It’s no secret that (Sir) Jony Ive, Apple’s Vice President of Industrial Design, draws his inspiration for new Apple products from Deiter Rams, Braun’s chief designer from 1961 to 1995.
It’s seemingly clever engineering aside, after looking at Apple’s recently-announced New Mac Pro I’m fairly convinced Jony Ive is an excellent cook, as it appears he may have designed it while in the kitchen getting himself “a cuppa“:
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Apple’s announcement of a “revolutionary”, “innovative”, “versatile”, “ingenious”, “breakthrough”, computer reminded me of another one they released in 2000… which also seems to have been inspired by a Braun appliance:
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Apple’s G4 Cube, released in August, 2000, had a powerful G4 processor, expandable memory, and fast Firewire connectivity, all housed in an revolutionary enclosure almost 80% smaller than it’s predecessor, with it’s I/O ports on the bottom and an innovative “fanless” cooling system that relied totally on the buoyancy of air.
Unfortunately, the price of the G4 Cube was too high for both the average consumer – who preferred the far-less-expensive all-in-one iMac – and the computer professionals – who could buy a fully-expandable and far more capable G4 Tower for only a couple hundred dollars more. After selling about 150,000 Cubes, Apple quietly “suspended production” (not “discontinued”) the Cube less than a year later, on July 3, 2001. The Cube joined Newton, Pippin, and Lisa as another one of Apple’s spectacular failures.
Fortunately, the future of Apple’s New Mac Pro is virtually guaranteed no matter what it’s price: With Apple certain to discontinue their current Mac Pro Tower once the New Mac Pro is released, their line of all-in-one iMacs essentially glued shut (making upgrading difficult), and OS X only available to owners of Apple computers, the New Mac Pro will be the only choice for graphics, video, publishing, and IT professionals who want to continue using Apple…
…unless, of course, the entire desktop market collapses.
Thanks for reading!
