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

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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

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

[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.

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

[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.

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

[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

[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

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.

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: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.

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:Who is tired of the billions of Apple articles

[Gropo]

Learn how to use the filter, Stanley!

Re:Sure, the G5 is nice...

[alfredo]

The fireWire and USB2 Ports are there to be used.

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: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.

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.

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.

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

[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

[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).

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.

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: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.

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: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: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?

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...

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: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 ;-)

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.

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