Apple

Do you remember the first website you ever visited? How about the first website you ever worked on? Do you recall how cool and cutting-edge they were… back then?

Well, you can travel back in time to when you first clicked a link and saw text blink on screen!. Come on! Let’s go back to the late 1990s and see what the web looked like back then at the…

The WaybackMachine, or the Internet Archive, is an organization dedicated to the preservation of websites and web content for nearly every site ever launched since the ’90s.

About the Wayback Machine

Browse through 85 billion web pages archived from 1996 to a few months ago. To start surfing the Wayback, type in the web address of a site or page where you would like to start, and press enter. Then select from the archived dates available. The resulting pages point to other archived pages at as close a date as possible.

If you go to http://www.archive.org/web/web.php and you want to see an old site (perhaps one you helped build), you can type the old domain name into the search field at the top of the page. Then you will be swept back in time to the early days of the internet.

Note any differences between Apple’s website from July of 1997 and today … ?

So the next time you are arguing with a coworker about what you did (or didn’t do) on a “cool” site from 1997, prove it with the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.

Note of caution: Many, many hours may be lost in time travel! It’s potentially addicting!

You may remember this video showing a tongue-in-cheek look at how Microsoft would redesign Apple’s iPod packaging:

Apple has always been admired for its design, all the way from the products themselves, to the packaging and advertising. Basically every bit of Apple you see has the same clean, spare design that still manages to provoke an emotional response.

In the November issue of PC Magazine, John Dvorak writes that Microsoft, on the other hand, is perceived as being perpetually in “bad taste”, even though they use good design firms, and a lot of what they do looks great. Their downfall is that they don’t have a single vision of what their brand should look like. And that is something that Apple does better than any company on the planet. It helps that Apple has one guy at the helm: Steve Jobs, a “dictator” who ensures that every step of the way, the product reflects his own vision. Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia is another company that does an incredible job of maintaining its brand identity through myriad product lines. And we all know who runs that place with an iron fist.

At Microsoft, there is a committee of individuals who pool together all their ideas and end up with an “agreeable soulless product.”  There’s no payoff for being different or adventurous – making something safe is the most important thing. Doing something too radical might alienate the other members of the committee or worse. As a result, they never get in the news for doing anything exciting or crazy that captures the public’s imagination. Sure, not everything that Apple’s done has been a huge success, but for every Newton and PowerMac Cube (which I own and love, by the way), you get an iPod or an iPhone – products which outshine all competitors and have redefined the market.

Reading this, I immediately drew a parallel to the graphic design world. It’s a commonly repeated adage that “design by committee” is anathema to good design. With a single vision, you do have the possibility of winding up with something completely hideous, but by the same token, you could easily end up with something sublime. Without a bunch of different opinions needing to be taken into consideration, an artist with a single vision can create a work that has soul, consistency and beauty. Of course, this is not always possible with the constraints of business, needing to adhere to company policies set by lawyers and executives (see video above). Most of us can only imagine what it would be like to work for a benevolent dictator with an eye for design. Challenging, sure. But what beautiful things you could create.

Coming from the corporate world, I was deeply entrenched in the PC – and I was forced to learn the way of the Mac. I was often told how much I would love my Mac … Apple is great … Yadda. Yadda. Yadda.

Well, thanks to my phone contract expiring, I’ve come full circle. After some research, I purchased the new iPhone.

It’s quite a contraption … People often ask me if it’s difficult to set up and use. The quick answer is no – it’s super easy.

But let me illustrate that point:

Before the OSU vs. Penn State match-up I went to a pre-game party at Riverwatch. Knowing how crowded it could be, I left the iPhone in the care of my niece and nephews – the under age 10 crowd. My four-year-old niece wouldn’t let the thing go.

The next day I checked my phone for messages and – to my surprise and amazement – I found three new games (air hockey, duck splash, and Venger lite). All of the apps had been rearranged (if you’re four, you must have different priorities?). Calls made. Emails created. And I had a photo documentary of the evening’s events.

What’s the lesson? Yes, the iPhone is easy-to-use. Just ask my niece and nephews. Or, see for yourself. The photos are a little blurry, but you have to give the girl credit for trying.

Or maybe the real takeaway is her eagerness – and fearlessness – to learn new technology … That’s something we could all benefit from in this “agency life.”