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.

Steve Jobs, great instincts

[Fox_1]

Steve Jobs meets Dean Kamen

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

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...