Tim Leberecht, in a Matter/Anti-Matter blog post, asks whether Apple's "shock and awe" approach to product announcements is a dinosaur in a Web 2.0 world. I think there are a couple of other points worth making for perspective on this.
First, Apple has shifted dramatically from purely relying on big announcements at big events. It used to be, until just a few years ago, that Apple really only had two times each year that it made major hardware announcements: Macworld expos in San Francisco and New York. The developers conference was used for software announcements. Between them was pretty much a desert.
Today, Apple makes announcements throughout the year, sometimes at other shows like the NAB. This has allowed the company to spread the much larger quantity of announcements around, and makes the Macworld announcements more focused. It surely also makes managing the larger product pipeline easier.
So while the expo is still the highpoint of the year, it is not fair to characterize it as Apple only having two real opportunities per year to make announcements and news, as Frank Shaw does. While the other venues are not as big as the mass-market-oriented Macworld, they are geared toward their niche audiences with appropriate announcements. And besides, two major events a year is one more than many consumer electronics companies have, which put all their eggs in CES....
Second, Apple has become much better about spreading the word through other means than the expos. Starting with the iconic Think Different and iPod campaigns, Apple has reinvigorated its advertising efforts with large infusions of cash and creativity. And the Apple Stores have been very successful at attracting new customers and maintaining interest for existing Mac users.
As Mr. Shaw puts it: "But I'm a huge believer in the value of ongoing communication, to the right audiences, about the topics they care most about, in a regular, sustained way." It seems to me that with the stores, advertising, and targeted product announcements, this is exactly what Apple is doing.
Lastly, let's also think about how Apple itself builds up excitement before Macworld. Aside from occasional teasers that are void of any information (such as the last one, "something is in the air"), it pretty much does nothing. It is famously tough on clamping down on leaks, and only sporadically gives previews to select journalists like David Pogue.
Ninety-nine percent of the excitement and momentum is generated by the user base, the media, the blogosphere, essentially doing Apple's work for it. Most companies would kill for that kind of free publicity. If the announcements don't live up to the hype, that's not because Apple itself has controlled what the hype should be about, but because Apple has an enviable track record of blockbuster announcements.
I stumbled onto this booth and was immediately enchanted by the Escher meets Bruegel imagery and cardboard castle look. What could it be? There was no name on the outside, so you had to go in to find out. Hmm, sneaky...
Ah, of course, it's those whacky people from Crumpler, who make camera bags with names like Six Million Dollar Home. So the outside continues their irreverent and (apparently) random approach to branding themselves. But if you do random consistently and rigorously, it somehow comes together.
By the way, if you look closely at the outside you'll see the Crumpler logo, as well as James Bond's white Lotus Esprit from The Spy Who Loved Me.
Omni were showing off their new OmniFocus application, for those who are fans of the GTD approach to task management.
They were also showing (in beta) version 5 of their oddly-named but wonderful application OmniGraffle. This is usually described as diagramming application similar to Visio, but this does its wide range of applications an injustice. I use OmniGraffle all the time for all manner of activities, from resource tracking to brainstorming to creating quick and dirty websites. At frog design (where Tim and I work), it is used by many folks for more traditional information design and taskflow analysis.
Version 5 fixes some of the small niggles from the previous rev, like how the automatic hierarchical tree building works (think org charts). But it also introduces new features like true beziers, improved master pages, a dramatically improved stencil management palette, and an overall streamlined interface that should make working in it significantly faster, especially if on a laptop (goodbye floating palettes).
Belkin Ceylon Bag
(Credit: Belkin)Here's something blasphemous: My favorite booth at Macworld was not Apple's, but Belkin's. It knocked my socks off.
Think back a few years: Belkin was a ho-hum manufacturer of unsexy cables and nondescript PC accessories. Then came the iPod, and the company recognized a good thing when it saw one. Belkin jumped on the iPod shooting star and produced a nice line of interesting, well-conceived accessories. But essentially, the company outsourced its aesthetic to the iPod, piggybacking visually as well as functionally on that core device.
Now, Belkin is turning into a design and innovation powerhouse in its own right.
At its attractive booth, the company was showing an amazingly wide array of products, including a hip messenger bag, an HD TV "beamer", a Skype phone, and Podcast Studio. All were interesting, stylish, and well-made. The company has an emerging aesthetic that, while not totally unique, is starting to create a strong Belkin personality.
One item that caught my eye because of its genuine innovation in a totally boring product was its Conserve Surge Protector. It is a thin eight-outlet surge protector (stifled yawn)...with a remote control. Huh?
Belkin Conserve power strip
(Credit: Adam Richardson)Actually it's brilliant: You use the remote to turn off the powerstrip when you don't want it sucking vampire energy. The remote can be used to control one or multiple strips (they have selectable RF channels), so conceivably you could turn off a whole bunch of them in one go in an office or house.
There are two nonswitched outlets so you can turn off your energy-sucking plasma and leave your TV on to record The Colbert Report. Ironically, the power strip itself becomes a source of vampire energy, but it is far less than what is connected to it.
Lastly, the remote looks like a giant on-off switch, about the size of a playing card. It can be attached to a wall-mount, so you don't have to worry about losing it:
Power strip remote on the wall
(Credit: Adam Richardson)Let's hope Belkin can keep up this pace. My hat is off to the company.
A brief run through Macworld gave two major impressions:
1. It was packed. Even more crowded than CES (though much smaller of course).
2. The signal-to-noise ratio of interesting products was way better than CES.
Let's take a look at some of the things that caught my interest from a design point of view, starting with Apple.
The MacBook Air really is quite breathtaking. It feels great in the hand, and the break from pure rectangular geometry makes it more interesting to tumble in your hands. It's sort of a giant iPod, taking on the pillowed look. The corner radii are much larger than previous MacBooks, giving it a softer aesthetic. I had been wondering when Apple's designers would get tired of the strict geometric style and start to branch out--this appears to be it.
Crowds 3 people deep to see MBA
For someone (not unlike myself) who spends quite a bit of time in transit and on planes, the light weight and small size (won't get squished by the airplane seat in front of you crashing back) are perfect. While many have expressed their opinions about where Apple should have left in/cut features, my one quibble is with the exclusion of an ethernet port. Yes, there's a dongle adapter (extra $), but it's one more thing to remember and carry for those still common hotels that don't have wireless. And since it only has one USB connector, it will tie that up, so you'll have a choice of ethernet or, say, USB key. Also, it requires a video out adaptor, but I carry one of those anyway for VGA projectors.
The MBA is another example of Apple pushing the envelope on connectivity and data transfer methods. The original Mac adopted the nascent 3.5" floppy disk, Apple was one of the first to adopt 802.11, it switched to USB and dropped legacy proprietary connectors, and it created the Firewire standard (which made it slow to adopt USB 2...). Every time people have complained that the sky is falling, but each time Apple has judged the timing just right and has hit the adoption curve at the right point, and it all works out.
Next: Belkin
- prev
- 1
- next
