The site http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=411956
has a really good article on Ive's and the mac.
I really like this quote
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The added ingredient: Elegance
By Charles Arthur
Seen from a great height, Apple's products are specks in the huge world of computing - a few in every hundred. Yet in design terms, they're an oasis in a vast desert.
Touch most PCs and you'll feel a certain give, an uncertainty in assembly that is the curse of being one of the slaves to Microsoft's hegemony, built down to a price to run identical software. Even where it doesn't show physically, you can sense a missing ingredient - elegance.
Jonathan Ive is admired among designers because he pours elegance into products. The 1997 iMac was a gumdrop-inspired solution to making an all-in-one machine. The second, with its movable flat screen, alludes to a sunflower. The iPod is like an everlasting cigarette packet for those addicted to music instead of tobacco.
Rivals make comparable, even cheaper, products. But they don't have it. They don't look desirable. They're just objects for a task.
Careful attention is Mr Ive's métier. Item: a small light on the computer shows whether it is working or in a suspended "sleeping" state. Once sleeping was indicated by a slowly flashing light. Mr Ive changed that. Now the light pulses slowly, as though the machine were truly asleep, breathing in and out. What use is that? None. What value does it have? As much as you put on being pleased.
Mr Ive dislikes the computing business's obsession with ram and megabytes: "Inhuman and very cold". His work has always tried to make machines people would love. Could he ever be tempted away by a Windows PC manufacturer? I doubt it. He couldn't like the abrupt graphics or the zig-zag fonts. Not elegant; not stylish. He's made his own, more elegant world.
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How true!
has a really good article on Ive's and the mac.
I really like this quote
------------------
The added ingredient: Elegance
By Charles Arthur
Seen from a great height, Apple's products are specks in the huge world of computing - a few in every hundred. Yet in design terms, they're an oasis in a vast desert.
Touch most PCs and you'll feel a certain give, an uncertainty in assembly that is the curse of being one of the slaves to Microsoft's hegemony, built down to a price to run identical software. Even where it doesn't show physically, you can sense a missing ingredient - elegance.
Jonathan Ive is admired among designers because he pours elegance into products. The 1997 iMac was a gumdrop-inspired solution to making an all-in-one machine. The second, with its movable flat screen, alludes to a sunflower. The iPod is like an everlasting cigarette packet for those addicted to music instead of tobacco.
Rivals make comparable, even cheaper, products. But they don't have it. They don't look desirable. They're just objects for a task.
Careful attention is Mr Ive's métier. Item: a small light on the computer shows whether it is working or in a suspended "sleeping" state. Once sleeping was indicated by a slowly flashing light. Mr Ive changed that. Now the light pulses slowly, as though the machine were truly asleep, breathing in and out. What use is that? None. What value does it have? As much as you put on being pleased.
Mr Ive dislikes the computing business's obsession with ram and megabytes: "Inhuman and very cold". His work has always tried to make machines people would love. Could he ever be tempted away by a Windows PC manufacturer? I doubt it. He couldn't like the abrupt graphics or the zig-zag fonts. Not elegant; not stylish. He's made his own, more elegant world.
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How true!
