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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.
Mac.
I don't understand this - how are ventilation stripes a design language?
Can someone explain what the hell is snow white design language created by this guy.
if you don't believe me, look it up yourself: Wikipedia Link
You know it's time for the next revolution when your rulers' names end with roman numerals.
of Mac Mini, NEC monitor, Logitech bluetooth mouse, Kensington USB keyboard, and Tivoli Audio sound system has absolutely no "design language or overall synthesis in essence" and yet works just fine.
This is not design, it is fashion - fad if you will !! Design has purpose !! Fashion does not !!
http://visual.ly/braun-or-apple
http://www.metrohippie.com/dieter-rams-top-10/
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
I will never buy such product from slave labors.
Before you go all holier-than-thou on us you might want to consider the full implications of what you are saying. First off, "slave labor"? I think you do not know what real slavery is so your hyperbole is really a bit out of line. Foxconn might not treat their employees well but its hardly slavery. They do not own their employees even in a figurative sense. Slavery is something far, far worse. I've actually been in a sweatshop in Chengdu where they were making parts for Dell monitors. I've seen dozens of manufacturing plants in China with my own eyes. I've seen all of this stuff first hand. There is NO electronics manufacturer that is innocent here. You will find that there is no alternative that is any better if you really look into this situation. Anything you can say about Apple/Foxconn you HAVE to say about pretty much any other electronics manufacturer as well as those for countless other products. You are actually saying that you will not buy a wide variety of products.
If you want to not buy products made in substandard working conditions, I respect that stance. But you are going to find it is not as simple as you think. There aren't any innocent parties and in many cases what we consider horrible working conditions are actually a step up from the alternatives. The important thing is that conditions continue to improve. There is considerable evidence that conditions are improving even if progress is sometimes painfully slow. There are more effective ways to improve working conditions than a silent boycott by yourself. Get involved with organizations trying to make a difference. They're out there if you really actually give a damn and want to make a difference.
I wonder if they noticed that the pictures of the Macphone they show were taken with the product upside down.
> "The company's [then] CEO, Michael Scott"
Creative Strategies for Sustainable Change
That's what she said!
Steve's desire to end the disjoined approach
That's what she said!
bad design was both the symptom and a contributing cause of Apple's corporate disease
That's what she said!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Hartmut needs to design a line of products for shaving.
Have gnu, will travel.
I recall these internet appliances that would allow us to cheaply access email and the WWW. Since so many were still using dial up, a land line phone was a common sense addition. Few imagined that cell phone rates would fall so quickly that phone calls would almost be given away, and what you pay for was data. This lead to the internet appliance that was not imagined, the smart phone, and the larger table on which we use Skype, which with we call anywhere for negligible costs, at least by developed world standards.
This is funny because so many said the internet appliance would never be viable. Maybe that was true in a very restricted sense, but not in a broad sense. In the same sense that there was no market for microcomputers.
Which is why I get so annoyed when people dismiss a concept because they do not like a design. Sure the Tandy 100, 200, PC-6 might not have been many peoples idea of a programmable portable device, but they had many of the ideas that people want today. A keyboard, programing on device, removable storage. It is interesting to note that many successful mobile devices do not include such features. But that is who progress works. We start by mimicking existing technology, then move to novel ideas.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
No matter how you feel toward Apple, those designs show how forward thinking they were. Keep in mind that most of those designs are from 1982. Two years before the Mac's debut, and at a time when we were all beating on our Atari 8-bits, Apple IIs, and Commodore 64s.
I'm especially intrigued with the split screen monitor designs. Dual monitors in 1982? Dual flat screen monitors? Pretty amazing.
And the baby mac resurfaces 14 years later as the iMac.
What, me worry?
Jo1n in especiall3y and distraction for *BSD because Of BSD/OS. A
When I read, "Design forward, creative strategies for sustainable change", am I the only one who interprets this as, "I'm a douche, new age style"?
And WTF is sustainable change? Change is change. Sustainable is continuous. If things are changing, they're not sustainable. A constant state of change is the very definition of a bunch of unsustainable things. So what the really means is, "we're going to keep pulling the rug out from under people" which brings me back to my first point: It's all about being a New Age douche, which fits Apple perfectly I guess.
Much early personal computer design was dominated by the "where do we put the back part of the CRT" problem. You see that in the article's pictures. Once screens became flat, and electronics became small, there was more design flexibility. Not much is done with it, though.
Organic designs have been tried over the years. Olivetti did some beautiful designs in the 1960s and 1970s, and most good museums of modern art will have a few Olivetti objects on display. Bang and Olufsen designs are much admired by designers, but the reaction of most people is "what's that?" There are limits to what consumers will accept.
Phones seem to have ended up as bricks, for now. For a while, flip phones were mainstream, but we now seem to be back to bricks, just thinner ones. Slightly larger devices are either flat bricks or big flip phones. There's little curvature in mobile devices. What matters is what's on the screen. (And the ability to fit the thing in a pocket or bag.)
The same thing happened to movie theaters decades ago. Movie theater auditoriums were once built in fanciful styles ranging from Moorish palaces to "atmospheric" theaters with the illusion of an open sky. Theaters had elaborate curtain systems, with both horizontal and vertical curtains. All of that is gone. Today the auditorium is a lightly decorated box with a bare screen. But the seats are better, the aisle lighting is better, and the projection and audio are much better. Function has triumphed because what matters is on the screen.
The next thing is supposed to be headwear, in the form of glasses with displays. It's not clear if that will catch on. Bluetooth headsets as jewelry never did.
Looks like the 'cat is out of the bag' big time.
All those years of commercials about 'Think Different', 'Innovate', 'Create' were just a smoke screen. All the designs, even the Apple I, had nothing to do with Jobs' 'Genus'. Jobs was just a carpet bagger with an anger management problem, other than the drugs.
Mac Mini, NEC monitor, Logitech bluetooth mouse, Kensington USB keyboard, and Tivoli Audio sound system
How exactly were we supposed to divine you understood anything about design from that mish-mash?
It doesn't even seem like a set of components that are either the best technically (kensington keyboard, tivoli speakers) nor is it coherent in design. Someone who really embraces design would recoil from having discordant components (and note I'm including myself in that assessment as I sit here with a second screen being a cheap LG monitor).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How sad that slashdot is now the place for old news about old news that used to matter for geeks....
Cool designs bro. Call me when you want to pay some taxes. You know, those taxes that fund the patent office that allows your flawed \ fraud business model to exists in the first place.
Not only are the Tivoli speakers and sub a great sounding nearfield system but they are cosmetically beat up and hand me downs. Enjoy your "synthesis in essence" whatever the fuck that absurd gibberish is actually supposed to mean.
I probably put the floppy Drive in that tiger 2C. My first "tech" job way back in the early 80's. Damn I am getting old.
What you say ?
The Apple Computer designs were not by Steven P. Jobs ?
They were ... BOUGHT ... with ... MONEY ... from a ... a ... German !
And ... so ... what does this say about the current ... G ... Geniuses since there is no German who will make the designs ?