Apple picker In just a few weeks a Czech translation of the book will be published Jony Ive - the genius behind Apple's best products, which charts the life of a design icon and longtime Apple employee. Jablíčkář is now available to you in cooperation with the publishing house blue vision offers an exclusive look under the hood of the upcoming book – a chapter titled “Steve Jobs Inventing, 1976 and Beyond”…
Even in the following excerpt, Steve Jobs plays a big role, who introduced the way of thinking and designing products at Apple, which Jony Ive subsequently followed up so successfully. The book about Apple's court designer should be published in a Czech translation in a few weeks, and as soon as the availability and price are known, we will inform you.
Jobs' plan for Apple was more than teaching business skills: He planned to make industrial design the centerpiece of Apple's comeback. From its first incarnation at Apple (1976–1985), it was clear that design would be a guiding force in the trajectory of Steve Jobs' life.
Unlike Jony, Jobs had no formal training in design, but possessed an intuitive sense of design that stretched back to his childhood. Jobs understood a long time ago that good design is not just the exterior of an object. The same influence that Mike had on Ive, his father had on Jobs' positive attitude towards design. “My father liked to do things right. He even cared about the appearance of the parts you couldn't see," Jobs recalls. His father refused to build a fence that wasn't built as well from the back as from the front. "If you want to sleep well at night, aesthetics and quality need to be followed through to the end."
Jobs grew up in a house that was inspired by the minimalist homes of Joseph Eichler, a post-war developer who brought a mid-century modern aesthetic to California landscape architecture. Although Jobs' childhood home was probably a copy of an Eichler (what Eichler fans called a "Likeler"), it left an impression. When describing his childhood home, Jobs said, “I like it when you can put really great design and essential qualities into something that doesn't cost a lot. It was an original vision for Apple."
For Jobs, design meant more than just looks. "Most people make the mistake of thinking about design in terms of how it looks," is Jobs' famous thought. "People think it's an external tinsel - that designers are given some box and instructed: 'Make it look good!'" That's not design from our point of view. It's not about how it looks and how it feels. Design is how it works.”
With the development of the Macintosh, Jobs began to take industrial design seriously in terms of function, which he believed was to be a key differentiator between Apple's user-friendly, out-of-the-box philosophy and the pared-down, utilitarian packaging of longtime rivals , such as International Business Machines (IBM).
In 1981, when the computer revolution was less than five years old, three percent of American households owned a personal computer (including gaming systems such as Commodore and Atari). Only six percent of Americans have ever encountered a PC at home or at work. Jobs realized that the domestic market represented a huge opportunity. "IBM got it wrong," says Jobs. "They sell personal computers as data processing devices, not as tools for individuals."
Jobs and his chief designer, Jerry Manock, set to work on the Mac with three design constraints. To keep the price low and to ensure ease of production, Jobs insisted on a single configuration, something of an echo from the days of his hero Henry Ford and his Model T. Jobs' new machine was to be "a computer that doesn't need to be cranked." All the new owner had to do was plug the computer into the wall, press a button, and it should work. The Macintosh was to be the first of the personal PCs to have a screen, floppy drives and circuit board built into the same case, with a detachable keyboard and mouse that connected to the back. Besides, it shouldn't take up too much space on the desk. Therefore, Jobs and his design team decided that it should have an unusual vertical orientation, with the floppy disk drive under the monitor, instead of on the side as was the case with other computers at the time.
The design process continued for the next several months with a number of prototypes and endless discussions. Material evaluations led to the use of rigid ABS plastics, which were used for LEGO bricks. These gave the new machines a fine, scratch-resistant texture. Annoyed by the way the earlier Apple II turned orange in the sun, Manock decided to make the Macintosh beige, starting a trend that would last for the next twenty years.
Just as Jony did with the next generation of Apple, Jobs paid close attention to every detail. Even the mouse was designed to reflect the shape of the computer, with the same proportions and a single square button that matched the shape and placement of the screen. The power switch has been placed at the back to avoid accidental presses (especially by curious children), and Manock has cleverly smoothed the area around the switch to make it easier to find by touch. "That's the kind of detail that turns an ordinary product into an artifact," Manock said.
The Macintosh featured a face with a floppy disk drive slot that looked like a mouth and a chin-shaped keyboard recess at the bottom. Jobs liked him. This made the Macintosh look "friendly", anthropomorphically, like a smiley face. "Although Steve set no boundaries, his ideas and inspiration made the design what it is," Terry Oyama later stated. "To be honest, we didn't know what it meant for a computer to be 'friendly' until Steve told us."
This looks like a pretty good translation, probably easy to read
We care. :-)
I appreciate your effort, but it still needs proofreading. E.g. "he stuck the computer in the wall" is a classic mistake with the word "the wall" (although I didn't have the original in hand), it is of course an outlet (electric :-)). There are more things like that out there, which is a shame. Otherwise, I'm looking forward to the book :-)
Don't worry, the text will of course undergo a very detailed language proofreading. Here is only the first version of the translation after a rough correction by the editors.
I read it as an iBook in AN, I must say that the book is good. In addition to the fact that the illustrations are already at the end, so if you want to have an idea of what is being written about, you have to "grope" like mad.
BlueVisionCZ: If you place the illustrations in the text where they belong, I will buy the book again ;-)
Unfortunately, we will have to place the images in a similar way as it is in the original. However, we believe that seeing everything nicely put together like this has its advantages. :-)
I didn't plan to buy the book, but I admit that I might change my mind. looks like a very interesting read.
It's a really great book that got us excited. There are still a few samples waiting for you, so you can see for yourself. ;-)