Friday, November 6, 2009

Genesis of the iMac




Just read an interesting article on the creation of the 'iMac" name and the "Think Different" ad campaign over on the CultofMac website. The interview is with Ken Segall, an advertising exec working with Steve Jobs in the 90's when the whole "iMac revolution" was brewing.

While I admit to having... personal problems... with the way Apple does things (limitation of customization, chafing under an operating system that often feels like it sacrifices completeness and flexibility for some ill-defined notion of "simpleness" that makes everyone work the same), I have to admit that phrases like this are very interesting to me:

Segall was still consulting for Apple until a couple of years ago when he started working for Dell.

“Dell and Apple: It’s night and day,” Segall says. “It’s a transactional world Dell lives in. It’s all about numbers. Everything they say about Apple making products for themselves is true. Apple — it’s about changing the world. For everyone else, it’s about the money.”

In case you don't know it, during my days I work as a Product Manager, and it really is intriguing to me that a company as large as Apple still retains this sort of reverence for individual vision over the simple worship of the bottom line.

The real question, as it always is with Apple, is: what will happen when Jobs, for whatever reason, is forced to step down?

You can read te entire interview over at CultofMac HERE.

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