{"id":1053,"date":"2006-07-27T06:36:13","date_gmt":"2006-07-27T11:36:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/alta-vista\/"},"modified":"2006-07-27T06:36:13","modified_gmt":"2006-07-27T11:36:13","slug":"alta-vista","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/alta-vista","title":{"rendered":"Alta Vista"},"content":{"rendered":"

Microsoft is trying to get PC designers to get some of that Apple feeling<\/a>, by incorporating such exTREME! trends as the use of black! and white!<\/p>\n

The PC world used to be divided into two camps: those who made lucrative software and the poor schlubs who built the low-margin hardware it ran on.<\/p>\n

Apple has turned that model on its head. From the beginning it has managed to create a unified design for its products by building everything itself, first with the Mac and then later with the iPod. Although Apple sells one computer for every 20 PCs, the iPod’s success has proved how crucial it is to create a seamless experience for consumers, who are buying much of the gear these days. Says a top PC design executive: “You’re going to see more and more of this desire to integrate hardware and software.”<\/p>\n

Even if it means borrowing from Apple. Microsoft denies doing that, saying it’s simply responding to demand for good design. Yet its approach has more than an echo of the Apple ethos.<\/p>\n

“We’re decomposing the look and feel of Vista and bringing it into a language that hardware designers understand,” says Steve Kaneko, design director of Windows hardware innovation. And here’s another Apple-esque detail: The Zune player will work only with Microsoft’s planned music service, sources say. In other words, it will be part of a closed system, like iPod and the iTunes Music Store.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Decomposing? Anyway, given that a huge chunk of the Wintel PC market is based on churning out units as cheaply as possible for a customer base that wants to pay $499 for a computer, it’s unlikely that this initiative is going to yield anything half as elegant as the flatscreen iMac or the Mac Mini. But I give ’em credit for trying, even if it does put me in mind of that great “what if?” video about Microsoft designing the packaging for the iPod<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Microsoft is trying to get PC designers to get some of that Apple feeling, by incorporating such exTREME! trends as the use of black! and white! The PC world used to be divided into two camps: those who made lucrative software and the poor schlubs who built the low-margin hardware it ran on. Apple has … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Alta Vista”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-gZ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1526,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/style-and-not","url_meta":{"origin":1053,"position":0},"title":"Style and not","author":"Gil","date":"May 29, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Over the weekend, I read a neat article about the differences between Apple stores and Sony Style stores. One of the funniest comments came after the writer noticed the huge disparity in foot traffic (a lot more people were in the Apple store) in the two stores in a Palo\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1498,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-may-11-2007","url_meta":{"origin":1053,"position":1},"title":"Unrequired Reading: May 11, 2007","author":"Gil","date":"May 11, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"So many links, so little time. Long-ass article on the design side of Apple. * * * There's a western country where they still sell cassette tapes? * * * Fake your way through the NBA playoffs. * * * Dan Drezner writes about outsourcing, and gets a lot of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Adventures in Gin"","block_context":{"text":"Adventures in Gin","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/adventures-in-gin"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1476,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-apr-27-2007","url_meta":{"origin":1053,"position":2},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Apr. 27, 2007","author":"Gil","date":"April 27, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Links galore, dear readers! Bonfire of the Vanity Fairs. * * * Apple: bad for design? * * * Why do American bazillionaires buy UK fooball clubs? * * * Anne Applebaum, Charles Krauthammer, and Ron Rosenbaum muse about the death of Boris Yeltsin (standard joke: I didn't even know\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":479,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/big-apple","url_meta":{"origin":1053,"position":3},"title":"Big Apple","author":"Gil","date":"February 14, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"This story about stars shopping at the Apple Stores in LA is a hoot. Especially when Levar Burton goes bananas:\"I finally caved in, only because I could see a vein pulsating in his forehead and I didn't want to be the one responsible for causing the blind dude from Star\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2067,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/mess","url_meta":{"origin":1053,"position":4},"title":"MesS","author":"Gil","date":"May 19, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"As a Mac convert, my interest in the decline\/irrelevance of Microsoft is more observational and less practical. Every so often, I look at prices for Windows laptops, just 'cause, and then think, \"There's nothing I'd need one of these machines for.\" But I'm fascinated by the sight of MS in\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1849,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-jan-11-2008","url_meta":{"origin":1053,"position":5},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Jan. 11, 2008","author":"Gil","date":"January 11, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"It's my birthday, dear readers! So I'm taking today off to celebrate! Still, you deserve some Unrequired Reading, so here's a neat article detailing the history of the development of the iPhone, because a) it's a really neat story about how the wireless industry works and how Apple has tried\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Adventures in Gin"","block_context":{"text":"Adventures in Gin","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/adventures-in-gin"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}