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Early Apple Designs Revealed, Courtesy of Hartmut Esslinger
SternisheFan writes with an excerpt as carried by CNET of former Apple design chief Hartmut Esslinger's upcoming book, titled Design Forward: Creative Strategies for Sustainable Change. Writing of Steve Job's integration of design as an essential element across the company as a whole, Esslinger says:
"The company's [then] CEO, Michael Scott, had created different business divisions for each product line, including accessories such as monitors and memory drives. Each division had its own head of design and developed its products the way it wanted to. As a result, Apple's products shared little in the way of a common design language or overall synthesis
In essence, bad design was both the symptom and a contributing cause of Apple's corporate disease. Steve's desire to end the disjoined approach gave birth to a strategic design project that would revolutionize Apple's brand and product lines, change the trajectory of the company's future, and eventually redefine the way the world thinks about and uses consumer electronics and communication technologies." CNET shows off a few of those old designs (many of them appearing unsurprisingly fresh), but for much more of them see these images at designboom.
Whatever the design, it's if made in the Foxconn factory, I will never buy such product from slave labors.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/27/business/signs-of-changes-taking-hold-in-electronics-factories-in-china.html?_r=0
If you really want to be honest with that attitude take a good long look at the labour practices of every manufacturer you buy products from. I think you'll find your list of acceptable brands will have to be drastically reduced. Every major manufacturer takes advantage of mistreated labor forces somewhere in the world and that includes most of the food stuffs you buy.
I'm glad you have taken a stand, but I'm sorry to hear you have eschewed all consumer electronics. How did you post the above comment?
Good for you, but no one is writing articles about your setup, giving you awards for design innovation, or buying anything you make -- at least I hope not.
Advertising decades old design ideas never brought to market? I pity the fool that can't enjoy a bit of tech history.
"Whatever the design, it's if made in the Foxconn factory, I will never buy such product from slave labors."
So you will never buy any hardware from....
Acer ......
Amazon
Apple
Cisco
Dell
HP
Microsoft
Motorola
Nintendo
Nokia
Samsung
Sony
Toshiba
Vizio
It's an article about an interesting (for some of us) history of the genesis of a pretty damned successful tech company. Now if you would pull your head out of your "I hate anything Apple" ass for just a short time you might learn something about how business works. Or carry on with your ranting. (in 3, 2, 1...)
Because of their high profile among mainstream consumers, Apple is one of the only companies pushing Foxconn to improve working conditions. I'm sure there are public relations considerations driving Apple's moves, but singling them out as the OP did leaves him open to criticism.
We're talking consumer electronics here. Computers and phones primarily.
Nokia used to manufacture in Finland amongst other places, so one may assume the conditions there were reasonable. But I suspect they don't manufacture there any more.
Apple does some of it's manufacturing in the USA, and has announced they are going to be doing more. Again we can assume no sweatshop conditions there.
So who else?
I'd suggest at this stage Apple is probably amongst the best of the consumer electronics brands as regards worker conditions. Because they're pretty much all manufacturing in the far east, and Apple, given all the bad press they got on the issue, is the one who's doing the most to counter bad practices. And they are also not trying to compete in the bottom end - where there is no margin for improving worker conditions.