This morning I saw a few references to turns out to be an interesting marketing campaign by SanDisk who is trying to compete with the iPod. Then just now I saw a post telling Apple to no launch an iPhone. Here is an excerpt from that post:
Mark my words; Mac addicts are the toughest critics in the world. They’ve earned the right to be with the heavy refinement they’ve come to expect from the surgeons that design product for Apple. The thing is Apple’s own success will be its downfall with the phone, the expectations are simply too high and when people discover that it is after all just another phone; or figure out, god forgbid, that Nokia has actually done a better job with the N or E series devices - the failure to deliver on what was truly an impossible challenge will be mud on the face of the company the way the Newton has been for well over a decade.
Last night I was re-reading part of Hackers & Painters. I was reading a chapter on design. I was struck by the part that talked about the awakening that happens when a person realizes that design matters. It said design is not just a matter of preference, there is good design and bad design. (I will pull a quote when I get home).
Using a Mac for over 8 hours a day has given me a new appreciation for design. I look at things differently now. I think my web-design ability (and I am not really a designer) has improved exponentially since adopting OS X. Apparently this is a common scenario since otherwise “Mac addicts” wouldn’t be the “toughest critics in the world”.
I agree that the iPhone would possibly be a let-down, but have you seen the design of the iDon’t website? It looks like garbage. If SanDisk wants to compete with the iPod they are going to have to step up their design. I suggest they start with the packaging and work from there.
