“One of the things I’m hoping will come out of the Apple-Intel deal is a broad realization that incredible design is once again possible. Over the years the hardware OEMs have consistently used Intel and Microsoft as reasons they can’t build really cool products. Microsoft dictates a user interface that limits UI innovation and Intel’s increasing tendency to create bundles with hardware rules drives commodity products and designs where the innovation is largely in cost containment,” Rob Enderle writes for TechNewsWorld.

“Apple, historically, has been the one company that starts with a great design and tasks the engineers to build it. This is in sharp contrast to the typical Wintel PC approach, which is based on a standard configuration and is then cosmetically altered. Of the standard OEMs, only Sony and IBM, now Lenovo, occasionally embraced the Apple methodology,” Enderle writes. “If Apple regularly demonstrates an ability to build exciting designs using Intel parts, it will go a long way towards moving the industry into more an era of exciting products overall. This might not be great for Apple but it would be wonderful for those of us that love design and use Windows.”

Full article, in which Enderle also doesn’t see Intel and Apple partnering very well, here.

MacDailyNews Take: While still laughing over the line, “those of us that love design and use Windows,” we must point out that Windows OEMs’ lack of design capability has nothing to do with Intel and everything to do with having to compete mainly on price and not caring at all about design, since the OS they’ve all locked themselves to provides zero differentiation. The Intel parts are not radically different physical shapes than the IBM and Freescale parts inside Macs today. Apple simply cares about design and gives it import in their design process. Apple can afford to do this because they are different and have Mac OS X. Of course, Apple will regularly demonstrate their unique ability to build exciting designs using Intel parts, because it’s not the parts that dictate exciting designs, it’s Apple and Steve Jobs who’ve been leading personal computer design for decades.

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