Allow me to be first.

http://www.keynoteuser.com/news/MWSFLive.php

The Mac Mini is really fantastic. I'm so glad Apple finally went back to the original idea of the iMac (affordable Mac). The headless part isn't bad either, this way your not tied to a specific screen size. Get a HDTV-out on that baby and you've got a great home media center. Plus for people like me who are forced to use PCs, it's cheap enough and small enough to get pushed by some budgets.

the ipod shuffle is what happens when great product designers question all the assumptions - "who says it has to have a screen?" super job.

and i'm facsinated to see how pages is positioned - as a desktop publishing too or a word processor. psd support makes me thing they might be trying to step a little closer to dtp than anyone might have guessed.

when great product designers question all the assumptions

That's a great comment.

Why do they insist on these new items after the holidays?! SHEESH! They'd have been perfect for stocking stuffers.

also - i LOVE the shuffle arrow banner on the apple webiste:

Darrel Wrote:

"I think the iPod Shuffle is pure genius....Well, you now need an iPod shuffle to go with it!"

funny, you called it "Shuffle" in one place, and "shuffle in the next, which is the same error Apple makes. is it "iPod Shuffle" (UC S) or "iPod shuffle"(lc s)? I dont know, and apparently the web designers at Apple didnt either ;)

Thats an awfully big inconsistency to slip through on such a big product launch...

It's official. I've got Maclash. Bring back OS9!

Those templates in Pages sure are sweet, though.

Um,

iWant.

Why do they insist on these new items after the holidays?!

because they don't need the holidays to artificially stimulate demand, and because suckers like us will ante up again, regardless.

they're smarter than they seem, those apple marketing peeps.

I caught that "shuffle" blunder just now. We designers have some good eyes. I must believe the average Joe wouldn't have noticed that error, but instead say WOW to Apple's innovative brainchild, again. Apple: King of the Mountain (the MP3 Player Market, that is).

The MacMini is unbelievable. The possibilities are forming. Hmmm... Restrict my G5 to creative work & use the MacMini for music, movies, games, etc. I could buy 4 of these and make my own network. Space-saving and cheap. I must have it. Of course, one would hope that Apple has learned its lessen from the Cube and improved upon it ten-fold.

As for the new word processor Pages, I'd like to play around with it. I'll have alot more fun working on Pages than Word, although I'm not backing off XPress, and I doubt Quark's palms are sweaty enough. I see it this way: Word is to Microsoft as Pages is to Apple.

Apple gave us a HUGE one-two-three punch. They did it again.

they spent too much time worrying about the ligatures...

Pages just seems to be a newer, slightly more powerful version of AppleWorks.

I'd love it if it replaced Word, but the likelihood is slim to none. *sigh* The problem is the prevalence of Word on the client/pc side. If Apple wants to be a giant killer, they should set their sights on the Windows market, be aggressive and/or creative about how to virally disperse Pages to that audience.

The Mac audience is easy. Let's face it, we don't use Word or PowerPoint because we want to — we do it because we have to in order to work with our clients. Why does Apple market so hard to a willing audience, yet seemingly ignores the more important pc crowd?

It might have something to do with their unwillingness to piss off the Office:Mac product group at Microsoft. Who knows?

where is my macTablet?

ps

The MacMini has so much potential for developing into a set-top box, similar to MSN's television based surfing/media station. Unlike Microsoft, I don't see Apple pushing that. Of late, Apple has let the user drive the product. The unix code of OSX perfectly demonstrates this, and now a new breed of user will tackle this Mini, making it everything from a movie house to music jukebox to portable drive...and so forth.

PS Tan, if Microsoft has already ceased developing Explorer for the Apple OS, what's next?!

Am I the only one who read the iShuffle's sales pitch and went to the bathroom to barf up the bullshit Apple fed me?

they spent too much time worrying about the ligatures...

and, some would say, not enough time worrying about where their products end up when we’re done with them.

Gunnar...interesting campaign, but what kind of idiot throws away an iPod? ;o)

makes obligatory "what a bunch of mac fanbois" post, this is a graphic design blog, etc... etc...

see above ^

having said that, as a mac fanboi:

Mac Mini - only Apple could take a midrange laptop, rip off the screen, put in way to little RAM, and make ya lust after it in a way never done before since the 1st iPod. And yes i am lusting. Id buy one in a second just to serve MP3's if i had money and more than one mac. But i think its a great little product and hopefully does exactly what its intended for - drive new users to the platform.

iWork - eh. word works. cool tho, another option is always good. Plus this way Keynote is $20 cheaper and ya get Paper with it.

Tiger - looks great. i would kill to know how resources heavy Dashboard (read: Konfabulator) is, cuz, if it isn't, i am in love.

HD madness - great. i wish i had an HD TV so i could get excited about this.

iPod Shuffle - great for what it is, but not for me. As said elsewhere, only The Steve could remove a basic feature of an MP3 player (display) and make you sport wood over it.

and i am undecided about their new packaging graphics... on the one hand i love the lime green packaging for Shuffle, and on the other hand i am a little sick of flat high chroma colors. Also the graphics on iLife 05 and iWork are kinda... i don't know.. not making so happy, mostly due to the "old packaging + new centered graphic = psudo new packaging"

overall a great macworld, But as i also said in July's macworld post... what about the pros... no G5 updates, not even a G4 powerbook update, never-mind a G5, no pro software update, no new cool pro product. all we had was an Xserve update a week or 2 ago. i again, am nervous. but i am always nervous.

I am also almost liking the iLife and iWork graphics. Clunky but organic.

> Am I the only one who read the iShuffle's sales pitch and went to the bathroom to barf up the bullshit Apple fed me?

I think it's amazing what creative copywriting can do to cover a product's shortcomings. Apple had to create a low-price MP3 player but couldn't exactly manage to make it full-featured, so why not spin the lack of screen and call it the random revolution. Pretty effin clever if you ask me. Even better: they will fly off the shelves.

The Mac mini is what it is: cool. We'll just have to wait and see how well it actually performs.

Pretty effin clever if you ask me. Even better: they will fly off the shelves.

agreed, and agreed. i don't need one. at all. i have a normal iPod i don't use much. and yet i want one. now. behold the power of design.

Gunnar...interesting campaign, but what kind of idiot throws away an iPod?

Everything gets thrown away sooner or later unless there’s a mechanism for it being recycled. Electronic equipment in general contains a variety of toxic substances. If there is no recycling program in place then it ends up in landfills and from there it ends up in the water table.

Sorry. I didn’t notice that there was a photo credit on the protest shot I linked: Scott Ard

Am I the only one who read the iShuffle's sales pitch and went to the bathroom to barf up the bullshit Apple fed me?

Me too. Please, it's just a (good-looking) MP3-player that has a shuffle function. Big deal.

Why is everybody so obsessed with the iPod anyway? I thought about buying one, but instead got an iRiver that is much more versatile and costs the same. The iPod is not the only mp3-player on the market, and in my opinion not the best one either...

> Please, it's just a (good-looking) MP3-player that has a shuffle function.

I think that is its only function…

> Everything gets thrown away sooner or later unless there’s a mechanism for it being recycled.

So why not lash out at the product with the biggest visibility right? Darrel's question is very valid in dismissing that campaign as an immature attempt at sounding opinionated and taking a very easy shot at goliath. Do you know how many old, beaten, beiged-out printers, monitors, modems etc. you see on the streets, being thrown out every day? Why not do a campaign about stuff that is actually being disposed off inproperly? I guess it's not sexy enough to do an ad featuring an old Lexmark or Printaform.

DutchKid’s comment is:

Me too. Please, it's just a (good-looking) MP3-player that has a shuffle function. Big deal.

Yeah, I'm a little stunned, frankly, that they made the shuffle feature the central sell for this device. That would be like Sony coming out with a new DVD Player called the "Sony Fast Forward! It's DVD, but now you can speed ahead through the boring parts with our amazing Fast Forward� feature!!! Live life on the edge of the future!!!"

I'm a little stunned, frankly, that they made the shuffle feature the central sell for this device.

but that's the masterful part about it all - take what would ordinarily be conceived as a weakness (the lack of screen and control over what's playing) and turned it into a product feature.

plus it allows apple to cement their position in the mp3 player market by claiming (righly so) that the ipod changed the way ppl listen to music, focusing away from albums and toward shuffle play.

seriously, this is marketing genius at work here, people. couple that with product desgn worth salivating over, and the ipod product line will reach heretofore unfathomable levels of ubiquity.

The iPod Shuffle is perfect for little kids.

At the moment we are still making compilation tapes for my 6 year-old son, but it will be time for an upgrade soon. I don't want to get him a cd player. They are too fragile for the rigours of his world. But I certainly don't want to be shelling out �200 to buy him an iPod. �70 I can deal with, and he doesn't care if it has no screen. His walkman doesn't have a screen.

len’s comment is:

but that's the masterful part about it all - take what would ordinarily be conceived as a weakness (the lack of screen and control over what's playing) and turned it into a product feature. seriously, this is marketing genius at work here, people. couple that with product desgn worth salivating over, and the ipod product line will reach heretofore unfathomable levels of ubiquity.

Well...whether or not its marketing genius remains to be seen, doesnt it? imho the $99 price tag is what will move this item, not any "it's not a bug its a feature" marketing gymnastics. Most consumers, ESPECIALLY the target market for this item, are smart enough to recognize a marketing shtick when they see it, especially one as blatant as this.

And note that I am not saying the iPod Shuffle is a bad product. I think its pretty slick. I just dont think the whole "shuffle your songs! Isnt it amazing?!?!" approach is whats going to sell it.

Please, it's just a (good-looking) MP3-player that has a shuffle function. Big deal.

It's smaller than most of the others. It has a rather ingenious integration with iTunes as well. Other than that, no, it's nothing special...other than it's a Mac brand now at the same price point as all of the other low-end MP3 players.

As for the shuffle thing, I think Apple says, and from my personal experience, would completely agree, that one of the most popular ways to listen to your regular iPod is in shuffle mode. The iShuffle (hmm...I just think I made that name up) is the iPod distilled down even more to a very core set of needs. As Len states, it's ultra-simplicity is actually a defining feature.

Why is everybody so obsessed with the iPod anyway?

On paper, there's not much to get obsessed about. In your hand, there is. It's just a very nicely designed product all around.

I just dont think the whole "shuffle your songs! Isnt it amazing?!?!" approach is whats going to sell it.

I think long ago Apple learned that marketing fluff won't sell anything. Apple products need to be held in your hand...hence the tremendous success of the Apple stores. Walk into an Apple store and you see ZERO marketing fluff. Just the actual products sitting there ready to be touched.

imho the $99 price tag is what will move this item, not any "it's not a bug its a feature" marketing gymnastics.

but that's just it - you can't have one without the other. apple decided they wanted to make a $99 flash-based ipod. something had to give, hence the lack of a screen. marketing gets the bright idea to spin this 1)as a product feature and 2) as a testament to how much the original ipods have changed the way we interact with our music.

"genius" is my stork, and i'm sticking to it.

STORY, not stork.

len’s comment is:

STORY, not stork.

Actually I think "genius is my stork, and i'm sticking to it." is better. A little surreal, but it has a nice ring to it ;)

.m

Genius, aye?

Anyway

No comments about the illustrations on the iLife and iWork boxes?!

>PS Tan, if Microsoft has already ceased developing Explorer for the Apple OS, what's next?!

Yea, I know. But I work w/ the Mac Business Unit at MS, and they have no intentions of giving up any market grounds for Word, Powerpoint, or Entourage. So far, they've played really nice with Apple, but if things get nasty, who knows?

And FYI, iWorks is a derivative of AppleWorks, which is a derivative of Microsoft Works. Those products are squarely aimed at the home consumer market — featurewise and pricewise. They are all suites of stripped-down versions of more professional softwares, intended for novices with the hope that they'll migrate upwards eventually. Quark, Adobe, and Microsoft aren't shaking in their boots for a $79 home software bundle.

So why not lash out at the product with the biggest visibility right?

Of course. The reason the product has the biggest visibility is there are so many of them, thus especially needing attention as a recycling problem. But the real reason is the visibility: The best way to get attention for a serious problem is to bring it up when people are talking about something related to the problem. That’s why they chose MacWorld. That’s why I brought it up on this thread.

This is conjecture on my part but frankly, Apple is probably paying the price for being good guys. It seems very plausible to shame them into becoming industry leaders on the electronics recycling problem where it might be much harder to get movement out of some others. Their making a move toward a recycling program or backing an industry-wide movement would, of course, generate maximum attention and political pressure.

Disclosure: I have done design work for the Computer TakeBack Campaign, some of the people behind the iWaste campaign. (None of my work shows up on their website: They are way too ad hoc about graphic design but at least the quality of their presentation is improving.)

There has been some legislation toward brand owners’ financing of the recycling of their products but not enough. The European Union has gone much farther and is a model for the US, at least on this topic.

I'm pretty excited about the Mac Mini, but I've heard that it only has 1 RAM slot and that you need to take it to an official Apple dealer/store to put in a bigger module. Not so hot on that idea.

About why everyone's so obsessed about the iPod: Well, for me, it's not the iPod alone, it's everything surrounding it: using it, transferring music, using it as a portable hard drive, iTunes, ripping CD, burning them, etc. They've crafted a very solid, smooth experience that goes from music to player. And finally, what's the first thing you think when you see someone walking by with white earbuds on? Apple's handling of this product is masterful, to say the least.

They've crafted a very solid, smooth experience that goes from music to player.

exactly. it's not just iPod we're talking about, it's the smooth, clean look and feel that i have going with my laptop, my speakers, my iPod, etc. it's begun an aesthetic that is expanding into the way i furnish my apartment, like a soft modernsim. and i like it.

if you saw steve job's keynote speech at last year's developers convention (it was on apple.com for months), you can see how he wants to build into people's entire lives - eventually wirelessly connecting whole houses with the ability to control all the media from any point in the house. so that's what competitors are really up against. this new bitty iThingy is just another point of infiltration.

what makes it possible and slightly amazing is how these things are for the most part plug and play. i got my G4 laptop, used it the day i got it. took the iPod out of the box and tried out my first song in under three minutes. bought a canon powershot digital camera, it came with an installation disc that is still in the plastic. i've never seen any other system work like that, which builds my brand confidence. like i'm buying into an idea as much as a product.

i'm apparently a total sucker for iMarketing :)

and another thing - honest question, here - what other brand has spawned something like i_____

iPod

iTunes

iMarketing

iShuffle

iWant (earlier said by andrew twigg)

if we were Sesame Street, we would say today's show has been brought to you by the letter i. if mac ever bought IBM, it'd be iBM. the possibilities are endless. iNfinite, iF you will.

(yes, i recognize i've gotten carried away. sorry.)

iShuffle

What's funny is that that isn't actually what it's called but I've caught myself and others calling it that. The power of the 'i'.

I have to agree with David V.’s comment that the copywriting isn't going to sell the product; the product is going to sell itself. I will eventually have one, and not because it shuffles music. Every music player has a shuffle option; an option I have always disliked. If I could not cancel out the shuffle feature, I wouldn't buy it. We all know Apple had to find SOME WAY to market it; so I leave you with the question:

If not, "Random is the New Order", then what?

How To: Hack iPod into iPod Shuffle

When I bought my iPod about a year ago, I was mainly hoping to streamline the many stacks of CDs I had a home, at the office and in my car. What I've found, though, is that the data storage feature (the hard drive) is what has really changed the way I work and travel. I'm never without an important file!

The firewire transfer on the standard iPod is great, and they do make a USB conversion cable for those PC folks that need it. USB, though, is another key feature necessary for the wider market share (world mp3 domination) that apple desires. If they've spent any time around those people that use PCs regularly (and yes, I'm sure they do) they likely saw how many people use flash drives for storage as well. Every "PC" friend I have swears by those little keychain-sized drives for file transfers, and a 512mb drive will cost you almost $50. I bet many of my friends will be sporting white earbuds soon.

BTW, on the iPod marketing, my first impression was that this is a brilliant approach. With the standard iPod, it's all about putting together your carefully crafted playlists and hoarding a hugely diverse music library, but the iPod shuffle feature is described more carefree and more experimental. So. You have to ask yourself now. What kind of iPod personality are you?

Gunnar, you might want to advise them to check out Apple's Product Take-Back and Recycling Page.

On there are instructions on how to recycle your Apple products.

Here's an interesting visual of apple taking over the world one tipping point at a time. My source came via the GDC listserv.

From Casey's link, it looks like Apple already addresses this issue:

http://www.apple.com/environment/recycling/nationalservices/us.html

For $30 Apple will recycle your computer from anywhere in the country. For free if you are in Cupertino.

Making it possible for someone who searches for a recycling opportunity to pay thirty bucks to recycle a computer is better than nothing but barely. Seriously, what percentage of anyone’s customers will take advantage of the chance to find out about and then pay this fee? The weight of this problem will be borne by local governments that do electronics recycling or future generations that will live with the results of the toxic waste.

Apple by no means stands out as bad guys in this; it is an industry-wide problem that will only be solved by industry-wide cooperation with a broad mandate to take responsibility for what they sell.

This, by the way, becomes a design problem. If producers can either pay for recycling in advance or take care of recycling themselves, there is an incentive to design products that can be disassembled and parts recycled or reused instead of making concentrated toxic soup.

Gunnar, the corporations aren't going to do anything about this. Adding $30 the cost of a product won't be acceptable in a competitive global marketplace where things like NAFTA and other 'free trade' systems make environmental issues moot.

This will only be resolved through government mandate. Hopefully putting pressure on industry will encourage industry to put pressure on congress. But I doubt it.

It’s an interesting problem. For the most part this has been left to states but everyone in the computer biz is afraid of Dell and the fact that they don’t have a physical presence much of anywhere lets them escape most state taxes such as a recycling fee. Industry pressure and the currently-powerful ideology creates a resistance to a national recycling law.

Countries need to impose recycling rules as universal retail laws so anyone selling equipment has to comply, making competitive concerns moot.

It’s possible that the Europeans will start fighting hard for anti-toxics trade limitations to keep their manufacturers (who are bound by more restrictive manufacturing laws than other countries’ manufacturers are) from a competitive disadvantage at home. It will be interesting to see what happens when powerful interests in the WTO start introducing various environmental concerns as legitimate trade issues. That’s a can of worms (but, speaking of yummy, good worms.) EU economic self interest is likely to accomplish more than bandana-wearing puppeteers ever could.

I guess I’m more than a bit off topic here.

hey, even the city of l.a. has a recycling program where you can go drop off your old monitors, computers, electronic and other hazardous waste. at no cost. apple used to have a program in place where you could send your used cartridges back to. i believe hp does the same for their printers now.

it does of course take a little effort from the consumer.

it does of course take a little effort from the consumer

Precisely the point. Things that take effort don’t get done much.

And why should the cash-strapped City of Los Angeles carry the extra expense caused by someone selling toxic materials (and making a lot of money at it)? And do you think that smaller towns that just have a few computers junked are going to do anything but shrug and say “Oh, well”?

And do you think that smaller towns that just have a few computers junked are going to do anything but shrug and say “Oh, well”?

for smaller cities, a program as such would be easier to implement.

and why should the cash-strapped City of Los Angeles carry the extra expense caused by someone selling toxic materials (and making a lot of money at it)?

i assume that is were sales-tax would should come in. however, i'm not arguing with you that a fee should not be imposed on every hazardous product sold to pay for "after-handling". bottomline, other countries have recyling programs in place that work pretty damned well. forget about hazardous or not, but we don't seem to be capable to recycle aluminum and paper efficiently when other countries can recycle 90% of the stuff.

The best "new feature" in Tiger is reinstating a gray interface and removing the bright aqua w/pinstripes. While the functionality of OS X is fantastic, the brightness of the interface of OS 10.1 through 10.3 competes with the design work I am performing. Thank you apple for scaling the brightness down.

The worst "new feature" in Tiger is another $129.00 for the OS - no upgrade pricing available as usual.

dashboard, like konfabulator is just a bunch of goofy toys. If I need to know the weather, I just look out the window. I don't need a widget to do that. Yes I know, many widgets are "time-savers." But a desktop google search or link to expedia doesn't save me buckets of time or create a groovy user experience.

The new functionality that Tiger will have is likely to benefit some, but provides nothing unique that will be absolutely necessary for me personally, with the exception of smart folders and faster searching on local or mounted drives.

new offerings that don't please me: Final Cut Express HD. This now includes Apple Soundtrack, which I just purchased for 199.00 as a standalone application. Current owners of Final Cut Express 2 can upgrade TO FC Express HD for 99.00. Current Soundtrack owners cannot upgrade to FC Express HD, period.

Page looks interesting as a Word replacement, althoug it also presents the option of dumbing down design in the same way as Microsoft Publisher. This may end up a good option for organizations such as non-profits who find affordable design prohibitive, although those are the folks most in need of professional caliber design (hey you all -- offer sliding fee scales, do prono-bono work!)

the mac mini will finally allow some of my colleagues who can't afford macs the opportunity to have a good quality mac at an affordable rate. fantastic!!

iPod shuffle: dunno, I'm not an iPoder....

And why should the cash-strapped City of Los Angeles carry the extra expense caused by someone selling toxic materials

This really should be a part of garbage collection fees. But since we privatized garbage collection in much of the country, again, what's cheapest is what's done.

The worst "new feature" in Tiger is another $129.00 for the OS - no upgrade pricing available as usual.

Eh. Compared to forking out for XP Pro, I tend not to bitch as much about Apple's OS prices. ;o)

FYI, if you are or know a government employee of some sort, Apple gives a nice discount (I think I got x.3 for $65)

Another marketing idea for the Ishuffle would be the honest one. It's a small, simple, rugged, stylish, display-less mp3 player, BY APPLE !! These are the benefits, sell them, don't sell the damn shuffle function. The moment I saw it, I thaught "what a load of bull*, nobody's gonna buy it". But then I realised there are some people who dont need, nor have, 40 gigs of music. They might like it, and they won't need the display, hmmm, maybe it will sell.

So, I dont like marketing selling me shit I don't need (like a shuffle function that I would happily eradicate), I'd like them to tell me what I can do with the product.

This is why I am excited about the iShuffle: running. I run. I have a 30GB iPod and I love it. But it's a bit bulky for running. The benefits: the iShuffle is small, lightweight and has just enough room to hold my "Running" playlist; it will shuffle the songs (just like I do already with my "big" iPod); I never look at the display when I run; and I can strap it to my arm, instead of carrying it in my hand. I don't want to shell out $250 for the smaller iPod mini just for running, but I would do $99. It's kind of like an accessory for the larger, full-featured iPod.

My dad, also a runner, had the same reaction. Maybe the iShuffle can spurt a whole new generation of healthy, fit Apple geeks… or not.

if only apple could use all biodegradable products and hide apple seeds in them...

their marketing would grow on trees

gregor’s comment is:

Page looks interesting as a Word replacement, althoug it also presents the option of dumbing down design in the same way as Microsoft Publisher. This may end up a good option for organizations such as non-profits who find affordable design prohibitive, although those are the folks most in need of professional caliber design

Ugh. In other words, yet another program for clients to say "We dont like InDesign. Can you develop it in Page, so we can make updates ourselves?"