An artist’s mind
An interesting interview with Claude Gagnon, a Canadian film director, on Apple’s website. In one part, he says
The Apple computer works and thinks like an artist, as opposed to the other system, which has an accountant mind.
I’m not sure I would phrase the delineation that way, but I’ve tried to explain the Mac Difference to others, and this isn’t a bad way to start.
I’ve said, “This computer elevates my thinking”, which is true, because it cares about the right details. Not all, but many of the ones that count. Like making things simple, convenient, and beautiful wherever possible.
See if this makes any sense to you: the Mac exudes a focus on doing the core things right. On finding, and then illuminating, the Canon. I believe the designers at Apple have made a very conscious choice to follow the philosophy of the Zen gardener:
Your garden is not complete until there is nothing left to be removed.
Clearly, a Mac has more to it than air, but you can find the “less is more” concept in many places around an Apple-designed product. The wonderfully designed iSight looks like a grey tube, but within the sleek cylinder is a microphone, a high quality auto-focusing lens, and a clever way to mount the camera on the right surface at the right height for good videoconferencing. The iPod is sleek but gets the core things right.
There’s something to be said for a maniacal belief in the 80/20 rule: Apple thinks hard about what 20% of a thing really matters, then spends 80% of its time on it. Lucky us.
