Mac mini 6-button remote, Front Row typify Apple’s ‘sophisticated simplicity’ strategy

20 years ago

“[Last] week, Apple introduced a new iPod boom-box and a series of Intel-based Mac Minis,” Michael Greeson writes for Designtechnica. “For the purpose of this essay, let’s forget about whether Apple failed to live up to its own PR. In fact, let’s ignore the PR strategy altogether and focus on one of the product announcements: the new Mac Minis. There are a couple interesting features that (while not necessarily spin worthy) may provide a glimpse into how Apple is planning to approach the digital living room.”

“There are two interesting features that serve to distinguish the Mac Mini from other media center PCs. For one, the remote control is very unique. Second, the Front Row/Bonjour software package may be the first to actually deliver on the promise of plug-and-play for digital media. This essay will focus on the remote control. Yes, it is the software package that enables the remote’s simplicity, but the design of the remote deserves special attention,” Greeson writes. “The Mac Mini remote control only has six buttons and looks similar to an iPod but without the viewing screen. Let me repeat that just in case you missed it the first time: the remote control has only six buttons and it looks similar to an iPod. Unlike other MCPC vendors and the CE community in general, Apple seems to think that six buttons and a killer graphical interface are enough to enable consumers to easily access and control their digital media. Avoid adding buttons to a remote control even though we can? Brilliant! As Ockham’s Razor (also known as the principle of parsimony) reminds us, given a choice between two equally valid explanations, the simpler of the two is preferred. This principle applies equally well to architecture and product design, although it may seem foreign to most CE designers.”

“Apple’s remote control is yet another example of the company’s emphasis on designing elegant, easy-to-use solutions,” Greeson writes. “In this not-so-distant future, I see Apple introducing a variety of digital home media designs based on the ‘sophisticated simplicity’ strategy, most of them wrapped in Apple’s minimalist hardware with warm blue backlighting and easy-to-use interfaces… I see a rush of copy-cat platforms pushed into the retail channel but months too late to head off Apple’s digital living room push. I see CE stalwarts like Sony and Matsushita, along side PC OEMS like HP and Dell, explaining to share holders why they didn’t think of these things first. I see all this in a 6-button remote control? Profound insights sometimes come in very small package.”

More in the full article here.

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