if you have some interest in product/industrial design and want to learn some of the history/backstory of the design decisions.

Re:Great book

[CrackedButter]

Amazon list the book as being $188.
Aside from that, I do have a penchant for product/industrial design, I got another book "Icons of Design, The 20th Century". The original mac is included in the book as well. It was 1 tenth the price and listed some of the most famous and cleverly designed products of the last century. I recommend that one for you, if you fancy it. Its on amazons website incidentally, just such by title, it has a colour red themed fron cover.

Re:Great book

[AnalystX]

Come again?

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1888001259/

Re:Who is tired of the billions of Apple articles

[Gropo]

Learn how to use the filter, Stanley!

Consumer computer stuff

[JBdH]

It's a pity that they only awarded consumer interfaces to computer-related products. I would have loved to to see an award for the best designed server rackmountcase for example. That would also bring the attention to the fact that there is something to be designed inside these things. Something which some of the manufacturers themselves don't seem to know.

And don't tell the X-serve would win this.

Re:Consumer computer stuff

[adzoox]

Actually the X Serve won it last year.

"Last year the company nabbed two Gold IDEAs (for its 12- and 17-inch PowerBooks) and one Silver (for its Xserve), while in 2002 it won five total: four Gold for its retail Apple Stores, its Macworld Conference & Expo San Francisco presence, its flat-panel iMac and its iPod; and one Silver for its revamped iBook."

Servers and rackmount cases are included - there's just a lot of lackluster design on these fronts.

Sun and SGI used to win IKEA awards for their servers and their blades.

Re:Consumer computer stuff

[orkysoft]

Sun and SGI used to win IKEA awards for their servers and their blades.

That was for their self-assembly kits ;-)

yeah - try to replace the harddisk of an ibook...

[Anonymous Coward]

... and after that tell me about the excellent design and how it easy it was again...

G5 Award is Well Deserved

[Brackney]

I just got a G5 this week (my first Mac in years since a 6100) and I was blown away when I took it out of the box. I can't remember when I last saw a piece of computer hardware that made me just want to inspect its every nook and cranny. The CPU is such a beautiful example of form, function and fit. Simply gorgeous. Now if Apple would only rethink their keyboard and mouse designs - mine immediately went back in the box to be replaced w/ Logitech wireless hardware.

As for OS X - lots of good human factors engineering at work there as well. There are a few aspects of window management that I dearly miss from my Linux boxen though like middle mouse button paste and the window-embedded menu bars. The latter is a real pain on multi-display machines that force you to mouse to the other end of the desktop just to access a non-hotkeyed menu option. I've gotta spend some time surfing, because I have to believe someone's made a hack for the middle mouse button paste at the very least.

Re:G5 Award is Well Deserved

[CrackedButter]

macosxhints.com is a good start my friend. Welcome back as well.

Re:G5 Award is Well Deserved

[Anonymous Coward]

USB Overdrive might allow you to map out the logitech buttons

I live in England, you insensitive clod!

[carou]

Like a modern touchstone the iPod Mini is a product people will love to hold

Hah. Chance would be a fine thing.

Re:I live in England, you insensitive clod!

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah and i wonder how much they will gouge us for, they are already taking the piss out of UK by charging double what the rest of the world is paying just because they can

Fuck Apple and the rest of the ripp-off-Britain mob, or maybe you have mug tatooed on your forhead when you walk in dixons

one thing

[dncsky1530]

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.

Re:one thing

[rubicon7]

How, exactly, is shockwave "basic and simple?"

I would think that straight HTML would be the simplest (barring plain text, of course) - throw in some CSS and you could make a very nice site, *without* requiring a plugin of a modern, standards-compliant browser.

On a related note, is it my imaginaton, or is the purpose of the IDSA pretty much just to stroke the egos of of artists and the corporations that have hired them?

Re:one thing

[trashme]

You may not have noticed, but the shockwave plugin has pretty much become a standard over the years. Many many web sites require it. In that regard, I would call shockwave, "basic".

Re:one thing

[Fred_A]

basic as in
- can't bookmark
- can't index
- doesn't work everywhere

basic as in "Welcome to the 1980s" kind of basic ?

I still think people that design web interfaces around that plugin should be banned to the asteroid belt.

Re:one thing

[trashme]

- can't bookmark
You can't bookmark a page that uses flash? Since when?

- can't index
I have no idea what "can't index" means.

- doesn't work everywhere
Not all browsers are fully CSS compliant. So I could say the same for CSS.

Re:one thing

[hattig]

The Award Winning "Website" doesn't render anything apart from a copyright message and a credits message. Yeah, I guess that qualifies as simple.

Unless I installed a third party plugin of course, but really all that does is run a weblication inside the browser, it is hardly a website.

Re:one thing

[Fred_A]

When the whole site has been designed with flash, as is the case here, you can only bookmark the page that calls the flash file, not a page within the "flash site". In essence you can only bookmark the homepage.

The indexing engines cannot follow links internal to a flash sites so the content that is in the file will not be indexed. Therefore a web site designed as a flash file cannot be found through a search. And when it will be found through a search (whenever the clueless designers will have win, should be any day now), getting at the content will remain a problem because you can only point at the "home page" (see above).

You could also say the same for pages in Mandarin, or say the same for writing web pages on grains of rice. I never mentionned CSS as an alternative (which it isn't).

Re:one thing

[kps]

You can't bookmark a page that uses flash? Since when?

You can't bookmark "pages" within a flashything.

I have no idea what "can't index" means.

Ooh, you must be a "web designer". It means the flashy stuff isn't text, so it can't be indexed and searched. 'Text', FYI, refers to those rows of funny squiggles you sometimes see on old-fashioned web pages that don't win design awards. Text sometimes means something (which can occasionally be important to non-postmodernists), and indexing it helps people find bits of text they want to read.

Re:one thing

[trashme]

Ooh, you must be a "web designer". It means the flashy stuff isn't text, so it can't be indexed and searched.

Ooo, you must be a "prick". There was once a time when PDF documents on the web could not be searched. Go write a utility to extract text out of flash, and there ya go. You can then find flash animations containing the squiggly lines you so desire.

Re:one thing

[Anonymous Coward]

Go write a utility...

This thread started out with a claim that the website is "simple to navigate, and is quite fast". How simple and fast is it to write a utility?

Re:one thing

[CoolMoDee]

but isn't pdf an open format while Flash is not? I agree, flash sucks. It is only decent for funny cartoons. Entire sites "written" with flash like to eat all of my cpu as well, because the "designer" thinks that 'hey11 you are visting t3h sitez0r, j00 mu5t w4nt t0 d3dic4t3 a11 of j00r comput0rzing p0w3rz to m3 site!!11'. Screw that, sites that are written in flash automaticlly get a nice entry in my host file to 0.0.0.0.

Re:one thing

[Fred_A]

I don't think either PDF or Flash are open formats. Both are published and documented though. However both are driven by a single company (respectively Adobe and Macromedia) which can modify them more or less at will. Which is not a very good thing.

While open alternatives to Flash are available (although not useable due to very low support) based around SVG and assorted standards, I don't really see what could replace PDF.

OTOH PDF is becoming a bit of a de facto standard in the professional printing industry, so maybe changing it overnight will become more difficult.

Apple Wireless Keyboard - Review?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can anyone here comment on the responsiveness of Apple's bluetooth keyboard? I certain reviews their is complaint about lag and I was wondering if it was true. Also , what about the security of the bluetooth connection?

Re:Apple Wireless Keyboard - Review?

[ratsnapple tea]

I don't know what other reviews you saw, but there's definitely no lag, and the keyboard and mouse are both 128-bit encrypted with adaptive frequency hopping (whatever that means), which I believe is the standard. C'mon, would you expect anything less from Apple? :-P

http://www.apple.com/keyboard/

Re:Apple Wireless Keyboard - Review?

[sydtsai]

I don't think there is a lag, coz I have been using a logitech cordless keyboard. Plus bluetooth really a good standard, I don't think it will lag.

Endless Loop

[FunWithHeadlines]

" Should we make it any easier for the average user who doesn't know what they are doing to get into the computer case? "

And with that attitude, you thereby insure they remain average users who don't know what they are doing.

Re:Endless Loop

[lachlan76]

I just have the opinion that if a person is not intelligent enough to find a screwdriver, they aren't smart enough to upgrade their computer.

The people that work inside there should know what tools they need, and exactly what to do. People that don't should ask someone that does know to help them, or read a book/web site so that they have a greater understanding. If you just open a computer case, with no knowledge or tools, odds are, you either won't do what you were trying to do, or the computer may not boot up again.

But, make it look complicated, and people are less likely to just jump into something that they don't understand.

Re:Endless Loop

[trashme]

Personally, I don't know many clueless people that start mucking with the internals of a complicated device. It's usually people with a little knowledge that think they know what they are doing that jump in and do something stupid. A few simple screws will not stop that type of person.

Besides, I am looking forward to the day when all computer cases use latches to lock in components and a screwdriver will no longer be needed.

Re:Endless Loop

[Matthias Wiesmann]

I just have the opinion that if a person is not intelligent enough to find a screwdriver, they aren't smart enough to upgrade their computer.

The point is really not about intelligence, any idiot can wield a screwdriver and fiddle inside his PC. If normal people could not use tools, Bill Gates would still be the richest man in the world.

The point is about able to do work inside the computer fast. Inserting memory can be done in less than a minute on an Apple case, it takes a least five if you have a generic no-name box. When you are upgrading a bunch of machines, it makes a difference...

CPU

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you mean CPU in the PC sense, or CPU in the 'I like my computer because it's shiny and I think the CPU is the big boxy thing' sense?

Re:CPU

[Brackney]

Mea culpa! I was being sloppy. I meant the main case. I was wanted to be specific in my comments, because I think the keyboard and mouse are not in the same league, design-wise, as the system itself.

Re:CPU

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, either of the meanings are correct - traditionally "central processing unit" used to mean the entire "main PC case including drives, RAM, etc." and not just the processor... .

Re:CPU

[Anonymous Coward]

Strictly speaking, the computer proper is the central processing unit, as opposed to a peripheral. You didn't say what you meant to, but you were correct.

I think the point is, why is this about Apple?

[caitsith01]

This story should be here, but why is it about Apple?

The first thing when you go to the site: "The 130 winners of the 2004 Industrial Design Excellence Award (IDEA) won are listed in the categories listed below."

130 winners!!? And Apple won a whole 4 awards! Well, I guess this story should be filed under 'Apple' and not 'computer stuff' or 'inventions' or 'design' or whatever. There are 12 categories and each one seems to have 3-6 gold awards in it, so there are about 30-40 gold awards, let alone silver and bronze.

A great many people here like Apple, respect Apple, but do not think the light shines out of the lower orifices of Apple. There is really no reason to classify this as an 'Apple' story. It would make a great story about modern design aesthetics, but instead some Apple fan decides to post it as an Apple-centric piece of news. Nokia, IBM, and Samsung seem to have done quite well too - but this would never be posted under 'IBM roxx your world' or 'Samsung recognised as world's greatest computer designer' or whatever. So why antagonise the non-Apple-fanboy majority by needlessly politicising this story?

Re:I think the point is, why is this about Apple?

[Anonymous Coward]

I could agree with most of your comment until you had to use the word ..Apple-fanboy. Most people who buy from Apple like their Apple hard- and software, whether they are Macs running OS X or iPods. But most of us are by no means fanboys. We are actually very critical towards the companies we buy from, including Apple. As an example this is one of the reasons that Mac OS X is relatively stable and safe: it has got much less to do with inherent factors, more with the - rather fanatical - users not accepting flaws and security issues. The same would count if I would find an obvious flaw in any other product I've bought.

Speaking for myself: I don't mind paying a little more for something that just works and does so intuitively and for a more than acceptable timespan. Be it a computer, a camera or a portable music player. Whichever market Apple gets into, they seem to do a very good job at this. It should come as a surprise to no one that this might actually result in some accreditation once in a while.

By the way. I.m.h.o. Apple's laptops are their best product at the moment. But I might be biased, typing this comment from my PowerBook.

Pardon my English, I'm not native...

Re:Who is tired of the billions of Apple articles

[caitsith01]

Why should we miss out on a story about innovative designs of all kinds just because we are sick of hundreds of boring pro-Apple stories? The issue is partly categorisation, not just the high numbers of Apple stories.

Re:Who is tired of the billions of Apple articles

[caitsith01]

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.

Wow, I'm surprised you have the time there in the Apple marketing department to browse slashdot. Shouldn't you be churning out hip looking ads featuring trendy twenty-somethings enjoying the latest iLifestyle iAccessories or something? Or at the very least posting dubiously sourced benchmarks in business magazines?

Re: What the carpenter thinks

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked with someone who has that hammer. I said "Wow, that's a fancy hammer. How is it?"

He nodded his head approvingly and said, "It's good.". I took that to mean it was good.

There IS an iPod clone

[Anonymous Writer]

Have you seen the Creative Labs Zen Touch? It looks so similar to the iPod and also has a touch-sensitive scrolling interface navigation method. Even the screen looks nearly identical. It seems Creative Labs has done just what you said.

That is a load of crap

[revscat]

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.

Re:That is a load of crap

[Davoid]

In Mac OS X I find that "Preferences" are under neither "File" nor "Window"... but under 'whatever theappnameis'. System Preferences are both in the Dock and in Apple Menu.

In Linux (Gnome) I find that "Preferences" are under "Edit". Global user preferences are under main menu --> "Preferences". Global system preferences are under main menu --> "System Settings".

Either setup seems to make sense.

The thing that seems to throw off most users is that to "Quit" an application in Mac OS X one has to go to the 'whatevertheappnameis' menu and not the "File" menu as in all other apps on all other systems that I can think of. Eventually users seem to get over it... depends on how much time they spend in each kind of system.

Re:That is a load of crap

[tag]

I can't think of the last time I quit an app in a menu. On a Mac, it's Command-Q (or Control-Command-Escape to force quit). On Windows, I use Alt-F4.

Even if your right hand is on the mouse, those are left-hand keypresses (on standard keyboard layouts).

Re:That is a load of crap

[tag]

I've never replied to one of my own posts TWICE before, but for the record, force quit is Option-Command-Escape.

Re:That is a load of crap

[tag]

Reply to myself -- I haven't used a Linux GUI in a couple of years, just CLI, so no menu quits there at all for me. :)

Moderation

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, yeah, I know the rules, but the moderation of the parent is pathetic. A hell of a lot of people do agree - we are sick of Apple stories, especially those as tenuously about Apple as this one. Yet it is moderator-censored into oblivion before the thought crimes can be seen by the children.

Criticising Apple is not a 'troll.' Criticising those who blindly love and follow Apple is not a 'troll.'

On the other hand, rampantly posting any piece of crap story that has the word Apple in it is a form of meta-trolling that pisses a lot of people off. Coming soon on slashdot... farmers predict 5% rise in apple harvest... Steve Jobs reported to be pleased.

Re:Moderation

[HarbV7.0]

Well it's great to see that you speak for all of us here at /. Thinking for myself was really starting to warp my fragile little mind. Stating that you are not a Troll doesn't make you any less of one. And the flame bait is a nice added touch. Speaking as someone who uses Apple every day at work in an IT environment I welcome the Apple stories here. As pointed out earlier OS X is UNIX and if you hadn't noticed a lot of *NIX users frequent this place. So what's the big surprise that a lot of Mac stories show up? If a story shows up on a subject I don't care for, you know what? I don't read it and get on with my life. Maybe you should invest in a mouse with a scroll wheel? I did and I'm on a Mac!

Re:Moderation

[trudyscousin]

"Criticising those who blindly love and follow Apple is not a 'troll.'"

That's the problem in a nutshell: Trolls seem to think it's a blind love that Macintosh enthusiasts have for their computer equipment. It isn't. Articles such as this one help to explain why we love the hardware. There certainly have been enough of them to explain why we love the software.

But trolls blithely ignore all of this, preferring to think of Apple enthusiasts as some sort of cult, "following" a leader. Perhaps it's some sort of diminished intellect that can wrap itself around no other concept than that.

If you dislike the Apple coverage on Slashdot so much, remember that's what filtering is for. Are you also sufficiently addled that you cannot use it?

Re:Moderation

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the problem in a nutshell: Trolls seem to think it's a blind love that Macintosh enthusiasts have for their computer equipment. It isn't. Articles such as this one help to explain why we love the hardware. There certainly have been enough of them to explain why we love the software.

I deal with a lot of different laptops at work. I consider the build quality of IBM Thinkpads better than most Apple laptops. But I bet we'll never see a ./ front page story about a new Thinkpad release.

The story should not even be about Apple

[caitsith01]

There are plenty of other companies who have excelled in these awards. I see multiple awards to HP and Samsung and awards to IBM, Nokia and other tech companies.

So why should this be classed as a story about 'Apple'?

What's confusing to me is the complete inability of other PC manufacturors to produce intelligently-designed computers.

Oh, so is that why a screen by Samsung and another by BenQ, a keyboard by Logitech, and a bunch of other 'PC' manufacturers won awards?

most PCs nowadays still require you to remove a handful of screws to get inside the case

I'd rather remove a couple of screws using my opposable digits (the lack of which apparently hampers those who pursue the iLife) and double my CPU power for $200 every 12 months than have a super ergonomic case that I can throw in the trash and shell out another $4000 to uncle Steve when it's obsolete.

Re:The story should not even be about Apple

[trashme]

I'd rather remove a couple of screws using my opposable digits (the lack of which apparently hampers those who pursue the iLife) and double my CPU power for $200 every 12 months than have a super ergonomic case that I can throw in the trash and shell out another $4000 to uncle Steve when it's obsolete.

Which is exactly why you would want more good PC cases that have good airflow and no longer require the use of a screwdriver. Then you can have a nice ergonomic case and also upgrade to your heart's content. That is what the parent was talking about.

Re:The story should not even be about Apple

[caitsith01]

My PC case has excellent airflow, and I don't actually need a screwdriver to open it. I just turn the thumb-screws and off it slides. Many newer PC cases also open with simple clips, rather than screws.

Out of interest - what aspect of a case is 'ergonomic'? I mean, Apples have handles, is that what you mean? Other than that, I try to avoid physical interaction with my case...

Re:The story should not even be about Apple

[trashme]

Ergonomic is the wrong word, maybe convenient is the best description. My ideal case would require no screwdriver. Ideally opening with a latch, or maybe a thumb screw. Though any screws should not be seperable from the case. I don't want to have to keep track of screws removed from the case.

Drives and expansion cards (and ideally, motherboard as well) should be held in place by latches that lock into place. The internals of the case should also be rounded so they don't cut you while working inside.

As for handles, those are nice as well. I don't move my PC around often, but when I do it would be nice to have something to grab on to.

I like the G5 case because Apple has managed to do most of those things and made it look good at the same time.

Re:The story should not even be about Apple

[hitmark]

the current case on my pc have jsut that, all card are held in place by latches, the difrrent drives with a similar feature, one thumbscrew and 2 simple latches that fits nicely into the overall design of the case. there is even a crarrying handle for when i want to bring it to a lanparty:)

http://www.suntekgroup.com/stk6551.htm

could use a new powersupply tho as the current one makes a bit of noice (got it cheap)...

Have you bought a PC lately?

[caitsith01]

If you think something like 'built in networking' is an Apple-only feature, maybe you should look at the way the PC market has evolved over the last 2 years. Most motherboards now come standard with:

- network
- USB 1 + 2
- firewire
- sound, usually Dolby Digital 5.1 with optical output (my Mac friends with older models still can't believe this is 'standard' given they have to shell out over $100 for this honour)
- RAID and SATA

Basically, the only things that are replaceable are those that are likely to BE replaced/upgradeable within one motherboard generation, i.e. CPU, RAM, HDD etc. Even these things are less and less daunting - most motherboards will automatically detect a SATA hard disk and CPU settings without user intervention, for example.

And frankly, I would rather have my computer components like my organs - INternal.

Re:Have you bought a PC lately?

[Anonymous Coward]

My new Dell came with onboard ethernet....

Pitty, the Windows XP SP1 Pro CD that came with it doesn't have the drivers it needs to run it.

Therefore after a clean install, you can't get on the network. Yeah, yeah there is that second drivers CD. But not all users know they have to reinstall the drivers too.

Business Plan

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Make technically average product
2. Put the picture of a flat paer on in
3. ???
4. Profit!!

Let the moderator pack rape commence!

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuckwads

Logic

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent is flame

ergo

Grandparent is flamebait, not parent

Cool

[thing2b]

Cool

Apple Laptop Keyboards Unsuitable for Unix Users

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple has been ignoring unix users for 14 years (to the day) in their keyboard design.

Their laptops are effectively unusable for unix users.

I am a long-time Unix user. That means I need to have the Ctrl key to the left of the A key. This is a genuine need, not merely a want; it is based upon ergonomics. The Ctrl key is heavily used in unix, and it must be easily accessable. It cannot be off in the lower left corner of the keyboard where it is difficult to get at, and where it distorts the position of your left hand such that you can't easily type other keys while holding the Ctrl key down.

Apple desktop keyboards are now all USB. They are all OK. The CapsLock key can be re-mapped into a Ctrl key.

Unfortunately, even in this modern age, all Apple laptops have built-in ADB keyboards. The ADB keyboard is broken-by-design. It is, in general, not possible to remap the CapsLock key into a Ctrl key.

There are some exceptions, but they are horrible kludges. They are horrible kludges because the original design of the ADB keyboard was a horrible kludge. The correct solution would be for Apple to re-design their laptop motherboards to use built-in USB keyboards. This hasn't happened yet. If you run Linux, use Debian's solution. For Mac OS X users, uControl works. There are no solutions (that I know of) for either NetBSD or OpenBSD. Please note once again that the "solutions" above are in fact kludges, because of the original bad design of the ADB keyboard.

Apple provides a technical note on how to remap the keyboard, but provides no solution to the hardware problems caused by the design of the ADB keyboard. This tech note helps foreign language users, but does nothing for the CapsLock/Ctrl problem.

Apple is (currently) ignoring Unix users! This is not merely speculation on my part. In an on-going email exchange I am having with an Apple employee (whom I won't name) in their marketing department, the Apple marketing person directly stated to me that Apple was catering to their historic Mac customers, and is purposely ignoring the Unix market. He also claimed that Apple would soon start paying more attention to the Unix market. I won't hold my breath. Apple has been ignoring Unix users for more than 14 years (14 years to the day as I post this). I expect that trend to continue. (Also note that my Apple contact indicated that Macs would never ship with a 3-button mouse, even though Apple intended to port almost all X-window software and deliver it either on a CD/DVD or installed directly on each Mac's hard drive. How Unix friendly is a 1-button mouse with X programs that often require 3 buttons?)

Apple has now lost two opportunities to sell me hardware. I really wanted an Apple laptop for their superior battery life, and for the PowerPC with Altivec CPU. (The Altivec is vastly superior to the x86 line for DSP.) Because I can't live with the broken-by-design built-in ADB keyboard in all Apple laptops, Sony and IBM sold me laptops instead. If Ap

OH LOOK, A CUT & PASTE TROLL

[Anonymous Coward]

Subject says it all

yeah we all know they are pretty

[ximpul1]

i wonder how the lack of certain technologies affects the award (of course i didnt RTFA) things like the ipod leaving out a radio transmitter or the lack of a floppy disk affect a computers capability.

save all the 'legacy is bad' blah blah. the fact is that people still use it and apple computers are incompatible out of the box.

the reason that these are left out imho is bc there are all these flaws with those technologies. things like static on the radio or floppies not working when being transported (oh you know its happened to you) and it creates the possibility that someone will pick up an apple computer and have their visual osx orgasm interrupted by some thing not working.

i guess that in the end it all shows a concern for the 'computing experience' its things like that that make me wonder why apple has not beat the snot out of its competitors.

Re:yeah we all know they are pretty

[Kiryat Malachi]

It's a DESIGN award, not a technology award.

The whole point is that things that look nice win; if someone had a beautiful box with a 286 in it that served some function, it would be considered.

Re:yeah we all know they are pretty

[BlueStraggler]

You've confused design (how something works) with decorating (how something looks).

So it is a technology award.

Re:yeah we all know they are pretty

[Kiryat Malachi]

Industrial design has more to do with the visual appeal than with the things under the core. My 286 example might have been a bit hyperbolic, but you don't see any Opteron systems on their list of design awards, do you?

Hilarious Nike Golf Tees

[PunkXRock]

Elsewhere on the site in the Design Explorations area, you'll find these Nike golf tees. They look cool, and maybe they even have some good ideas (though if the ground is too frozen to drive a tee in, maybe it's not yet golf-season). But the quote about the "Mojo" tee is just frickin' priceless:

"'The Mojo' tee has a liquid center brewed from turf from Scotland, sand from Pebble Beach, tears from the Nike Goddess and sweat from Tiger Woods."

Yeah...

Good design or pretty design?

[Anonymous Coward]

The iPod is probably the most popular, name-recognizable MP3 player on the market.

How do you use the touchpad model if you're blind?

Re:Good design or pretty design?

[Kiryat Malachi]

Uhm, I can use it without looking at it at all. You memorize the positional relationship of the 4 buttons - back, menu, playpause, forward. The scroll wheel is just that. Since they're indented into the case, you can feel their locations. Someone who's blind wouldn't have any trouble using the buttons.

The bigger problem for a blind person is one I don't believe any MP3 player has solved - they all rely on an LCD. How do you navigate when you can't *see* the navigation interface?

Re:Good design or pretty design?

[iSwitched]

Someday, hopefully they'll be able to pack enough power into these things to do speech synthesis. After all, you've already got earphones in your ears, so how hard could it be for a nice voice to read the menus, albums, artists, and songs to you as you slowly scroll over each? Sure it would be slower than visual, as you'd have to pause to 'hear' each item, but it would be livable.

I'm not blind, but I'd still like that feature.

Re:Good design or pretty design?

[Kiryat Malachi]

Actually, I want that feature too, but for a totally different reason: I want to do artificial books on tape. I want to load a text file into the iPod and have it read it to me.

It really shouldn't be that hard to pack a text-to-speech engine into a chip; I'd even have paid a little bit extra for that feature to be included in my iPod.

Re:Good design or pretty design?

[hondo77]

You can use iSpeak It in the meantime.

Re:Apple Laptop Keyboards Unsuitable for Unix User

[Anonymous Coward]

I made the original post. My intention is not to troll. If anything, I hope to motivate Apple to fix this long-standing problem, and warn unix users.

I could broaden my post to include all input devices. Consider the hockey puck mouse for example. But I didn't.

I specifically want to movitate Apple to fix this problem, and to inform unix users of potential problems with Apple laptops .

Made in Taiwan

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple dont make shit themselves, they buy it from Alphatop and the rest of the Taiwan companies who also make it Dell et al, you really think Apple has fabrication plants and LCD factories ? heh reality distortion is strong

think of Apple as an expensive Dell with a custom jacket, other peoples stuff re-branded

Re:Made in Taiwan

[Kiryat Malachi]

What does that have to do with anything? Alphatop and the like are contract manufacturers; you give them a blueprint (well, CAD files these days) and they build your design. Apple's *design* is still better; no one claims their manufacturing is.

You're thinking of the unbranded OEMs that sell their designs into the US, where multiple brands stick their name on them with minor changes. That's totally different from a contract manufacturer.

Learn to fucking think, then come back and post, okay?

The G5 Can't Cook

[Anonymous Coward]

' 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.'

The G5 is like a beautful wife who can't cook and costs a fortune. Yes, it has impressive speed--speed you might have to pay half as much to get in a PC. But the G4 desktop family could accept twice as many external & internal drives even though it was smaller. And the G5's quietness reflects Steve Job's 'French General' mindset. He's always going overboard to correct the most criticized last problem--in this case a G4 model that was overly loud.

If Apple keeps losing 0.5% marketshare or so a year, in less than a decade it'll be history. That's sad when you consider just how impressive OS X is in comparison with Windows. It's sad when you consider that, unlike Microsoft, Apple really is innovative. It's sad when you realize that Macs really are far more hassle-free.

Apple's problem is that it's too obsessed with winning design awards like these--awards that are likely translate into maybe 1000 additional sales a year. That's a tiny drop in the great ocean of desktop computer sales and a recipe for disaster.

Apple needs to realize that Windows (and soon Linux) have improved visually to the point where most untutored buyers can't see a difference. They're buying a computer to do something other than make a fashion statement, and by that standard Macs simply don't measure up.

I've own Macs for almost 15 years. But when I consider replacing my seven-year-old beige G3 I balk. Apple's dismal desktop sales reflect the unpleasant fact that, unlike their laptops, their desktops are grossly uncompetitive. In the PC world, I could find a dozen and more models that have a blend of features and price I like. With Apple I find nothing making the hassle of an upgrade worthwhile.

In desktops, Apple has the same mindset that almost sent Henry Ford into bankruptcy. Ford's problem was a "any color you want as long as it is black" mindset. He paid no attention to the market and let General Motors steal away his customers. Apple's 'don't listen to the market' mindset is identical to Ford's. I've got two perfectly good monitors. I don't want to pay more for an eMac or iMac to get a computer that forces a monitor on me and leaves me no option to add a second. I want what the PC world provides in abundance--a box that lets me mix & match to get the features I want at a reasonable price. I don't want optical audio out or a WiFi card built in. I don't want a low-end machine that probably cost Apple more to make because they deliberately crippled it in comparison with pricer models.

Apple is, unfortunately, still mired in the Eighties, when it was different enough to maintain market share despite the fact that it didn't deliver what the market was really wanting. But now isn't then. If if doesn't want its computers to become mere appendages to iPods, it needs to look at the sort of computers people are buying, and build models just like them. It needs to copy as well as innovate. Wise people know how to do both.

In short, Apple needs to listen more to us and less to a bunch of elitist, stuck-on-themselves artists and designers. A computer is a tool. It isn't an object to be placed in an art museum to be "ouuud" and "ahhhhd" over.

--Mike Perry, Inkling blog , Seattle

Re:The G5 Can't Cook

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, Mike, if I get any mod points this week I'll undo that crack-addicted idiot's droppings. Your post should be +5 Insightful and printed off and shoved down Steve "form over function" Jobs' throat every morning until he chokes.

RE: steps backwards?

[King_TJ]

I'm not so sure about that... For starters, why would the new displays be a step backwards from current models? It looks to me like they're making them in aluminum enclosures to better match the G5 and aluminum Powerbooks, so that just makes good sense from a design standpoint. Also, the decision to change them back to an industry-standard DVI video connection allows them to work with Windows PCs as well as Macs. That means more potential sales for Apple, but also means those of us who own a G5 but a Windows laptop can easily share the display with either machine, without buying an expensive add-on product to convert display connectors.

I'd also argue that the Aluminum Powerbook deserves an award for its design. They've got the only keyboard with backlighting that actually lights up the characters on the keycaps, instead of just the spaces between the keys. There are no exposed doors or hinges to break off. The 17" version is still the lightest weight and thinnest laptop available with that screen size, period. If I had to find anything they did wrong with it, my only change would have been incorporating a numeric keypad on the 17" model - rather than wasting all that horizontal space to the left and right of the keyboard. (But then, that would add complexity for Apple, since they couldn't interchange keyboards with the 15" and 17" models.)

As for complaints about the keyboard not matching the G5, that's true to an extent, but traditionally, I thought black and white were considered "neutral colors" that matched anything. I find that since I added a Kensington Studio mouse to my G5 setup, it acts as a transition between the G5 and the keyboard. (The Kensington mouse is partly white plastic, just like the Apple keyboard, but also silver/metallic on the top.) They could have released an aluminum desktop keyboard I guess.... but the current arrangement isn't too bad, IMHO.

Re:Who is tired of the billions of Apple articles

[Anonymous Coward]

And I'm sure loads of others would agree with me that we're not tired. Not everyone likes the same articles; if you don't like it, don't read it.

Nice to hold.

[torpor]

... Like a modern touchstone the iPod Mini is a product people will love to hold ...

The reason for this is simple: iPod is pure Bar of Soap.

The "Bar of Soap" design methodology simply states: the most initimate 'implement' most people use these days, is the bar of soap. A bar of soap goes where no other implement goes. It is held and used in loving trust.

Design any consumer device to match the parameters of a bar of soap, and it will be loved...

Re:Nice to hold.

[EricHsu]

Design any consumer device to match the parameters of a bar of soap, and it will be loved...

I use Dr. Bronner's Liquid Soap, you insensitive clod!

Re:Nice to hold.

[torpor]

Heh heh. I sure would like to see a liquidy' mp3 player, that'd be quite interesting ...

Re:Nice to hold.

[MadMoses]

That's funny, just last weekend, I showed my new iPod to my brother-in-law. I placed it into his palm "Look at this!" First thing he said: "What's that, a bar of soap?"

Re:Nice to hold.

[torpor]

Ta dah! Welcome to Industrial Design Mindfuck, 101.

Design and Planned Obsolescence

[Anonymous Coward]

I was at a friend's house the other day and saw a CRT iMac on her desk. I hadn't seen one in a while, it's kind of amazing how dated it looked-- and how the millions of them sold all seemed to completely disappear. Even the slate-and-blue G4's and titanium Powerbooks are starting to look dated-- and it's only been, what, a year and a half or two years since they went out of production?

Apple's smart, consistently re-designing their computers in radical ways... Especially considering how many of their customers are in design fields and must have the latest and greatest, if not for their own egos then to prove to clients, etc. that they're current with the times. It's funny that Apples are built to last years longer than the average PC box, but the case will make them feel obssolete long before the Appleecare warranty's up.

Submit it yourself.

[Draconix]

If you didn't notice, /. accepts articles from users to be submitted for review, and I know that, if the article is /. worthy, it will probably end up getting posted. If you see something important in regards to tech that you like, you might want to write up an article on it, and submit it. That's what the "contribute story" link at the bottom of the page is for.

What about practicality?

[aestheticlove]

What would Apple be without the "elegant" design of the hardware?

To me it would be an overpriced computer system...

You really have to think hard.... is ease of use worth sacrificing features (is full screen view in the free Quicktime player YET? and... 2 mouse buttons anyone???) and software availability (Linux & Windows--- Max Payne & Photoshop on the same computer.. imagine that).

Why pay $500-$1000 more for a computer and get less...

Maybe once the Mac easy and simple world merges with the PC do everything cheaply world then I will be sold... but right now Apple MACs are just pretty boxes to me. (And I LOVE pretty boxes... don't get me wrong :)

I hope this doesn't sound too anti-Apple but I think we have a long way to go with "personal computing" and that is beyond Apple's proprietary realm.

Re:What about practicality?

[oscast]

>What would Apple be without the "elegant" design of the hardware?

They would be in the same boat that they are now... a competitively priced computer that has more functionality than the competition.. but without an attractive case.

>To me it would be an overpriced computer system...

I'm curious hy you would say that considering the fact that a Mac is typically the same price (sometimes less) than a comperably equipped PC. PCs allow you to buy less and therefore pay less, but that does not make them less expensive... but rather, more configurable.

>You really have to think hard.... is ease of use worth sacrificing features

No. Thankfully, buying a Mac doesn't require that you sacrifice features.

>(is full screen view in the free Quicktime player YET?

No, and yet there are many players that can play full screen mode. It's not as if Macs can only play one file format with one player.

>and... 2 mouse buttons anyone???)

Curious, why don't you offer the same conclusion for PC manufacturers? They can use a one button mnouse two... much in the same way that a Mac can use multi-button mice.

>and software availability (Linux & Windows--- Max Payne & Photoshop on the same computer.. imagine that).

Same goes for a Macintosh.

>Why pay $500-$1000 more for a computer and get less...

I don't know. Thankfully, you don't get less when you buy a Mac. You will pay more because you get more. A PC equipped with the same specs will cost you the same ammount. You can buy less and therefore pay less when buying a PC, but that does not make it less expensive... but rather, more configurable.

>Maybe once the Mac easy and simple world merges with the PC do everything cheaply world then I will be sold...

It is nad has been for quite some time. It appears to me that you simply have been stuck in the same rut for so long that you don't even see yourself considering a Mac.

>but right now Apple MACs are just pretty boxes to me.

It really is too bad you dont see it for 99% of all the other advantages it has.

>I hope this doesn't sound too anti-Apple

No. I think you're just ignorant.

Re:What about practicality?

[aestheticlove]

(okay.. I'll bite on this to clarify my point) Even if your ALL points are correct... that still doesn't make Apple a better choice. I built my computer choosing what I WANTED... and who I WANTED to buy from. I don't want to pay for what Apple wants me to have... I want my cash to go for EXACTLY what I want. Therefor I can spend $xxx on this and $xxx on that and get what my perfectionistic self wants. This is where I am coming from... not ignorance... I have used Macs as much as PCs... my conclusion is from experience... You just get more options in the PC world... at a lower price (or a higher price).

Re:What about practicality?

[Onan]

The quantity of options doesn't matter, only the quality of the best one. Once I've selected the most appropriate choice, I don't care whether I turned down two inferior ones or fifty; I'm still just using the one.

And no matter how many choices an intel box might offer me, it doesn't offer me osx.

As to why a mac might be the best choice, you're right that the grandparent didn't point out any. But that's because he was doing an admirable job of sticking to the topic at hand, which was refuting all of your inaccurate claims about the ways in which macs are inferior.

Now, if you want to now concede all your misinformed points and have a new conversation about why macs might be the best choice for very many circumstances, we could do that. But given how many discussions, including this one, are filled with enthusiastic descriptions of why people find their macs quite so enthralling and wonderful, I can't help but think we'd be returning to ground that's been very well covered.

Apple and the PC market

[Infonaut]

It seems to me that you're picking and choosing your points of comparison here. Apple has a rather focused approach to designing computers, which emphasizes the overall interaction between user and computer. Their intention has never been to cover all potential markets.

They've never offered a bargain-basement computer because they want their brand to be associated with quality hardware. While sometimes their products suffer defects, in general I have found their hardware to be far above the industry average in longevity and ease of use.

According to your comment, the G5 has speed you might have to pay half as much to get in a PC. This is one of those price comparisons that is of course impossible to refute. Sure, there's a PC out there that runs as fast as a G5 and costs half as much. But the problem with such comparisons is that you can use whatever PC you want to represent the price point. Are all PCs truly created equal? Of course not. If you want to compare price based solely on processor speed, you're simply ruling out all of the other factors that go into selecting a computer.

For example, you take Apple to task because you don't want to buy and eMac or iMac, and you want something that the PC world provides in abundance - a box that lets me mix & match to get the features I want at a reasonable price. You're comparing the entire PC market against one company. Does Dell offer every single variation you'd like? Does Gateway? Does HP?

You also mention that Macs really are far more hassle-free.. I assume you're referring to the operating system. So even the top-end PCs suffer from more hassles. How do those hassles translate in terms of overall cost? That's tough to estimate, but consider that Mac users have truly insignificant security and malware problems when compared to Windows users.

Your comment about Jobs being overly concerned about the G5's noise is a bit odd. If he hadn't insisted on making a nice quiet new G5, would you have gotten on him for not fixing it? Apple doesn't always succeed in making the best overall user experience, but it's truly at the core of how they see themselves in the market. Of course they're going to try hard to make a quieter machine.

It seems to me that you're frustrated most of all with Apple's philosophy. Apple doesn't want to make low-cost, commodity boxes, because they know that in the long run that's an extremely dangerous game. Look at all of the "cheapest" PC companies that have come and gone over the years. Macs will never dominate the computer market, but Apple has never been in better shape and is continuing to innovate and expand into new markets. Just look at their forays into digital hub software, niche professional software, online music retailing, portable music players, server systems, and supercomputer projects.

They are very much a design-driven company. To them, and to a lot of their customers, a computer isn't just a tool. This is in Apple's DNA, just like sacrificing all to achieve marketshare is in Microsoft's DNA.

If you're willing to pay a bit less in order to get the PC configuration you want, you're forgoing ease of use, hardware longevity, far fewer malware and security problems, an extremely stable OS, all of the iApps, peripheral ease of use, and better overall design. That's your choice. But don't blame Apple because you can't get all of the benefits of a Mac at the super low-low price of $299. R&D costs money, and the bargain-basement PC vendor isn't spending any money on R&D or design.

I'm not an elist stuck on myself artist, and I'm not a designer. But I really prefer using a machine that works for me instead of against me and saves me time and money over the long haul.

As for Apple dying inside a decade, just remember what these other fine prognosticators said in their day:

"Stick a fork in 'em - this Apple is cooked."
Robert Thomson, Financial Post, 2/20/2003

"The iPod, with its backward-looking feature set and dramatica

software for mb-paste comes with the mouse

[Anonymous Coward]

my logitech mouse came with a nice preference pane that allows pretty much unlimited mapping of all its controls. it's a mouseman dual optical, and i *highly* recommend its ergonomic *right-handed* design. the double-precision (and very stable) mousing is secondary to the good design. it actually fits my hand - my hand is not tiny, nor is it symmetrical, and i can't figure out why so many mice are.

but yes, i just checked, and you can have middle button paste if you want. just do it with a key combo.

Re:software for mb-paste comes with the mouse

[Brackney]

Yup, I'd already set it to generate a CMD-V, which gets me pretty close to the UNIX 3-button equivalent. I still miss just being able to highlight text and center click to paste it. Oh, and X11/terminals in OS X DO allow highlight/center paste, so that's nice, but the paradigm is inconsistent...

So I guess that leaves my only nits w/ OS X windowing being:

1) The single menu bar for all windows, which is a real pain for multi-monitor operation.

2) No ability to customize mouse/window focus behavior. I'm a "mouse-in-window" gives focus kinda guy. It's tough getting used to having to click in a window to bring it to the front and type in it. I guess I just need to change the focus behavior on my Linux boxen to avoid focus dementia. :)

btw - That tip for macosxhints was great. Some really good stuff there!

Re:software for mb-paste comes with the mouse

[steeviant]

Codetek Virtual Desktop provides the focus-follows-mouse feature. I believe the free demo version on their site allows you to use that feature without paying anything. It only gives two virtual desktops, but that doesn't sound like too much of a problem for you.

Re:software for mb-paste comes with the mouse

[Brackney]

SWEET!!!! What an outstanding utility. I get my mouse focus AND virtual desktops under OS X! This G5 is feeling more like "home" all the time. Thanks so much for the recommendation! I'm going to test drive it for a bit, but I'm thinking this will be a must-purchase.

Re: What the carpenter thinks

[line.at.infinity]

How hard would it be to screw up on making a good hammer?

inbred bunch

[dekeji]

Apple products are, by and large, nice designs. Apple makes some bad blunders, but they pay more attention to design than many companies. But you also pay for that. Other companies make good designs in that they manage to do good tradeoffs: the device may not be as sleek, but it's cheaper, for example, or has a more reasonable battery life.

But I frankly doubt these "designers" even considered such products because they didn't even think of them as "designer" products.

My ugly laptop, for example, is more convenient than my sleek Ti Powerbook. My ugly MP3 player is a lot more useful than the iPod. Etc. Unlike Apple products, those may not be designer products, but the no-name Asian companies that designed them did a great job with limited resources. And that's what good design is really all about.

Big bucks and you get screwed.

[gurrufio]

The Blue-and-white G3 with the faulty IDE controller that corrupts a second hard drive, the short-lived battery on the iPod, the faulty headphone jack. Great machine (I started off with one myself), but too many problems associated with it. Besides, nothing you can do on a Mac that can't be done on a PeeCee for a fraction of the price. I recall a joke award given to apple (NYT or somethin')"Designed-Like-a-Picasso-and-Priced-Like -One"

Congrats to Apple, BUT...

[Anonymous Coward]

While I always find these awards interesting, success often doesn't translate into sales.

The Vadem Clio, for example, had an outstanding design (even if it did run a sorry early version of Windows CE).

It was a Gold winner, as I recall.

But it was a complete flop in terms of sales.

I still have my Clio; I still love it. But the product stalled early, got sold and repackaged, and then died a miserable, pitiful death.

Do most people really care about good design? I don't think so anymore...

Re:Congrats to Apple, BUT...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does this get a Zero?

I think that's F****************ckin' stupid!!!

Typical Slashdot inanity!!!!!

What a bunch of F****************ckin' dorks!!!

Yes ...

[RageEX]

I have yet to see any other computer maker come close to Apple's design.

Silicon Graphics has had the best case/system designs in the Industry. I think the O2 is the greatest desktop system ever built. Too bad it represents a dead end.

The fruits of Darwin?

[mdavids]

Yes Apple has historically been unusually aesthetically-focussed for an IT company. But it seems to me that the partial switch to becoming a free software company has allowed them to concentrate more on their core business: cool devices. At the very least their tentative embrace of free software has not cost them anything; and arguably they have better software to run on their award-winning (and staggeringly popular and profitiable) hardware than if they developed a wholly proprietary OS in-house.

Hopefully they will soon see they have nothing to lose by freeing the rest of their proprietary code.

It may be too much to hope that a competitor of Apple's, whose name I dare not breathe in polite company, will abandon their losing battle against software freedom and follow Apple's lead. I don't see that happening anytime soon. I'm just glad I don't have a vested interest in the future of that company, because it may not have one for much longer.

Re:The fruits of Darwin?

[Anonymous Coward]

The example of Apple and OSS, maybe offers more of a leason to thier non-competitors, than to those who's name must not bespoken.

I mean imagine a world where there are ten such companies like Apple, each may have programme similar to darwin, each makes a tight hardware/ software product, targeted at various markets but with obvious crossover.

Even if they had different Kernals each of these companies playing nice OSS would still get a leg up of the work of the others.

the one that come to mind is linux for lawyers.
all it really needs is a good name and a case that looks good with all that leather and woodpanel

Re:Apple Laptop Keyboards Unsuitable for Unix User

[steeviant]

As a long time UNIX/Linux/BSD (and now OS X) user who spends most of his waking time getting intimate with *nix boxes, I take great issue with your insinuation that I don't know how to use different keyboard layouts.

How do you cope with the re-arranged keys on normal laptop keyboards? Most of them have double-mapped keys which serve the function of more than one key at a time.

Re:Who is tired of the billions of Apple articles

[JamieF]

>it matters how nifty the case is

Funny you should mention that. Apple's first computer didn't even have a case.

>It's no longer just enough to come up with a good idea; it must be marketed.

When was having a great idea and not telling anybody about it enough? "Build a better mousetrap..." is just a saying.

Cleanliness of code has never been a critical success factor. Ask IBM, or Microsoft, or Apple (especially Woz - the Apple II was full of impressive hacks, but they were hacks).

Lian Li garbage

[SuperBanana]

However, The most important lesson is that we should all make everything out of Aluminium. take a look at Lian Li [lianli.com] cases, which are also very attractive ;)

There's nothing about a Lian Li case that is either unique or attractive. All they did was take a PC case design, and make it out of aluminum.

Apple did not exactly forge new territory with their thermal zone concept- one need only look at a Sun Ultra to see the CPU's air intake is ducted, for example. Digital also used some interesting arrangements with the Alphas, in part because they -had- to thanks to enormous power consumption.

Still, Apple did a great job of executing it, and like the Blue and White G3 case, it was fresh, new, innovative, and a drastic step up from both the old mac cases(which were a BITCH to get apart, the 8500 being a prime example, requiring TOTAL disassembly to get to the memory) and PC cases. Cables are hidden away, the finish of materials are perfect, and so on. Lian Li cases are just welded aluminum cases with all the panels having the same boring finish...only recently have they done something different, and the best they can manage is to imitate the G5- look at the website you linked to, that case was clearly designed to imitate the G5...rather poorly, too.

When an Apple is right...and when it isn't

[Zhe Mappel]

Now, if you want to now concede all your misinformed points and have a new conversation about why macs might be the best choice for very many circumstances, we could do that. But given how many discussions, including this one, are filled with enthusiastic descriptions of why people find their macs quite so enthralling and wonderful, I can't help but think we'd be returning to ground that's been very well covered.

LOL! Certain he's got it all figured out, the poster expects his point of view to be flattered by posts reflecting it. Ironically, he wants you to Think Different, as long as you don't think differently.

I own two Apples. They're nice machines: my iBook is a writer's dream, and the iMac is a beautiful and functionally adequate system for running a small business.

But I own a homebrewed PC, too, for bleeding edge gaming. It reflects my precise hardware choices; it's for someone who doesn't need hand-holding from a corporation, indeed wants the control a corporate-approved box can't offer.

Different boxes for different needs. One size doesn't fit all.

That I won't trust the Windoze box to do anything more than run the latest games is a measure of what I think of Microsoft OS's. That I won't expect the iMac to be able to handle anything in the bleeding edge in gaming is a measure of reality: Apple's low and mid-range offerings can't compete on those terms, though it has made a better-than-fledgling effort at doing so. Still, good luck running Half Life 2 and Doom 3 on anything less than a PowerMac.

An Apple can't be all things to everyone. And it doesn't have to be.

It's bigger, it's thicker, ...

[burgburgburg]

and in the realm of iPod clones, those are not positives.

Re:Apple Laptop Keyboards Unsuitable for Unix User

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a long-time Unix user. That means I need to have the Ctrl key to the left of the A key. This is a genuine need, not merely a want; it is based upon ergonomics. The Ctrl key is heavily used in unix, and it must be easily accessable. It cannot be off in the lower left corner of the keyboard where it is difficult to get at, and where it distorts the position of your left hand such that you can't easily type other keys while holding the Ctrl key down.

So am I, and I custom-ordered my previous Sun keyboard to get the ctrl key where I want it, under the shift key. I didn't have to do that with my current Sun keyboard, because it came that way. It's that way on my PC, too, and my PC laptop. I find it *harder* to use a ctrl key that's above the shift, the angle is just weird.