Apple’s quest to put us at ease with technology [International Herald Tribune]
“Most new products are badly designed, whether it’s in terms of the way they work, how they look, or their impact on the environment,” writes Alice Rawsthorn in the International Herald Tribune.
“Yet Apple has scored a succession of design coups: from introducing color to computers with the first iMac in 1998, to launching the iPod as an icon of the early 2000s. It has also proved repeatedly, as Olivetti did with office equipment and Braun with electrical appliances during the 1960s, that people are willing to pay more for an object, if it is so well designed that they really, really want it.”
“That said, no company rests on its design laurels for long. Who would cite Olivetti or Braun as role models of design today? And Apple is entering a challenging time. If the blogs are right, it is finalizing plans to go into the cellphone market early next year with the iPhone. And having striven to establish its design supremacy in aesthetics and usability, Apple now needs to do so in sustainability to ward off attacks from environmental groups.”
[…] Apple non si riposa sugli allori: a quanto pare l’anno prossimo entrerà nel mercato dei cellulari. La sfida sarà quella di far valere anche in questo settore la propria superiorità nell’estetica e nell’usabilità . […]