10 reasons why apple is bad for design (maybe)
DESCRIPTION
I know this may upset a few, naturally it is meant as a provocation and hopefully may spark some thinkingTRANSCRIPT
10 reasons why
is bad for design
1: Design attributions
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/05/jonathan-ive-knighted/
Apple’s design may be good (or not –see below), but too
many people accept that the success of the company can be attributed to their design
achievements
Jobs, Ive and the media have reinforced this causal
relation, underplaying the primary role of marketing
and exaggerating the ancillary role of design
Yet, many designers prefer to believe fabricated stories
that attribute commercial success to ‘design strategies’
2: The ‘inevitability’ illusion
www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/9488354/New-iPhone-New-iPad-Rumours-drive-Apple-value-to-new-heights.html
Apple’s successes largely depend on a system of
‘engineered anticipation’, while their failures go
largely unnoticed -or are grossly underrated.
Their product design escape objective
evaluation and professional scrutiny.
Critical views are non-existent or are rapidly
dismissed as ‘dissenters’ of a higher cause.
3: Sosumi: Double standards
http://www.mbaonline.com/Also see: http://www.androidauthority.com/patent-war-infographic-88534/
Apple has shown a double standard in regard to intellectual property.
Jobs ‘borrowed’ many inventions from Xerox
PARC and SRI in the 1980s and the company is well
known by experts to improve existing
technologies.
Yet, Apple is the most active company launching
patent battles against competitors.
4: Stereotypes
http://www.apple.com
The corporate strategy of Apple has been built in building simplistic and
ridicule stereotypes.
Sadly, many in the design world have blindly
adopted this worldview and equate the ‘creative type’ with buying Apple
products.
The irony is that “think different” becomes a way of conventional, uncritical
conformism.
5: Cult and rhetoric
http://www.world-and-local-news.com/2012/06/5-signs-that-apple-is-cult.html
Indoctrination, delusion and infatuation of a
leader’s personality have been very successful
components in Apple’s commercial strategy.
Apple fanatics are made believe that by buying
these products they somehow ‘change the
world’.
Few people are critical of Apple’s revolutionary
rhetoric.
6: Greenwashing Apple is constantly questioned for its
strategies, materials, suppliers and
‘sustainability’ claims.
They have addressed some complaints, but the
core of their strategy is “planned obsolescence”.
Many corporations engage in these practices, but it is especially cynical coming
from a company that markets itself in such metaphysical terms.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/21/apple-least-green-tech-company
7: Bubble
mashable.com/2012/08/22/apple-is-ridiculously-valuable-infographic/
Apple’s growth is unsustainable and the
company is over-valued -this is 2012, check back in
a few years.
This is almost trivial from a design viewpoint, except
that so many people are claiming that design can
do miracles for any company who follows
Apple’s example (see slide #1).
8: (no) design contribution
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/8555503/Dieter-Rams-Apple-has-achieved-something-I-never-did.html
Besides setting superficial trends in product
appearance, Apple design has made no substantial
contribution to design.
Jobs and Ive follow the modernist tradition,
praising Bauhaus, Braun and Dieter Rams’s 50-year
old principles.
Their claims of “product essence” and “purity” are
uncanny and lead to a racist ideology of design
and aesthetics.
9: The designer is God
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/08/28/steve-jobs-american-genius.html
Apple’s paternalistic view of design is becoming a
paradigm in some design circles.
In such conventional terms, the “user” doesn’t really
know what he/she wants –and the designers’
superiority enable them to envision breakthrough ideas.
Fortunately, participatory and co-creation methods
have shown in the last decades that individuals and
communities know better than any self-proclaimed
genius.
10: Gatekeeper
http://gawker.com/5809978/listen-to-richard-dreyfuss-make-apple-sound-evil
Apple’s model of the Internet consists of an
“app world” where they get to decide and approve what is made available to
the users.
This is not being challenged by most
people, but it is as if back in the 1990s Mosaic and
Netscape inspected every website before its
publication.
Ludicrous.
Want more facts and arguments?
Check Morozov’s article:http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/magazine/100978/form-fortune-steve-jobs-philosopher
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/business/apples-tax-strategy-aims-at-low-tax-states-and-nations.html
http://vator.tv/news/2010-04-05-ipad-launch-weekend-news-round-up
http://theredlist.fr/wiki-2-24-224-267-view-fiction-profile-adam-eve.html