In a world of generic PCs, design counts. Just ask Bob Brunner, who transformed the look of the laptop with the original Apple PowerBook.
__ Call it the death of the bland box. With PC technologies at parity and price battles a dead end, manufacturers are scrambling to distinguish their machines from a shelf of competitors. The solution? "Design," says Bob Brunner, who helped put Apple Computer at the forefront of personal computer presentation. Brunner spent six years as head of design at Apple, working on both the Newton and the Mac Classic while creating a whole new look for the laptop with the PowerBook portable series. Brunner's role in enshrining PC design has been honored with the highest form of flattery: imitation. Clonemakers now strive to give their machines a distinctive style, and they're turning to outside designers. Packard Bell and Acer enlisted frogdesign Inc. to create more compelling boxes. Hewlett-Packard turned to Lunar Design for its Pavilion series.
Early this year, Brunner left Apple to become a partner at the San Francisco office of Pentagram Design Inc., a multinational design firm. His clients include Toshiba and a start-up called Diba, which recently unveiled a family of Internet appliances including a set-top box and a "cookbook" machine designed for the kitchen.
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Wired
: As the computer industry becomes more of a commodity business, how do you differentiate your box? Apple seems to have inspired others to use design, which is ironic because Apple really was functionally different.
Brunner
: Packard Bell, HP, and others all recently realized something we at Apple knew a long time ago: With performance generally at parity, you have to differentiate on price and design. Price is a death spiral, so you work on design. Some try for blatant shelf appeal: recognizing the product from 20 feet away. There's a sense of "let's pump it up." Everyone wants to make a strong statement - Let's make it red, and it's got to be wild. It's a real challenge for a designer. And I think we're going to see a lot of ugly stuff.
Are we heading toward a situation like the automobile industry in the 1950s, with new tail fins introduced every year?
I think so. Many companies are redoing the look of their machines because of the business situation.
Let's extend the analogy. The auto industry gave us planned obsolescence to create discontent and lead to new purchases. Will we see PC designs that go out of fashion?
We're getting pretty close. But you can get hurt if you build in too much obsolescence. At Apple, I was trying to create something with longevity. Something dynamic, that feels like it's going somewhere.
Why did you leave Apple?
I'm a designer. That's what I like to do. It's how I see myself. But in the last couple of years, I found myself dealing more with political and administrative issues. After six years at Apple, I decided it was time to take that knowledge and leverage it back into consulting.
What are your favorite products from your time at Apple?
The PowerBook, because you see something of it in just about every portable PC out there. But my personal favorite is still the Color Classic. We decided to make one last 9-inch all-in-one with a color tube. We went out on limb and it didn't sell well, but it forced people to talk about design.
Do you believe that a good design should polarize people?
An 80/20 love/hate ratio is pretty good. If you go beyond that you may be doing a disservice to your client or company.
Don't the information appliance ideas that are floating around suggest a way out of the commodification of computers?
If you believe there's going to be a computer in one of every three homes, then people are going to look at it like an appliance. They will ask why it has to be so big and have so many cables and why does it come in this usual gray? The vocabulary of the home is not normally plastic. It's wood, metals, and fabric.
Does this mean walnut CPUs? Ethan Allen-style computers?
Probably not. But at Apple we were working on a palm rest of real wood. It just makes sense. The same thing for leather, which looks and feels good and over time actually looks better.
Like auto dashboards with burled walnut and leather.
I'm waiting to see when we can break away from the box. People are still pretty cautious about their purchases. They want expansion slots and drive bays that they never use. I was shocked to find that among consumers, the tower configuration is the most popular. It's the impression of power. I think as the market matures people will realize they don't need that. They will think about units for writing and to take on vacation, and you'll get something like a notebook with a larger display.
So where do software and hardware design come together? Can you avoid getting into software design?
I don't think so. With the Newton, we were trying to get some aesthetic qualities to cross the line between hardware and software. We said the metaphor is a notepad. Both the hardware and software were based around that. That is the kind of thinking you need to work on. If you're doing something TV-based, it should feel TV-based. You've got a Bud in one hand and the remote in the other. Don't try to put Netscape on the TV set.
Does the Newton succeed in linking the hardware and software in this way?
The latest iteration works well. But it's still in search of the killer app. You have to invest time in learning it. And people really don't like that. That brings up the issue of seamlessness - making products that just fiow into your life rather than create pain as you learn how to use them.
What technologies have succeeded in seamlessly entering our lives?
The calculator. It's so natural. The tape recorder, because it does something you understand, is easy to use, reliable. Most important, you don't have to read the manual.
