“Intel is the latest big player in the PC market to launch a campaign encouraging PC manufacturers to make more sexy computers,” Tim Gaden writes for APC Magazine. “In a press release it has announced its ‘Intel Core Processor Challenge’, a US$1 million bounty for PC designers who are willing to ‘evolve the ‘big, beige box’ [perhaps better described as the ‘big silver and black box’ these days] and help bring to market more stylish, small, quiet and cool-running PCs perfect for any room in the home.'”
“This prize comes hot on the heels of the Microsoft’s new Hardware Design Guidelines which also encouraged PC makers to think more about the design of their products,” Gaden writes. “What’s driving this new thirst for PCs that look nice? What’s making the big beige/black/silver box, once a proudly functional, handsome work-horse into a liability?”
“Apple and its many, many beautiful products, that’s what,” Gaden writes.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Intel will award the Grand prize winner with up to US $300,000 for hard tooling costs of their winning design and US $400,000 for co-marketing activities with Intel promoting the design. The first place winner will receive up to $300,000 for hard tooling of their winning design.
Apple should simply enter their existing Macs, take the $1 million, and call it a day.
Related MacDailyNews article:
Microsoft tries to get box assemblers to design Windows PCs as Apple-like ‘objects of pure desire’ – July 27, 2006
No amount of sparkle and sheen is going to change this fact: they still run Windoze. It’s all about the operating system. I would run my current OS X on the ugliest beige box they ever made before dealing with any version of Windoze on the fanciest gold and diamond-studded box they could come up with. Fortunately, with Apple, we get great design AND great OS. Game over.
I wonder if Apple is eligible should the competition choke.
“…enter their existing iMacs”?
My Mirrored Door Drive twin G4 is four years old(ish) and still blows away all current PC design (mind you, I also reckon that it is the most stunning Mac ever produced and even beats the current G5 design).
I wonder if Jonathan Ives will win?
Microsoft Hardware Design Guidelines? What the heck?
Microsoft doesn’t make PCs so what guidelines do they have? That seems ass backwards to me. It would be like MS writing software according to Dell’s software guidelines.
I wish these participants good luck.
Again, industry and people do not UNDERSTAND WHAT MAKES A MAC A MAC.
It’s not the ‘pretty’ case designs that make the Mac experience great. It’s the OS stupid.
Perhaps the real course would be to offer this 1 million as a bribe to Steve to allow Mac OSX to run on generic PC hardware. THAT would make PC more Mac like.
Sounds like Intel is helping the competition against Apple….
Treachery by the Wintel Alliance
Apple needs to respond by creating a broad range of modern and customizable computers.
Apple’s limited hardware selection is it’s biggest failing.
All Apple has to do is copy and improve on Dells buisness model, sell/offer three operating systems seperate from the hardware.
It would blow Dell right out of the water.
Who wants to bet that PC manufacturers will be submitting prototypes that will look suspiciously like the current Mac offerings?
Um, it’s Jonathan IVE, not Ives. He’s not related to folk singer and christmas special narrator Burl Ives.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Ive
Yes, Mac boxes are attractive. BUT I don’t use Macs because of the box. I use Macs because since 2000 my computer has never crashed and I never restart except when there’s new software.
I sat in my car dealer’s waiting room last week to work while my brakes were fixed. Took all day.
The fellow beside me had a PC. He was a Java coder for IBM creating software for enterprise. He was there about an hour and had to restart his laptop during that time. I was there for 6 hours (Yikes!) and worked on line using 6 or 8 applications and, of course, never rebooted. I tried to explain to him that I had never had to reboot my computer and never shut it off AND that he could do his Java work as easily on a Mac as on the fragile system he was using. He, of course, did not believe it.
His laptop could not connect to the wireless network and he needed to haul out a blue ethernet cable to connect to the back of his machine and to the router. I don’t even travel with an ethernet cable. WiFi just works on a Mac.
These designers can make the prettiest boxes they can imagine but, as the old saying goes, it’s what’s inside that counts!
I guess what Intel is trying to say is build a more Mac like looking PC box. But it wouldn’t be a Mac like experience without OSX installed and you can’t do that.
Rammer said: “Sounds like Intel is helping the competition against Apple….”
On the other hand, it’s possible that this whole thing is a gimmick to point out how well designed Macs are and that it takes more than a pretty box to be Mac-like!.
As MDN says: lipstick on a pig.
Here’s a link to a video which showcases Microsoft’s Packaging Design Guidelines. If their Hardware Design Guidelines are similar, the boxes ain’t gonna get any better!
MS Packaging Design Example
I think I’ll enter in the contest. Since I had an upper-hand in creating all Apple products, I think I can come up with the next big thing.
And yes, I did also create the ugly PC boxes…but that is only because Apple needed something to compare its computers to.
Look for me to be wearing a long trench coat at the unveiling. I’m the guy with the big white beard and sandals.
DPlP: The mirror door G4 and the iMac G4 are still my 2 favorite machines. Both of them are stunning.
To this “contest”:
Please, they won’t be able to do it; nobody can innovate the way Apple can (and it shows over and over again). The original iMac and iBook could beat out anything these morons throw into the mix.
MW: windows (how fitting- that fits into the mix too).
Stop trying to take credit, God. You KNOW it was I, who created the “others”, and MS to boot (to boot. get it?).
I’ll create a virus for your blessed (yech. I hate that word) little Apple, yet.
Old Mac Man
I disagree. I think Apple is right where they want to be.
Apple is steadily gaining market share. They don’t need to do anything with their line-up.
The Mac Pro Towers are incredibly customizable.
Apple to me seems to be on a smooth, upward path.
Last ost I made- was supposed to be from “Satan”.
“My Mirrored Door Drive twin G4 is four years old(ish) and still blows away all current PC design (mind you, I also reckon that it is the most stunning Mac ever produced and even beats the current G5 design).”
Ick. Are you serious? That’s the ugliest Mac of the post-platinum era, especially when there are fingerprints on the “mirrored” part. The original Quicksilver design was similar, but much cleaner (in the design sense). IMHO, of course.
Dennis,
Because I keep my mirrored doors perfectly polished, it means that when I’m working after a meal, I can check my teeth for bits of food just by having a glance at my Mac. You can’t beat that sort of functionality. Take it from me, when Apple created this machine they thought of everything.
Foiled again there Lucifer. Now we all know that “Usually Right” is really the dumb-‘ol devil himself.
Look, I always have the upper hand. You can try to create an Apple virus, but when you do, I will be sipping a foo-foo drink on the beach…thinking about the next hot nude woman that I will create.
Go to church.
Ps. You can also have a quick check to make sure you don’t have ‘a bat hanging in the cave’. Great stuff!
Pierre le punk:
I have the same MDD G4 at home and really disagree with you. The fan and hard drive noise have been a real nuisance. Even after I replaced the fan and power supply. I finally upgraded to the new Mac Pro and I couldn’t be happier. truly amazing design inside and out. The only sound I hear from it is the hard drive read write.
Apple have to submit it to the contest. It will win hands down.
Curses.