Product Description

On Apple's 20th anniversary, the firm's groundbreaking and colorful design history is laid out more fully than ever before. With the author awarded complete access by Apple to its archives and executives, this is the most detailed study of the company and its products ever published. The book covers all the goods made and sold by Apple, and also discusses concepts for products that never made it to production. 400 color and b&w illustrations.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #621095 in Books
• Published on: 1997-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Amazon.com Review
This oversized, coffee-table volume is devoted to the industrial design of every product made at Apple Computer over the course of 20 years. Lavishly illustrated with over 400 large color photographs by photographer Rick English, the book transforms the plastic cases, LCD displays, and disk drives from old Apple IIcs, Lisas, Macs, PowerBooks, and Newtons (and a few technologies that never made it to the street) into objects of fine art. The book's attention to detail, even in the small peripherals, such as the stylus of the Newton--the ubiquitous round stick-on microphone that ships with the Mac--contributes to the technological identity of the Apple brand.

Remember that 20 years ago, when you walked into a campus computing center or office building, you could distinguish an Apple system from an IBM system from across a room. The early IBM PCs were box-shaped--as close to pure squares and rectangles as possible--and buttoned down with garters on the socks like the Big Blue executives who sold them to the world as business machines. In contrast, the physical design of the Apple machines has always represented the company's "alternative" (and borderline arrogant) mindset, appealing to the more artistic user and fueling the left-versus-right-brain debates. In addition to the packaging of the machine, the Mac's graphical user interface and Motorola CPUs provided the artistic cover by which this innovative book could safely be judged.

Today other computer companies casually imitate the technofuturistic curvedness of the once-almost-shocking Apple design. Much like how the set of the movie Blade Runner has influenced many films that followed it, the industrial design of Apple machines continues to shape other companies' computer designs. AppleDesign is interesting both as an historical document and an artistic appreciation of these designs.

Customer Reviews

A beautiful book, badly in need of an editor
This is a beautiful book showing the evolution of Apple's industrial design. Apple is the only company whose industrial design is worth such a book. The history is interesting, and it's fascinating to see how designs evolve.

There are two problems with this book which caused me to give it only 3 stars. The first is that it desperately needs a copy editor. The spelling and grammar errors would be unacceptable from a college freshman. Several times, a reference to a picture gives the wrong plate number. I expect much better from a book on excellent design.

A minor gripe is that it's not clear who the intended audience is. Some technical terms are defined (though for the lay audience it would help to have a couple of pictures to illustrate terms), but many are not. As a lay reader, there were ideas I just didn't get, even as I appreciated the beauty of the work they described.

If these two problems were fixed, I would give it 5 stars.

An alternative history of Apple Computer
* Have you ever wondered why there's so many horizontal lines on a Macintosh case?

* Would you believe that Apple was the first company to move a laptop keyboard to the top (which other companies now emulate), yet they almost didn't go ahead with it?

* Or did you realise that a LaserWriter II is exactly the same size as a Macintosh IIfx?

Unlike other written histories of Apple Computer which concentrate on Jobs & Sculley, this is a history of the computers themselves.

For anyone who has grown up with an Apple ][ or an early Macintosh, this is a fascinating insight into the computers we've grown to love. You'll learn how design is just as important as the MacOS when it comes to selling a computer.

The book starts with the Apple //c era, and covers all Macs up to the Quadra, plus printers, screens and the Newton. Unfortunately, it was produced prior to the iMac.

Apple enthusiasts should buy or borrow a copy just to re-live the history. Design students should read it cover-to-cover to learn both good design and the politics of design philosophies.

Recommended in spite of abysmal editing
The other reviews here already cover the important content issues and the fact that a document such as this is a godsend in so many ways. As a lover of both Apple technology and great ID, I've found it impossible to put this book down. However, I'd just like to put in my .02 that this book is BADLY in need of a copy editor and a second edition. I'd be able to forgive the technical errors (e.g., stating that the Quadra 9X0s share the Quadra 800's form factor) if it weren't for typos and "write-os" ON EVERY SINGLE PAGE! It's as though they ran spell check, pressed Command-P, and never looked at the copy again. Honestly, I didn't think I was going to be able to finish this book, the copy quality being as embarassingly bad as it is. I've finally settled on pretending that I've been sent a galley, and that all the errors will be excised before the "real" version ships. One other gripe, then I'm done: A lot of the photos were scanned at too low a resolution to be used at the sizes in which they appear. There are noticeable "stair-stepping" patterns on many of the pieces, particularly when the "Snow White" striping appears at an angle. I could do a better job on my home Mac (maybe they used a PC, who knows). ;-) Anyway, the book still rocks, you should buy it right now, etc. But if you're one of those annoying people like me who expect Apple-like quality in things like editing, you've been warned.