Do something new Apple!!!!!

If you visit any store and ask the people there to name a successful design brand, many would say Apple. And why not? Apple's s products have won dozens of design prizes. Devotees camp outside its stores in hope of snapping up its new products. Sales have soared, and whenever Apple executives discuss the reason for the company's success, its commitment to design is invariably among them.
Given Apple's status as the reigning champion of corporate design, its not surprising that the design has speculated frenziedly about the risk of the company losing its design luster since the death of its co-founder, Steven Jobs, in October.

Rather than being felled by a fatal blow from Nokia, Microsoft or another foe, a likelier scenario is that Apple will suffer the fate of past alfa design brands by declining not the dramatically, but gradually. Perhaps it'll carry on doing the same things in the same way for too long, or slowly lose the qualities that once made its product seem so special. A more enticing possibility is that Apple will falter not by being beaten at its current game, but because one of its rivals achieves something that it has failed to do:by developing digital devices, which not only score highly on the traditional design criteria of aesthetics but in terms of their ethical and environmental sensitivities.
Whenever design commentators reflect on what does-and doesn't-constitute "good design," the tend to identify "sustainability" or "responsibility" as an indispensable element. They use those words as shorthand for saying that nothing can be considered to be well-designed if they have reason to feel guilty about any aspect of the way in which it was developed, manufactured, packaged, shipped or sold, and will eventually be disposed of.
The picture is murkier for  the types of digital devices that Apple makes. If you look hard enough, you can find more sustainable phones and computer than Apple's, but the differences are often modest, as in Samsung phones that are made partly from recyclable materials. And, in general, it is difficult to assess exactly how Apple's ethical and environmental record compares to other companies.
Presumably, this is not an issue for the die-hard fans, who waited in long lines outside Apple's stores last month when the new iPad went on sale, a few weeks after global media coverage of the  onerous working conditions  and safety problems at some of the company's Chinese suppliers. But its a concern for other customers. Some of them may be so seduced by the other merits of Apple's products that they carry on buying them regardless. Others, would prefer to be responsible, but are unsure whether Apple is better or worse than its rivals. After all, if Apple is to thrive in the post-Jobs era, it has to evolve. Noble though raising standards of sustainable design sounds, doing so requires a long, arduous logistical slog, though that happens to be just the type of challenge at which Apple's new CEO, Timothy D Cook, excels

Posted in: Apple