The idea that the form of a product should correspond to its essence does not simply mean that products should be designed with their intended use in mind. That a knife needs to be sharp so as to cut things is a non-controversial point accepted by most designers. The notion of essence as invoked by Jobs and Ive is more interesting and significant—more intellectually ambitious—because it is linked to the ideal of purity. No matter how trivial the object, there is nothing trivial about the pursuit of perfection. On closer analysis, the testimonies of both Jobs and Ive suggest that they did see essences existing independently of the designer—a position that is hard for a modern secular mind to accept, because it is, if not religious, then, as I say, startlingly Platonic.
—
Form and Fortune is an essay about Steve Jobs and Apple's design philosophy by Evgeny Morozov.
posted by Kattullus
on Mar 5, 2012 -
23 comments
Rick Santorum
released an anti-Romney ad in January that borrows
ahem liberally from Apple's famous
1984 ad. Weirdly, it
also copies Apple's second Super Bowl advertisement,
Lemmings, which was viewed as insulting to its audience and became a legendary failure. (Via
Ken Segall, a former creative director at Apple who writes, "Note to Rick: if you’re going to copy Apple’s marketing success, try not to copy its failure as well.")
posted by Rory Marinich
on Mar 1, 2012 -
73 comments
“You need a thousand rubber gaskets? That’s the factory next door. You need a million screws? That factory is a block away. You need that screw made a little bit different?
It will take three hours.” Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher of the NY Times give an in-depth report on Apple's migration of electronics manufacturing to Asia and its impact on middle class Americans.
posted by Blazecock Pileon
on Jan 21, 2012 -
158 comments
Jack Goldman died this month. Mac? Windows? X11? You may think of visionaries who shaped technology as you know it. You might imagine that they were the original thinkers or visionary businessmen. You're wrong. The guy who laid the foundations started out trying to invent the electric car
at Ford, before being hired to Xerox creating the legendary PARC labs that invented computing as we know it; he lived to see
his prediction that "...any electric car produced in our lifetime will have to be a hybrid" come true.
posted by rodgerd
on Dec 24, 2011 -
17 comments
In 1985, Apple started the "Apple University Consortium Europe" collaboration program, and one of the first universities to enroll was that of Lund, Sweden. To celebrate the collaboration, Apple CEO Steve Jobs came to Lund - and a 16 minute film of his visit has now been found and been made available by the University of Lund.
You can see the clip here (.mov).
posted by mr.marx
on Dec 16, 2011 -
5 comments
Apple has
adopted new tactics in its patent war against the handheld industry. Last summer, Apple has transferred
patents to the patent troll
Digitude Innovations, using a shell company operated by Digitude's primary investor, Altitude Capital Partners. In December, Digitude filed suit with the International Trade Commission alleging patent infringement by almost every mobile manufacturers except Apple. (
pdf filing)
[more inside]
posted by jeffburdges
on Dec 11, 2011 -
79 comments
What touchscreens lack is something called affordance. It’s a lofty term for an object’s built-in ability to tell you how it works. A doorknob affords turning. The button on a car stereo affords pushing. A touchscreen affords nothing. It relies on software for any affordance, which in turn relies on total immersion for the user.... The days of analog affordance are gone. What we want, apparently, is to surround ourselves with touchscreens of varying size—tiny ones in our pockets, medium-size models for our laps and dashboards, and massive versions for our walls. We want tomorrow’s vintage shops to be lined with identical, blank, anonymous slabs. We want things to be vessels for software, and nothing more. -
A Slate piece asks if touchscreens are becoming too ubiquitous
posted by beisny
on Nov 4, 2011 -
97 comments
The iPod turns 10 Today marks the 10th anniversary of the introduction of the iPod. Touted in a low-key
presentation as a player that would let you carry 1000 (!) songs in a player the size of a pack of cards (!), the 1st gen model didn't really impress
techies (or
mefi), though consumers quickly fell for the stylish white and stainless player. In the ensuing years, Apple kept plugging away at new
models, and today, few even remember that Apple was late to this game. (
previously)
posted by Gilbert
on Oct 23, 2011 -
318 comments
In 1987 Apple predicted a
complex language voice assistant built into something called the Apple Knowledge Navigator, a tablet computer. With today's announcement of the refined (and integrated) version of
Siri, it appears they were less than a month off.
posted by mrzarquon
on Oct 4, 2011 -
405 comments
