Word: ibooks
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Dates: during 1999-1999
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...wrote the iBook? The project employed hundreds but had three primary authors: Jonathan Ive, the brilliant, soft-spoken V.P. of industrial design; senior V.P. of hardware engineering Jon Rubinstein; and, of course, Jobs himself, official purveyor of the vision thing, who delivered his basic concept in one pithy sentence: "The iBook is something you'd throw in your backpack...
...designed "holistically," each aspect of development altering every other as the project evolves, the design group producing first sketches, then computer work-ups and finally physical prototypes in a perpetual rondelet with the software guys, Rubinstein's hardware jocks and Jobs, who was a continual presence during the iBook's 18-month gestation...
Take, for instance, these three givens: the iBook is wireless, it needs a full-size keyboard, and it must make sense for schools. From here the design implications topple like dominos. Both the wireless idea and the education focus demand long battery life, because what's the point of lugging a wireless into class if the machine is always asking to be plugged in? But being able to run for six hours (the length of a school day) demanded a large battery, which the full keyboard forced down to the machine's bottom lip. The design guys, meanwhile, had decided...
...sure, iBook's look hasn't garnered universal praise. Silicon Valley insiders, reports a wag, "can't decide whether it looks like a toilet seat or a Hello Kitty bag." But even its detractors would have to agree that it's a striking departure for the home-computer market--and quite possibly a landmark in the quest Jobs began when he founded Apple two decades ago. "I remember when he pulled the white sheet off the first Mac in '84," says Tim Bajarin, a longtime Apple watcher. "Even then, he was going to create the 'computer for Everyman...
...under way. The prodigal son is home. And, against all odds, the Apple dream is alive. "Is it possible to fall in love with a computer?" asks Jeff Goldblum in a new TV ad Jobs screened last week for the adoring legions at MacWorld. Then, as a tangerine iBook dances and twirls onscreen, Goldblum answers his own question with an erotic, breathy groan...