Categories
Archive

Apple Gets Hit by the Ugly Stick

SAN FRANCISCO — After seeing Apple’s new hardware announcements today, one word comes to mind – UGLY. The emperor has no clothes, there, I’ve said it.
Take a look at the iPod Shuffle, it looks like a combination of one of those cheapo digital cameras combined with a digital thermometer. Yuck. No Apple design flair whatsoever.
Also, I was expecting Apple to do something innovative with the lanyard like include the headphones in it, instead you plug headphones into the bottom (top?) and the result is a mass of spaghetti hanging from your neck. The spaghetti problem is blatantly obvious in the new TV ads where people are dancing around with them around their necks. I bet we’ll start hearing stories really soon now about how the lanyard/headphone combination gets caught car doors, etc.
While we’re at it, take a good long look at the Mac mini. It looks like an external hard drive from 1999. While not quite as ugly as the iPod Shuffle, it has absolutely no redeeming design values whatsoever! What? It’s rounded? Big whoop! Maybe they should have called it the Mac SCSI?
Folks, face it. The new Apple hardware is butt ugly. Was Jonthan Ive involved in these designs? Curiously, Ive was noticably absent from the promotional videos usually played during the keynote.
I know that both products have their market and that they’ll sell lots of them, but it doesn’t mean that I have to like them. Frankly, I expect more from Apple’s design team and I am extremely underwhelmed and disappointed.
Don’t be an Apple apologist! Steve has no clothes.


SAN FRANCISCO — After seeing Apple’s new hardware announcements today, one word comes to mind – UGLY. The emperor has no clothes, there, I’ve said it.
Take a look at the iPod Shuffle, it looks like a combination of one of those cheapo digital cameras combined with a digital thermometer. Yuck. No Apple design flair whatsoever.
Also, I was expecting Apple to do something innovative with the lanyard like include the headphones in it, instead you plug headphones into the bottom (top?) and the result is a mass of spaghetti hanging from your neck. The spaghetti problem is blatantly obvious in the new TV ads where people are dancing around with them around their necks. I bet we’ll start hearing stories really soon now about how the lanyard/headphone combination gets caught car doors, etc.
While we’re at it, take a good long look at the Mac mini. It looks like an external hard drive from 1999. While not quite as ugly as the iPod Shuffle, it has absolutely no redeeming design values whatsoever! What? It’s rounded? Big whoop! Maybe they should have called it the Mac SCSI?
Folks, face it. The new Apple hardware is butt ugly. Was Jonthan Ive involved in these designs? Curiously, Ive was noticably absent from the promotional videos usually played during the keynote.
I know that both products have their market and that they’ll sell lots of them, but it doesn’t mean that I have to like them. Frankly, I expect more from Apple’s design team and I am extremely underwhelmed and disappointed.
Don’t be an Apple apologist! Steve has no clothes.

By Jason O'Grady

Founded the PowerPage in 1995.