Hey guys, it’s Greg with Apple Explained,
and today we’re going to explore the history of unreleased Apple products. This topic was the first place winner of last
weeks voting poll and if you didn’t get to vote, make sure you’re subscribed, that
way the voting polls will show up right in your activity feed and you can let me know
which video you’d like to see next. 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.
