Category: Design

There’s a bunch of nice details about Apple’s new HQ in this in Wallpaper magazine interview, but this bit about the iPhone X jumped out at me:

I wonder, then, if Ive misses the physical click and scroll of the first iPods, that fixed mono-functionality, the obvious working parts, the elegance of the design solution. But I’ve got him all wrong. ‘I’ve always been fascinated by these products that are more general purpose. What I think is remarkable about the iPhone X is that its functionality is so determined by software. And because of the fluid nature of software, this product is going to change and evolve. In 12 months’ time, this object will be able to do things that it can’t now. I think that is extraordinary. I think we will look back on it and see it as a very significant point in terms of the products we have been developing.

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The size of the logicboard blows my mind.

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Apple has put together a bunch of resources for developing apps for the iPhone X, including a video, an updated version of the Human Interface Guidelines and template files.

This bit out of the new HIG jumped out at me:

Don’t attempt to hide the device’s rounded corners, sensor housing, or indicator for accessing the Home screen by placing black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. Don’t use visual adornments like brackets, bezels, shapes, or instructional text to call special attention to these areas either.

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Nest has announced an updated thermostat, and wow, I love how it looks.

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John Lagomarsino at The Outline:

Skeuomorphic design, where user interfaces emulate the appearance of physical objects, has been popular for pretty much the history of personal computing. The ideas of “files,” “folders,” and the “recycle bin” in Windows could be considered skeuomorphs, intended to help transition early computer users from analog to digital, as could the idea of an “inbox” and “outbox” in email and the paperclip that symbolizes attachments. More recently, a lot of early iOS apps were famous for their heavy-handed skeuomorphic elements, with felt textures and chunky drop shadows.

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In response to the 5K OS X wallpapers, Michael Rockwell has worked up a bunch of iOS 4-era linen images. While I mocked it at the time, I have to say, a tiled linen makes a pretty nice, muted background on my iMac.

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Every major version of Mac OS X macOS has come with a new default wallpaper.

I have collected them all here, in glorious 5K resolution. I owe a huge thank you to the mysterious @forgottentowel for upscaling many of these for modern screens.

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William Turton:

This week, Wired dropped a glossy cover story on Apple’s massive new campus, which will be known as Apple Park.

The approximately 6,000-word story mentions a specially-designed pizza box that enables Apple employees to take a pizza from the company’s posh food court, Caffè Macs, back to their desk area, or pod, without the pie getting soggy.

The box isn’t new, and was actually patented seven years ago:

The box is just coming into the public consciousness now, however, so The Outline obtained one — sent by a source directly from one of Apple’s California campuses — in order to conduct a hands-on review. Here are our first impressions.

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I love how typography trends have changed over the years and really enjoyed Dr. Drang’s post about this has affected textbook design over the years.

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Unlike the other three books I’ve looked at recently, AppleDesign was not published by Apple.

Put out by Graphis, Inc in conjunction with Apple in 1997, AppleDesign is 287 pages of wonderful photography not only of finished Apple hardware, but prototypes, design mockups and more. The first third of the book is dedicated to an in-depth retelling of the processes and decisions that went into what Apple had made up to this point. The Apple II to Snow White grace the early chapters, then the book shifts to things like early Power Macs and the Newton line.

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Designed by Apple in California and A Personal Guide to Personal Computers are not the only books Apple has published in the last 40 years.

So Far: The First Ten Years of a Vision was published in 1987, and celebrated the company’s tenth anniversary. Unlike *Designed by Apple in California," this book mixes text and photos nicely. It’s built on the premise that Apple is about far more than computers.

Chapter names include things like “Freedom,” “Courage,” and “Sharing.” The book is full of little stories about people making a difference in the world using Apple computers. It’s all very upbeat and touchy-feely. It even includes numerous page with the names of all past and present employees as of January 1, 1987.

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Designed by Apple in California is far from the only book Apple has published in the last 40 years.

Today, I wanted to share some select pages from A Personal Guide to Personal Computers, a sales book put out by the company in 1982.

The book works to make the personal computer more approachable, while building a case for purchasing an Apple system. I’ve scanned the first chapter as a PDF you can download here.

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