iPhone breaks Apple's design bore

Everyone's started saving for an iPhone, even though I'm sure that version 2 will be much more stable and actually have 3G support for a truer multimedia experience, and probably cheaper.

Jonathan Ive, Apple's British hardware designer and rightful winner of numerous industrial design awards, has finally come up with a design that blows away the competition. It's been a rather long wait for another standout Apple design, and in the past couple of months only the new-look iPod shuffle has got a gasp out of the waiting world.

All Apple's recent Macs have looked pretty identical to those non-Intel models they replaced (disappointing). The AppleTV looks like a thin Mac mini (boring), and the new AirPort Extreme is a similar box (even more boring), and a step back from the innovative UFO original (impractical but interesting).

If Apple's iPhone (cool and stylish) had looked like just another mobile (boring), I'd have started wondering what Jonathan gets up to every day. I expect we'll see a few more surprises as Apple revamps its Mac range throughout the year. Please...

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Comments received

CameronClan said on Thursday, 11 January 2007

Any idea why Apple have stuck to the 'iPhone' name? Looking at the smartphone specs it comes across more like a 'MacPhone'.

simonjary said on Thursday, 11 January 2007

What's smarter than a Mac?

simonjary said on Thursday, 11 January 2007

And it does work with Windows, so calling it a MacPhone would have minimised sales for no reason.

simonjary said on Thursday, 11 January 2007

And it does work with Windows, so calling it a MacPhone would have minimised sales for no reason.

nom said on Friday, 12 January 2007

don't forget the main reason this is such a great device is the way that the software and hardware integrates - styling aside, it's the way that simple gestures on the touch screen can make so much happen and so with so much apple intuitiveness

I'm not dismissing the importance of Ive - but the way one's fingers move on the screen makes such amazing effects happen on the screen is down to software engineers who seem to be devoid of fame and recognition ...

respect due to them too (nameless as they may be)

AlanAudio said on Tuesday, 16 January 2007

During the transition to Intel it was right to keep all Intel Macs looking pretty much like their PPC predecessors. People wouldn't feel frightened by too much changing at once and the Intel would still look like a familiar Mac.

Now the transition is complete, Mr Ive can be given free reign to do what he does best for future models.