Appledesign
by Paul Kunkel · first published 1997
7mentions
3recommended by
7HN commenters
2009–2024first – last mentioned
43% recommend57% neutral
"To celebrate Apple's twentieth anniversary, AppleDesign provides a rare inside look at the Industrial Design Group, examining the role this small team of creative individuals has played in the rise of Apple from a Silicon Valley garage to a billion-dollar corporation. It details the formation of the Group, outlines their method for turning great ideas into even greater products, reveals many design concepts and products that never reached the marketplace, and offers a glimpse at the triumph and turmoil than results when creative desire meets (and occasionally collides with) corporate reality.
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Schiller wasn't, he was medium-level in marketing; but Ive was fairly senior. His team were churning out great designs -- there's a book called AppleDesign that showcases the work, the majority of which didn't make it into production because Apple simply didn't know what it had.
on “Apple: Jobs to Take Medical Leave of Absence” ↗I think 'Revolution in the valley' could qualify, it's not really a coffee table book, but the stories are so short you can pick it up and read one in a few minutes. There is also 'Appledesign: The Work of the Apple Industrial Design Group', it's old and out of print but it's got some really interesting prototypes in there. As others have mentioned there is also Dieter Rams book and Core Memory.…
on “Ask HN: Coffee table books” ↗The book mentioned in the article, AppleDesign, is full of great photos (of prototypes and shipped products) and interesting stories from that era. It covers the entire Frog Design era in great detail. Highly recommended, but unfortunately quite expensive…
on “The Apple Jonathan: A 1980s concept computer that never shipped” ↗Yes. A lot of these prototypes were documented in the 1997 book "AppleDesign: The Work of the Apple Industrial Design Group" by Kunkel and English (now out of print). https://www.amazon.com/Appledesign-Apple-Industrial-Design-G... Some images from the book can be found here:…
on “Apple’s First Phone, from 1983, Never Made It to Market (2014)” ↗Oooo that's good info, thanks! I seem to recall reading it somewhere, perhaps as context after the publication of AppleDesign: https://www.amazon.com/Appledesign-Apple-Industrial-Design-G... Really appreciate your correction here!
on “Busy Being Born (2004)” ↗…concepts and a few 'communication device' concepts (video and audio phone integrated computers). Sadly out of print, and quite expensive for a paperback 'coffee table' style book https://www.amazon.com/Appledesign-Apple-Industrial-Design-G... Some pictures from inside, including one concept integrated with a telephone handset: https://twitter.com/jamesthomson/status/798542140435480576
on “Steve Wozniak: Steve Jobs wasn’t a natural-born leader” ↗…which features this glamour shot of what was apparently an industrial design for Big Mac: https://i0.wp.com/www.aventure-apple.com/wp-content/uploads/... . (And this is cited: it's apparently from the Appledesign book https://www.worldcat.org/title/appledesign-the-work-of-the-a... .) The resemblance to the original G3 iMac from over a decade later is obvious. Beyond appearances, some other hardware similarities…
on “So what is the deal with A/UX anyways?” ↗