Great web design basically doesn't need to change over time. Apple has kept the same ideas: big hero image, top nav bar, a few secondary things, and that's it for a decade.
Apple.com (2004)
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Re: Apple.com (2004)
#22"Introducing iLife '04 - it's like Microsoft Office for the rest of your life" I nearly pissed myself in laughter.
Can you explain this line to me? I somehow don't get it.
As far as I can tell: He is extremely easily amused and has a terrible case of urinary incontinence. The former will heal with age, but the latter will get worse.
Re: Apple.com (2004)
#23Re: Apple.com (2004)
#24The navigation bar is the most interesting part I think: - Store - iPod + iTunes - .Mac - Quicktime .Mac and Quicktime were actually two of the most prominently featured products on Apple.com. Wow. iPod and iTunes have stuck around but are now treated separately probably due to the variety of content available on iTunes (apps, books, movies, games). I find it strange that Mac's aren't featured on the 2004 navigation…
Quicktime was mainly to have access to some of the rare actual videos on-line at the time: film trailers, hosted by Apple (and streamed by Akamai at great expense). It seemed incredible at the time. I would religiously connect there every Saturday for new releases and wow at how fast a 240 would download.
You had that, dancing-baby/wombat gifs, or that guy jumping into a tree (that because YouTube first big video) if you weren’t tired of it, and… that’s it.
The Show with Ze Franck was insane idea: the technical feat was more mind-bogging that his antics.
Re: Apple.com (2004)
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Navbars are a great way to get a sense of the company's priorities, generally influenced by the biggest money makers. Amazon's navbar in 2004: https://web.archive.org/web/20041102060756/http://www.amazon... . Books, clothing, electronics, toys/games, music, phones. Today, it's streaming video, streaming music, ["streamed"] ebooks, Kindles, apps ... and then (separated by a horizontal bar) Books / Audible (still plugg…
Or what they want to be money makers.
Indeed: Quicktime wasn’t making much money at the time (or ever was) but when streaming films became a Moor’s law prospect possibility, the fight with Real became insane.
Re: Apple.com (2004)
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fashion is something Apple is good at.
Its not just Apple, of course. The entire web is very fashion conscious.
That's true. Especially today - some oldies like Amazon don't have a lot of knack for it. I meant that few companies have the same ability to predict or set fashion that Apple does. At least, the same awareness or willingness to make it a top priority.
Re: Apple.com (2004)
#27The biggest thing that sticks out to me is the design of the tab buttons in the nav bar. I remember looking at Photoshop tutorials and using Macromedia Fireworks to create buttons that looked similar to this for phpBB styles. Yikes, I'm not old. But damn I'm old.
Re: Apple.com (2004)
#28"Introducing iLife '04 - it's like Microsoft Office for the rest of your life" I nearly pissed myself in laughter.
Can you explain this line to me? I somehow don't get it.
Microsoft Office was pretty much was computers were to most people, and they came off (Bill Gates personally, ‘computer-savvy‘ managers in general and meetings involving PowerPoint in particular) as… no really inspiring. ‘Office life’ was an oximoron -- the title of the show “The Office” didn’t make sense. It was dredge reports, inexplicably weird titles, erratic page numbers, section numbers and inserted images on crack, illegible bar-charts because color-copies where too expensive, and tweaking with margins that sent the key information outside of your fax borders.
Apple played on that angle a lot. They were the computer for the cool kids who made music, took wowing photos, edited gorgeous books, and gave snappy presentations. Things clicked. They had the cool typeface, always, without even pointing at it. They even knew those were not called ‘fonts’. They made computers you actually wanted to spend time with, not be paid to be next too.
Not sure why OC is pissing: either at the office gimmicky memories, or how Apple’s angle seems dated now. But, at the time, that was compelling.
Re: Apple.com (2004)
#29It's kind of interesting how that G5 ad on the front page has a testimonial about freeing you from the chains of Intel and MS. Apple was was probably right in the middle of getting 10.4 ready to run on Intel at this point
I remember scratching my head at the numbers from Apple... The PowerPC chips were four times faster than Intel (or some such number). Then they released on Intel and it became twice as fast. (Of course, this might have been somewhat accurate if PowerPC did not gain performance at the same rate over the years. Still worth a chuckle, though.)
Apple tended to use numbers that were based on calculations made with AltiVec[0], a very powerful SIMD instruction set on PowerPC processors. Of course many apps didn't benefit much from AltiVec at all.
Re: Apple.com (2004)
#30You should take a look at this 15 year slideshow of Apple's homepage: http://thetechblock.com/15-years-apples-homepage/