Hey guys, it’s Greg with Apple Explained, and today we’re going to explore the history
of unreleased Apple products.
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So it isn’t very hard to believe that companies like Apple experiment with all kinds of different
designs for their products, and most of those designs never seen the light of day.
Well I looked all around the internet to find as many authentic designs and products that
Apple actually created but decided not to release.
And I realized that most of the products I came across were designed back in 1982 when
Steve Jobs was twenty-eight.
It was at this time when he realized that Apple was in a tough predicament.
Because with the exception of the aging Apple IIe, the company’s products were failing
against IBM’s PCs.
And they all were ugly, especially the Apple III and soon-to-be-released Apple Lisa.
So in this video, I don’t want to just rattle off a list of different prototypes and product
concepts that never entered production, but I want to tell the story of this interesting
period in Apple’s history where design became the company’s top priority.
And it wasn’t just a simple matter of designing better computers, it was about creating a
design language for Apple to unify their products and compete with bigger companies like IBM
and Sony.
It was during this period that Apple experimented heavily with their potential design direction,
and this exploration resulted in numerous concept designs and concept products that,
while never released, helped shape the future of Apple.
So back in 1982 the company’s previous CEO, Michael Scott, had created different “business
divisions” for each product line, including accessories like monitors and memory drives.
Each division had its own head of design and developed its product line any way it wanted
to.
As a result, Apple’s products didn’t share a common design language and didn’t appear
very unified.
So Jobs figured that bad design was a byproduct and contributing factor of Apple’s corporate
mismanagement.
And it was out of his desire to end this fragmented approach that gave birth to a strategic design
project that would revolutionize Apple’s brand and product lines, change the trajectory
of the company’s future, and eventually redefine the way the world thinks about and
uses consumer electronics.
The idea for the project was inspired by the work of the Richardson Smith Design Agency
for Xerox where the designers collaborated with multiple divisions within Xerox to create
a single united “design language” that the company could implement throughout all
its products.
Jerry Manock, the designer of the Apple II and head of design in Apple’s Macintosh
division, and Rob Gemmell, head of design in the Apple II division, created a plan in
which they would invite global designers to Apple headquarters and, after interviewing
all of them, stage a competition between the two top candidates.
Apple would choose a final winner and then use that design as the framework for its new
design language.
But no one knew at that time that they were in the process of transforming Apple into
a company whose design-based strategy and innovation-over-money approach would make
it a global success.
Now the group who ended up winning the competition was called Frog Design led by Hartmut Esslinger.
And we’re going to cover the different desktop concepts they offered Apple that eventually
led to their partnership with the company.
Each design prototype they worked on started with research to discover what already existed
and to explore the possibilities of what could exist.
When they launched the Snow White project, computers offered little in the way of design,
but their technologies were advancing rapidly.
Performance was growing, physical sizes were shrinking, and–thanks to “professional”
pricing versus “consumer” pricing–profit margins were still healthy.
Personal computers were in their infancy, and Apple had an edge with its use of Xerox
Parc’s bitmap user interface, which appealed to everybody, not just professional computer
users.
However, most of Apple’s products were primitive in their mechanical design, and their manufacturing
costs were sky high.
By recreating the advanced electronics production methods being used in Germany and Japan, Frog
design was able to predict a reduction in housing costs by 70 to 90%.
But this case-production technique did more than just save money, it produced world-class,
durable materials that didn’t require paint.
After many talks with Steve Jobs and other Apple executives, Frog Design decided on three
directions for further development.
Concept 1 was defined by what Sony would do if it built computers.
Now Esslinger didn’t like this idea, since it might’ve created conflicts with Sony,
but Jobs insisted on it.
He felt that Sony’s simple, cool design language should serve as a benchmark, and
Sony was the current pioneer in making high-tech consumer products smarter, smaller, and more
portable.
Concept 2 would express “Americana,” reconnecting high-tech design with classical American design
statements, something similar to Raymond Loewy’s streamlined designs for cars, the Electrolux
line of household appliances, Gestetner’s office products, and the Coke bottle.
Concept 3 was left to Esslinger.
It could be as radical as possible and perhaps that freedom allowed him to create some of
his best work yet, since that design ended up being the winner.
The prototype served as the face of Apples new design language, which was named “Snow
White,” and the group laid out some guidelines on how it should be implemented across products.
Some of these included minimal surface texture, no paint, symmetry whenever possible, white
appearance, and a single Apple logo badge inlayed into the design.
Now the really interesting part is when Bill Atkinson, an Apple lead engineer, challenged
Esslinger to include projections about future technological developments like flat screens,
touch interfaces, and the merging of telephones into computers.
So Frog Design went to work again, this time in Germany, and used Bill’s encouragement
to go beyond the basic Snow White project and conceptualize future products as well.
The results were probably the world’s first concept of a wireless mobile flip-phone, a
touch-pad computer, and a laptop computer with a screen as large as a keyboard with
a touch interface.
When Steve presented the notebook model to the Mac team in 1983, he told them it was
the next Macintosh they would build, and the team gasped in disbelief.
Although Apple wouldn’t actually end up manufacturing that computer, it represented
a shift in priorities that would change the way Apple was managed.
So Frog Design was given a two million dollar contract from Apple to be in charge of all
the company’s designs.
But even with the full backing of Steve Jobs, most of Apple’s designers still considered
themselves to be in charge of design, and nearly all of them refused to cooperate with
Esslinger.
But he asserted himself as Apple’s lead designer and this friction caused some existing
Apple designers to leave the company or move to other departments.
The first project Frog Design tackled was designing the Apple IIc.
It went on to become Time magazine’s Design of the Year in 1984, and this recognition
validated Steve Job’s vision for Apple in a way that went beyond big sales numbers.
But unfortunately, Apple’s overall financial performance wasn’t strong that year.
Macintosh sales were well below expectations, partly due to its higher price, which then-CEO
John Sculley had raised to $2,500, up from Jobs suggested price of $1,900.
And although the Apple IIc was successful, the company was in no position to rest on
their laurels.
Frog Design had to continue to bring the new Snow White design language to Apple’s other
product lines.
So they shifted their focus to Apple’s printers and a final redesign of the Apple II desktop
line.
In close collaboration with Canon, they launched a major innovation breakthrough with the LaserWriter.
And its improvements went beyond a simple redesign.
To get away from the ugly “dot-matrix” printing that was the accepted norm at that
time, Steve licensed typesetting-quality typestyles from the Berthold type foundry in Berlin.
Apple’s developer improved anti-alias technology so much that the postscript programming became
the new standard of desktop publishing.
As Frog moved more deeply into Apple’s future product development, they felt that the Snow
White design language was a bit too soft and a bit too complex in its details.
To make the design more competitive, they sharpened the details and extended its application
beyond computers to smaller products and new technologies.
And just like automobile manufacturers show off concept cars, Frog Design created concept
products like telephones, TV-connectable Macs, music players, and video players.
But Jobs was no longer satisfied with all of Apple’s products being white, and he
insisted that Esslinger and his team add the color “black-anthracite” to their spectrum.
This new design initiative was called Snow White 2 and produced some pretty dramatic
and timeless design elements that were later used by Jonathan Ive with the iPod and other
Apple products that followed.
The lineup for the Apple II GS complete with CPU, keyboard, mouse, connectors, cables,
and printers, was the first full implementation of the Snow White 2 design language.
Unfortunately, these were the last products in the life of the Apple II line, but their
great economic success was vital for Apple since the Macintosh didn’t sell well enough
to carry the company.
Frog Design then determined that the next generation of a compact and “insanely great”
Mac had to bring Apple to the absolute forefront as a source of cool and friendly digital machines
that everyone could use.
These machines were called Big Mac and Baby Mac.
They worked with Toshiba on a new cathode ray tube front in order to avoid the cheap
look of a regular CRT display, they also looked at flat-screen technology but it was too pricy
to include in consumer products at the time.
To make the Mac as small as possible, Frog experimented with wireless keyboard and mouse
connections.
And during development of the baby Mac, Jobs brought on Allan Kay, a prominent figure in
the tech industry.
Given the great progress Apple was making with both their software team and Susan Kare’s
work on the user-interface, Frog Design felt that the Baby Mac would become one of the
greatest products ever.
But plans to release the product came to an end when Jobs lost a power struggle to John
Sculley and was kicked out of Apple.
With that, the Baby Mac became one of Apple’s best designs never to be released.
And with Steve gone, Apple had lost its design-driven philosophy, only to regain it twelve years
later, when Steve returned in 1997.
So that is the history of unreleased Apple products, and if you want to vote for the
next video topic, don’t forget to subscribe.
Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next time.