Re-Imagining Apple

FirienFirien writes "Business 2.0 has put up a selection of ideas from Pentagram Design, featuring some interesting rumoured ipod innovations, as well as a look at what may be next for Apple. From the article: 'The project was led by Robert Brunner, who was Apple's chief designer from 1989 to 1996, and who oversaw the design of the PowerBook line, among many other hit products.'"

Comments

Re:Apple is SO 2004

[poison_reverse]

dropped prices on their ipods, and laptops and released the mac mini???

Re:How's that again?

[four2five]

I think it was more this man:
http://www.lowendmac.com/musings/gil.shtml
Silly gil.....

Re:I sure would like a non reg version of the arti

[KillerDeathRobot]

It might help if the blurb linked to the right part of the story (which is reg free).

Link

Re:How's that again?

[Mononoke]

Sorry, you must have the PowerBook confused for the IBM Thinkpad.

Sorry, but you must not remember the PowerBook 100, the first laptop design to push the keyboard back toward the screen.

Re:Re-imagining Apple?

[DesiVideoGamer]

Are they going to start selling Beowulf clusters iPods?

Somebody has already done something similar.

Apple computer shipments are actually on the rise

[chia_monkey]

"If Apple actually sold computers again. Seriously, they are rapidly turning into a consumer electronics companies and selling computers are becoming more and more of an afterthought."

Turning into a consumer electronics company? If you recall, way back when Steve introduced iTunes to the masses, his plan was to make people want the iPod, which would make people want Macs. His plan is working perfectly. While other PC companies are predicted to have slowdowns in units shipped, Apple is actually expected to sell MORE computers in the near future. Not only is Apple selling computers...they are selling MORE computers than before. Making a nice chunk of profit from the product that is helping the computer-base grow is simply gravy.

Full article text

[Anonymous Coward]

(Expand browser window to view ungarbled.)

What's Next for Apple?

Steve Jobs won't ever tell you -- but we will. Here's what a trail of intriguing evidence reveals about
where the world's hottest company is going.

By Paul Sloan, Paul Kaihla, April 2005 Issue

Steve Jobs was rocking back and forth in his chair at the head of his conference room table -- and venting. It was January 2002, and the target of his
ire was the music business. The industry was reeling from Internet piracy and, as Jobs saw it, doing nothing about it. Even Jobs himself, a man
accustomed to commanding people's attention, had been largely ignored by music execs. Jobs railed to his audience, a few Apple (AAPL)
lieutenants and Paul Vidich, then a senior exec at Warner Music, about the industry's total lack of imagination. "Until now," Jobs said, "I've never had
a living, breathing music executive come to Apple."
Vidich sat quietly.

"Why is it," Jobs continued, "that the people who run the music industry just don't get it?"
Vidich could have taken this the way Jobs certainly meant it -- as an insult. But as Vidich listened, he couldn't help thinking that he agreed. Finally,
he spoke up.

"Steve," he said, "that's why we're here. We need some help."

It's amazing to consider what has happened since that encounter at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. In three years Apple has utterly changed
the way people listen to music, and Jobs has become the hero of the very people he was lambasting. Top acts are eager to sell their music via the
iTunes music store. The iPod music player has become totemic; it's selling at a rate of about 40 per minute. White buds sprout from so many ears
that a sudden human evolutionary adaptation seems to have taken place.

Apple's lead in digital music is growing even as an army of corporate powerhouses -- Dell (DELL), Microsoft (MSFT), Samsung, and Sony (SNE)
among them -- spends hundreds of millions of dollars to grab a slice of the business. And the financial transformation driven by Apple's storming of
the music stage has been profound: On its knees when Jobs retook control in 1997, Apple is coming off a year in which revenue rose 33 percent and
profits quadrupled. Its stock, not surprisingly, has been on a tear, up more than sixfold in the past two years and now hovering around $42 a share.

So, Mr. Jobs, what do you do for an encore?

It has become a parlor game in some quarters to try to divine where Apple is going and how it intends to get there -- and not just at the dozens of
blogs that traffic in Apple rumors. Recently, Microsoft quietly hired a former Apple design executive whose mission is to help Bill Gates's baby
behave more like Steve Jobs's. Apple doesn't make the game easy; Jobs is famously secretive and detests leaks -- just ask the kid from Harvard
whom Apple recently sued after he posted details of the Mac Mini before the stripped-down computer was unveiled at Macworld (see "The Secrecy of
Success"). But there are ways to draw a bead on what's brewing in Jobs's fantasy factory. And we're here to tell you, it goes way beyond what he has
discussed at Macworld.

Jobs wouldn't talk to Business 2.0, but in various public forums, he has stressed how the $499 Mac Mini, the low-cost iPod Shuffle, and an advanced
operating system called Tiger, due out this spring, are meant to build on the digital-music momentum. In truth, they are but the tip of a very long spear.

Discussions with past and present company officials, Apple partners, and longtime acquaintances of Jobs, as well as clues in patent applications
and other evidence, point to a gargantuan effort to leverage the iPod's success by creating an entire line of breakout consumer electronics devices.
Dozens of gadgets -- from an iPod phone to wireless iPods that talk to one another to the ultimate all-in-one home-cum-car media hub -- appear to be
on the drawing board or, in some cases, already in prototy

Re:How's that again?

[Otter]

That's a different model -- the 636CD was one of the last of the 68K's. In fact, the most sensible of the lawsuits had to do with the fact that Apple had advertised it as "upgradeable to PowerPC", which was only true in the sense that you could sell it and upgrade to a new computer.

If it's any consolation, you only missed out on some coupons. (The lawyers, of course, made out like bandits all three times.) And your Performa will happily run Linux if you stick some more RAM in there.

Re:Not really

[Bun]

"You don't work in GUI design, do you? Context menus are essential in complex applications, e.g. IDEs, Tech Drawing, UML design."

You quoted the parent, but perhaps you didn't read it first? Let's see it again:
"Very few applications have (or should have) the level of feature complexity that would require contextual menus for basic functionality..."
Your list represents an almost insignificantly small subset of the applications used by PC owners. Most applications used by people are nowhere near as complex as the ones you cite.

Re:How's that again?

[PriceIke]

> References, please.

Sure thing.

The Regsiter

Apple has a history of mobile computing innovation quickly ripped off by other vendors. Its PowerBook 100 - manufactured by Sony - was the world's first notebook with a built-in trackball.

The first trackpad, the first integrated modem, the first integrated 802.11b WLAN, the first 15in widescreen LCD, and the first backlit keyboard (in the 17in PowerBook) are among Apple's other notebook firsts.

MobilePC Magazine: "Top 100 Gadgets of All Time"

22. APPLE POWERBOOK 500, 1994

The PowerBook 500 wowed the notebook market with a long string of firsts: The first touch pad; the first stereo speakers (with 16-bit sound); the first expansion bay -- and the first PC Card slot; the first "intelligent" nickel metal hydride battery, with a processor that communicated battery status to the operating system; and, last but not least, the first curvaceous case, with gratuitously swooped edges and corners instead of the boxy angles of previous notebooks. Make no mistake, this notebook set the agenda for the following 10 years of portable computer design.

MobilePC Magazine: "Top 100 Gadgets of All Time"

1. APPLE POWERBOOK 100, 1991

Never mind the Apple versus PC debate: Until Apple unveiled this 5.1-pound machine, most "portable" computers were curiosities for technophiles with superior upper-body strength. But the PowerBook 100's greatest and most lasting innovation was to move the keyboard toward the screen, leaving natural wrist rests up front, as well as providing an obvious place for a trackball. It seems like the natural layout now, but that's because the entire industry aped Apple within months. The first PowerBooks captured an astounding 40 percent of the market, but more important, they turned notebook computers into mainstream products and ushered in the era of mobile computing that we're still living in today.

I stand corrected on the first 17" screen claim, giving the Register article the benefit of the doubt.