What made the iMac so important was not that it was just another computer that happened to sell particularly well. Spot Apple - "Say hello" - iMac g3 Campain - 1998 When Apple revealed the iMac to Segall and his team, Segall felt “part shock, part excitement, and part hope that Steve Jobs really knew what he was doing - because there was a real chance that this revolutionary computer might just be too shocking for its own good.” It was Apple’s last throw of the dice, and it had to be brilliant. Ken Segall, head of Apple’s creative agency and the man worked on the famous “Think different” campaign, remembered it as a make-or-break moment in his 2012 book. But Steve Jobs recognized its importance and that “it was part of the iMac’s friendliness and playfulness,” as Ive later recalled. There was no practical necessity for the handle, and at any other company it likely would have been rejected as redundant. That goes a long way to explaining the genius of Jony Ive. It gives a sense of its deference to you.” So I thought, if there’s this handle on it, it makes a relationship possible. I could see my mum being scared to touch it. “If you’re scared of something, then you won’t touch it. “Back then, people weren’t comfortable with technology,” Ive explained. But it was not merely functional - like every part of the iMac, the handle was there to convey something more. From a purely functional perspective, this seemed out of place - the iMac was a desktop computer, and few people were going to be regularly carrying it around. You could have color, but it felt so unstatic. “We were trying to convey a sense of the computer being changeable based on your needs, to be like a chameleon,” said Ive. “Back then, people weren’t comfortable with technology.” And that outer shell would be translucent, so users could see the insides of the machine, removing their mystery. It would come in a variety of bright, fun colors, a million miles away from the staid, stale designs of Apple’s competitors. It was all about removing hurdles that could stop newcomers in their tracks. Instead of requiring users to connect a computer tower to a monitor, the iMac would come in an all-in-one shape, letting you simply plug it in and get started. “We tried to do things in a simple, elegant way,” Ive explained in that same interview. Anything to show people that computers were not to be feared. “We could make a computer look like a grapefruit,” Ive said. Instead, Apple would do something different. To many people, computers were inscrutable, alien objects, a mass of wires and circuit boards not meant for mere mortals. They would make a device that was all about removing the fear associated with computers. At the same time, there was a huge, untapped market out there - people whose lives would be made easier by computers but who were put off by their “nerdiness.”Ĭommenting on this in a 1998 interview with CNN, Ive was scathing: “The computer industry is creatively bankrupt,” he said, with companies too afraid to break out of the status quo to consider anything other than speed and performance. Ive wanted to make a device that was all about removing the fear associated with computers.Īt this point in the late 90s, computer design was at a dead-end, a sea of boring beige boxes with nothing to distinguish them. That same day, they started work on what would become the original iMac. The two bonded over their maniacal obsession for design and their shared nature of being “a little bit odd,” in Ive’s words. Yet by the end of the day, Ive was excited to be working with Jobs. In his trademark brash fashion, Jobs told him, “Fuck, you’ve not been very effective, have you?” For his part, Ive had his resignation letter in his pocket. As recorded by the New Yorker, when Jobs first met head designer Jony Ive, the new CEO didn’t mince words. Steve Jobs had just returned as interim CEO and had to act fast to save the company. In a single day on June 27, 1997, Apple lost $56 million - contributing to a $1.6 billion loss during then-CEO Gil Amelio’s 500 days in charge. For much of the 90s the company had been in a downward tailspin, hemorrhaging money and customers at an unsustainable rate. In 1998, Apple was at a critical juncture in its history. We now know why Apple’s Reality Pro headset was delayed Fitbit Versa 3Īpple’s XR headset could get one of the Mac’s best featuresĪpple just made a huge move to power up your next MacBook
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |