“Must the worlds of personal computers and of ‘post-PC’ products, such as music players and cellphones, remain as far apart as they now seem to be? I don’t think so, and in explaining why, I’d like to play peacemaker in a debate kicking around in these pages over the past few weeks,” Lee Gomes reports for The Wall Street Journal. “My colleague Walt Mossberg kicked it off two weeks ago in a column suggesting that the ‘component approach’ used to make Wintel PCs, with different companies responsible for different parts of the device, will never do for a new post-computer generation of music players or mobile phones. Users, he said, want an integrated, easy-to-use experience, like they get from Apple.”
“A few days later, Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Intel’s Paul Otellini responded with an op-ed piece saying their component model is alive and well, and will do just as well in the future as it has in the past. While the Microsoft-Intel team probably hasn’t risen to Apple’s design challenge as much as the two CEOs would like us to believe, I don’t think it’s unattainable for them. The differences between the two approaches have more to do with aesthetics than manufacturing processes. What Apple has, and what Wintel badly needs, is a design tyrant like Steve Jobs,” Gomes reports. “Apple has Mr. Jobs, who functions, in the words of one vendor trying to sell to Apple, as a ‘one-man focus group,’ a person with a legendary design sense who insists on getting what he wants. That is possible on the Wintel side, despite occasional claims to the contrary. Both Microsoft and Intel have long had programs in which they certify products as complying with the technical specs of their chips or operating systems. It would take only a bit of imagination to extend that idea to an entire product and the experience of using it.”
Full article here.
Gomes gets at least one thing right: Steve Jobs is the key. Unfortunately for the Windows PC platform, there is only one Steve Jobs. And, even if you could find a reasonable facsimile of Jobs, you still are stuck with too many cooks in the kitchen. Only Apple controls the whole widget. They design both the operating system and the hardware, that’s why it works so well. A beautiful iMac can run Windows, that doesn’t ease the user’s frustration. The ugliest Mac clones of yesteryear treated the user better than the nicest-looking Windows PCs on the planet. Pretty on the outside can’t hide ugly on the inside and vice versa. The same goes for digital media players (iPod) working with music jukeboxes (iTunes) and online media services (iTunes Store).
Gomes is dreaming if he thinks Microsoft and the box assemblers would put control of all hardware and software into the hands of one quality-obsessed perfectionist. That won’t happen, of course – which may be Gomes’ underlying point: only Apple can deliver the consistent look, fit, finish and user-experience exemplified by the Mac and iPod platforms. Microsoft, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Sony, Toshiba, Gateway, and all the rest simply have no chance of ever matching Apple’s integrated, easy-to-use experience.
Are you thinking about getting a Mac? Do it. You only live once, so stop wasting time.
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Bill Gates doesn’t know the history of one man focus groups…. I do.
It all seems to boil down to question of class. Before you can implement good design, you must be able to recognize it. It seems that the harder MS tries, the worse things look. Take a look at the Xbox 360. It looks cheesy.
Bubbles, Bubbles…
This isn’t the Yahoo finance board, that’s a few internet switches down the line.
Please join the other “Yahoos” there. You’ll find good company..
And when Jobs is gone?
Of course Intel only sing the praises of the MS/other model since they sell so many chips to those manufacturers. As effectively a supplier of raw materials to both Apple and all the others it doesn’t make a jot of difference to them if the hardware and software for a machine are made by the same manufacturer or not. If apple got a majority marker share Intel would soon be singing their praises over the MS model since Apple try to push tech forward and use new technology.
I sure ain’t just design that goes into Apple’s magic recipe of success.
The ingredients are much more wide ranging and its secret is as likely to get out into the hands of a WSJ journalist as the Coca Cola recipe…
Harry: I agree with the latter part of your statement, but what does this mean?
“Just look at the -car industry- most parts are not the same.”
Design can be functional, frill or a combination of both. Changing product colours is design but it doesn’t necessarily make the product ‘better’.
When the original iMac came out (especially in multiple colours) many thought that a spash of colour was all that was necessary for the product to sell. It’s not.
If a product stinks, changing the colour doesn’t change the fact that the product still sucks. Running XP on Mac hardware still means you’re using XP.
MS has a lot invested in the XBOX – it’s their chance to control the entire widget. But i can’t wait to get my hands on the Wii =)
Thorin –
What he means is that Lexus, for example, does not make the LX470 from end to end. Components come from a variety of sources.
The problem is, Apple does not do this either. Apple contracts with a variety of companies to make it’s products.
The winning part is that Apple is so anal about the finished product (Apple + Anal = Mac?) that the user is insured a seamless (as possible) end product. Windows and Intel and the dull box makers are just Frankensteining the whole thing together.
AG Penny and Harry:
Oh OK, I agree wholeheartedly. Thanks.
BTW that reminds me of my dismal failure in trying to convince my wife of how I should buy a new Infiniti G35 coupe. She just doesn’t get it.
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So here we are again, listening to “industry analysts” tell us that the only real difference between Apple and MS and everybody else is aesthetics – what hogwash.
As to user experience? Yes, I’ll go along with you there, as long as it isn’t the amazingly over-simplified “user experience” this article implies – That the way the pc experience feels, along with its looks is all that makes the difference. In the real world these things make a quantifiable difference, but they are by no means the difference that keeps users using in the long run. I’m sorry, but what keeps Macintosh users going for the Mac product line over a lifetime, (and what makes Mac users angry about not having the option of using Macs in the workplace) is, among other things, the actual and real quality of the hardware and software from a purely mechanical, pragmatic, and money-saving standpoint.
Design gets new users wanting to try Macs, but the hardware and software operational characteristics are what keep people loyal to the product line – among other things.
EVERY original personal computer was better designed than the current PCs: Commodore Pet, Vic 20/64, Sinclair ZX2000, Apple II, Hitachi Peach, Atari, Lisa – even the TRS-80!
The only saving grace today is people hide the CPU under the desk and you only look at the monitor.
But now that I think about it, I think he’s right.
Design would help a lot. Think about Windows users. They are using dull boxes coupled with a festering OS. If you spruce up that dull box, it will fare well with the Windows community (afterall they don’t seem to mind the crap they are using and are still dealing with Stockholm Syndrom). Obviously Mac users know better. As represented in some previous posts the pretty shell will not fool us.
A dull box turned pretty is still a wolf in sheeps clothing.
Peabody:
It’s positive press, I can live with it.
Looks get the first date, personality get the second. PC users must have some serious Beergoggles and quite desperate.
Steve Jobs said it best: “The trouble with Microsoft is they have no taste. They have no taste and I don’t mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way. In the sense that they don’t think of original ideas, and they don’t bring much culture into their products.”
In order to get the design mojo you need someone at the top that truly believes in the power of good design, not someone who gives lip service to it. Apple has that, most other companies don’t.
Usually what happens is a company hires some great creative talent, they produce some great designs, and by the time it filters up through all of the marketing people and bean counters who think they can be a good designer too, the design is a giant piece of poo.
I’ve seen it. It happens.
“EVERY original personal computer was better designed than the current PCs: Commodore Pet, Vic 20/64, Sinclair ZX2000, Apple II, Hitachi Peach, Atari, Lisa – even the TRS-80!”
Don’t forget the TI-99, the brushed stainless steel look was so suave.
furthermore, don’t confuse design with what most ignorant people think it is, a pretty box. Design is about function as well as form. Apple knows this and blends the two superbly.
It’s been 9 years since the PC design revolution started at Apple with the first iMac. At the time Bill Gates joked about how long it will take the PC industry to catch up to doing multi-colored PC’s. Well, all that showed was that he didn’t get it, and 9 years later the PC industry still hasn’t caught on.
Unless you call those P.O.Ses that Dell makes good design.
Hmmm, interesting comments. Let me throw one into the sink.
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Its how it works. . . . in my hands. . . . with my knowledge . . . . at my schedule. PS dosent hurt if it looks good, works for me.
If it works for me, then its great. If I have to become a nerd just to make it work (like Gates and many PC users) then thats fine . . . . if I am a nerd.
PS. Many non-iPod units work just fine. Plug then into you PC with iTunes and you can down load your music, your online music, etc just fine. Its when the third party companies get really greedy that they suffer. I bought a VR3 (creative ripoff?? ) mp3 player and I love it. It cost 19 $, has 128 meg of memory and shows me the name of the song I am playing. It also acts as a voice recorder (if I could only figure out how to make it work 🙁 ) but that is just it. Third party items work fine . . . . . in their place. JMHO
N.
More pearls of wisdom from Jobs: “The only way to do great work is to love what you do.”
That’s the difference between Apple products and all the also-rans.
just for the record, some of us know that this Life isn’t a one shot kinda thing, (reincarnation is real), but in the end/beginning all we have is the Present, might as well as fill with it with quality,.. i.e., an Apple product, and/or nice company when you can.
“Windows and Intel and the dull box makers are just Frankensteining the whole thing together.”
Exactly. If you are old enough to remember, this is what Detroit was doing in the 70’s and 80’s. It took them until late nineties to start to get it right. M$ may not have that long, as the computer industry can change in a nanosecond compared to something like the auto industry.
Davida:
Whoa man, that’s like, far out man (he lights one up).
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In Time magazine, Jobs was qouted as saying (paraphrasing here), “you know how you see a prototype car at a show, and then when it actually comes out, it sucks? That’s becuase the designers send the design to the engineeers, who say ‘oh no, we can’t do these 35 things – not possible. Then the manaufacturing team gets the design and says ‘ oh no, we can’t do these 35 things”. So the design is now so comprimised that it doesn’t look at all like the cool concept car you first saw. That’s what happened with the first iMac. We were told no. But we stuck to our design intent and told them to find a way to make it happen. Some people left, and some were pushed out the door, but the ones that remained understood what we wanted, and we continue to attract those type of people.”
I think the design tyrant title is probably pretty close to the truth, and when you have an uncanny eye for what people want, and what to leave in as you drive towards simplicity, that’s the secret sauce.