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

How's that again?

[93 Escort Wagon]

'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.'

Perhaps that should read "... chief designer from 1989 to 1996, a period where Apple saw its market share drop to near irrelevance".

Weren't these the same people Steve Jobs saved Apple from?

Re:How's that again?

[Ohreally_factor]

Rather than focus on the points I disagree with, I'll address a point that I do, more or less, agree with. And I'd like to formulate it in a different way, so as to provide some insight for you. You said"

For some reason known only to them, Apple chooses to have only a tiny market share of the PC industry. They are certainly smart enough to redefine the industry on their terms.

The way I would put it makes the reason a bit more obvious:

Apple chooses not to compete with Dell and the other commodity box makers in the commodity box market. They've chosen to compete with Dell on their own terms, by redefining the industry more than once.

Maybe you meant to say that. The ideas are certainly there in your post.

Is it just me...

[jberkom]

...or are those designs really, really ugly? They bear hardly any resemblance to real Apple products. I'm guessing that's due to the fact that style-man Jobs became CEO in 1997, by which time this designer was gone.

Pentagram wanting to get bought...?

[tquinlan]

This looks to me like Pentagram is trying to get themselves bought, by showing off that they are good designers and might be a worthwhile acquisition for Apple.

Steve Jobs, great instincts

[Fox_1]

Steve Jobs meets Dean Kamen

Anybody remember this? Dood has a great natural feel for products.

Re:What Wonderful Credentials

[Anonymous Coward]

Bob Brunner is an excellent designer, one of the top in the industry; so was his team. Many others in the field of industrial design would agree. The problem was that Sculley, Spindler, Amelio, and the horde of suits they gathered around them failed to appreciate good design, believing beauty had no place in computing (much like Slashdotters, I would point out). Apple's ID team, hobbled though it was by the fact that their best work never saw the light of day outside Apple, still managed to win numerous design awards from '89 to '96. I don't think you can blame the ID group for the shortsightedness of their management.

Re:An interesting set of designs

[calibanDNS]

Why does a cell phone NEED so many buttons though? I really think that mine has too many, and I rarely use them. For me, the ideal cellphone would have an answer button, and ignore button, a button to initiate voice-activated dialing, a button to toggle between ring, vibrate, and silent, and a power button. I should be able to enter contacts through a USB or BlueTooth interface, and since I'd like to use the phone with a BlueTooth headset instead of holding it to my head, it should have a small design.

I don't need a camera, I rarely use the digit keys (only for entering my voice mail password, which could use voice authentication), and I don't need a d-pad because I don't want to browse the web or play tetris on my phone.

On a side note, I also don't want my phone integerated with my digital music player. If a neat-o new technology comes out, I don't want to have to replace my music player just to upgrade my phone or vice versa.

Re:The clones were better than Apple's machines

[jht]

I was a big user of Power Computing clones back in the day - they had features I couldn't get in Apple kit, had good prices, and you could do BTO without a problem. The reliability was only so-so, but their support was always good and they were quick about getting me parts if I needed them.

Apple's reliability was also crap during that era, too - and their prices were a lot higher.

When it became obvious that MacOS 8 was really just being targeted at shutting down the cloners (at the time, most of the clone companies only had license rights up through 7.x, because 8 was originally supposed to be Copland) and that Apple was going to refuse all the license renewals, I wrote Steve Jobs a snippy e-mail complaining about it and telling him I expected to see their lunch eaten by NT.

A day later, he sent me an e-mail back explaining his rationale in what he was doing, and we agreed to disagree. You know, I'd say he was probably right after all...

Apple Design Award

[Anonymous Coward]

If steve could create a sphere with one single button on the outside, that glowed, and had any realistic expectation that it might sell, he would.

You must be thinking of the Apple Design Award. It's a "beautiful metal cube ... that glows when you touch it." Unfortunately they're generally not for sale.

http://www.mekentosj.com/goodies/cubism/

PIctures, including x-rays:
http://www.mekentosj.com/goodies/cubism/gallery.ht ml

already been done

[k2enemy]

nokia makes a very small, no button cameraphone aimed at clubbers that just accepts your SIM card then uses voice dialing.

http://www.nokia.com/nokia/0,8764,62371,00.html

Re:Not really

[BitGeek]

Hmm... I can think of no company in the computer space that has had more designs copied from apple. Hell, every Linux and windows GUI is a copy of the old Mac UI (and not a very good one at that.)

I can understand why Microsoft did it- they have little creativity and their culture stifles it.

But why did Linux GUI developers just copy the really poor Windows UI (which is a poor copy of the Mac UI)?

Sidebar-- if you're going to mention xerox in your response, don't bother. Apple licensed some ideas from xerox, paid them in Apple stock, and then created a user interface from them that went far beyond what xerox had in the lab, etc.