Tuesday, August 02, 2011

The new sport of Apple bashing

Harking back to the mid 1990s I well remember the doom and gloom that PC users heaped onto the poor Apple Mac user.

Remember these gems of wisdom of the time?

"It'll be dead before the year is out."

"Microsoft won because they have a better product."

"Apple only make toys; they are not serious !"

Yes, "dead by the end of the millennium" company Apple have built a company on the back of good design and only releasing the best products that just work.  The "i" products we know and love - iPod, iMac, iPhone and iPad.

And now we have Apple, the second largest company in the USA by capitalization, having to defend itself against every man and his dog ripping off their designs and, and a new idiotic chorus of clueless pundits saying that Apple is "this big powerful bully suing the little guy"..

Well, first, I wouldn't say Samsung is a "little guy". I even own some of their appliances and home entertainment products. But I would say that the Galaxy family of tablets and smart phones is definitely riding on the backs of Apple's design and innovation.

But the really sad part is that Samsung's designers actually have the industrial design chops to have gone their own way. They have done it before, so why be a follower now?

I'd say it is because of the gutless and vision-deprived company wannabes who manage "brands" these days, rather than put in the effort to build a company that has soul, knows where it is going and tries to excel in everything it does. It just degrades the efforts of staff who really want to prove to their bosses and peers that they have the talent and commitment to produce great design and great products, but aren't given the chance to prove it.

The same can be said for companies that would rather poach gun-for-hire talent with no 'skin' in the game than actually train staff in the "way" (to paraphrase HP,) that they "do" design.

Designers don't design to shift boxes, they design to enrich lives. Apple designers get to do that, but not many others are part of something as vibrant and dynamic as Apple.

Pity.