Dieter Ram
Old news, but I felt like blah, blah, blahing… “It is speculated that Rams’ designs have been influential on Jonathan Ive of Apple, Inc., designer of such products as the iMac, iPod, and iPhone.” - Gizmodo
Hell I don’t care if Ive’s did bite Ram’s designs or not, Apple’s made a lot of our lives better either way.
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10. September 2008 - 01:17 Uhr
I heard that Sony had a poster up in there design studios that read ‘Bring me the bloody fingers of Jonathan Ive’… you got to hope thats true, right?
Mac has indeed made all our lives better, how different the way we work, communicate, create now had apple not existed is slightly disturbing to think about.
10. September 2008 - 09:54 Uhr
Mac has had the style to bring it to the masses, I’ve always thought of I’ve as a second hand product designer, The original Imacs use of coloured plastics was heralded as a first. It wasn’t.
The relationship between the headline and the truth/research that is often hidden. This is what makes apple special, you can trace all of the designs back to something that was once revered, hell even the tech in the original ipod was invented by a Brit in the 70’s.
They do that often illusive thing of bringing it to market with style and confidence.
10. September 2008 - 19:24 Uhr
Ive is ripped and lean. He could kick the shit out of Dieter Rams. Rams doesn’t want a piece of that in his face. No way, no how. Ive would be like ‘uhhhhhh’ and sock him in the gut, then knee Rams while he groped for his glasses. Ive would be like “You have girly lips, Dieter,” and then deftly shove a wastebasket over Rams’ head, while masterfully kicking the Naguchi stool out from under him, knocking him on his ass.
…What?
In all seriousness, however, these sort of comparisons are easy to set up and exploit what you want from them. As I get older, I see a lot of posts and comments from people that rewrite what Apple’s contributions have been to tech. But having been there for a lot of them (my first computer was an Apple II+) I can say they brought a lot of what we take for granted to the general market first, and often did what others haven’t: they made the concept work. Not always, obviously - I’m only talking about the successes, but there seems to be a general creeping rewrite that Apple didn’t really do what they did, and that they only build shiny objects that appeal for the wrong reason.
But it goes beyond well-considered design. People also forget the significance of the software - the iPod is considered “first” and “best” because of the usability - more usable than the Brit’s graph paper sketch of a music player, more usable than any MP3 player before it, and more usable because of the oft-forgotten other half of the formula, the iTunes software which allowed you to easily manage it.
As for the ‘who-did-what-first’ angle: These endeavors are the efforts of many people and many influences, collages that can be nitpicked apart retrospectively to a point where we forget the impact of the original product, and its context in the timeline.
Plus, did I mention Ive could take Rams?
10. September 2008 - 22:54 Uhr
^^^
Very good points, especially about the software - there were other MP3 players on the market before the ipod. To be honest, if the software didn’t work as well as it does, the ipod would have flopped.