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Swatch's provocative 'Tick different' slogan has Apple riled
We don't know when exactly Apple and Swatch first had a falling out, but trademark disputes seem to be the stage both have chosen to publicly acknowledge their strained relationship. In the latest example of this, Apple is challenging Swatch's "Tick different" trademark, which features in marketing campaigns for its Bellamy range of simple, analog watches that include NFC for contactless payments. Apple is arguing the phrase is too similar to its now-retired "Think different" slogan, thus causing confusion among consumers.
Looking back at Apple's Cube, ten years later
The Register has an excellent writeup posted with a look back at Apple's Power Mac G4 Cube (affectionately referred to as "The Cube"), which was released to the public 'suspended' from production 10 years ago this coming weekend. At the time, back in 2001, the Cube drew a lot of jeers, mostly from PC enthusiasts who enjoyed making fun of Apple's whimsical and somewhat pretentious designs. For a number of different reasons, the Cube never really took off in the way that the iMac or, later, the iPhone did. Nevertheless, the Cube has its followers, and the idea -- a powerful computer put into a form very different than anything else seen at the time -- remains intriguing even today. Perhaps that's why even today, modders are trying to push the limits of what the Cube can be. User Marcelo over at CubeOwner.com is actually building an "All Apple 10th Anniversary Cube" right now, which will rock an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, two 100 GB SSD drives, a dual-layer DVD drive; the finished product will even support Mac OS X 10.7 Lion when it's released. That's a spicy meatball of a computer, all squeezed into that same floating box. We have to be careful not to look back too fondly on the Cube itself -- I used one back in the day and there were some issues with the hardware and the way it all worked, no matter how you felt about the case. But the Cube came right near the end of the Think Different campaign, and in some ways, even before the iAge changed the form of computing completely, the Cube was the last word on what Apple Computers was trying to accomplish with the PC itself. Thanks Laurie D.
Steve Jobs is a recipient of the Jim Henson Celebration Honor Award
Macworld is reporting that Steve Jobs is one of the recipients of the Jim Henson Celebration Honor – one of four Jim Henson Honors. Established in 2005, the awards program acknowledges organizations, individuals, or products that reflect the core values and philosophy of Jim Henson and the company he founded. Criteria used in the evaluation process include: a commitment to creativity, innovative applications of art and technology, and inspiration of others. Four people are honored every year. In addition to Steve Jobs, this year's other honorees are: The Jim Henson Community Honor – 826 National, a tutoring, writing, and publishing organization The Jim Henson Creativity Honor – Neill Blomkamp, director of the movie "District 9" The Jim Henson Technology Honor – YouTube Symphony Orchestra, the world's first collaborative orchestra From the official press release [PDF link], The Jim Henson Company stated that the Celebration Honor "goes to an individual, organization or product that makes the world a better place by inspiring people to celebrate life. A co-founder of Apple, Jobs has led the company and the creation of its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, iPod media player, iTunes media store and Mac computers." CEO Lisa Henson went on to say, "Steve Jobs has continuously broken new ground with technologies that allow existing media in all forms to be easily enjoyed and also by providing fantastic tools for artists, photographers, musicians and filmmakers of all skill levels." Jim Henson was one of the individuals featured in Apple's 1997 Think Different Campaign that many believe was central in rebuilding Apple's image in the minds of computer users.
Apple maintains "Think Different" trademark
When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1996, the public's perception of the company was grim. To make a long story short, Steve's plans for resurrection included changing that, and the "Think Different" campaign was among the first steps. There were television ads, print ads and slogans printed on Apple packaging. The phrase was replaced with the "Switch" and "Get A Mac" campaigns, but didn't disappear for good. A portion of the poem from the TV ad can be found on the high-res version of the TextEdit icon in Leopard and Snow Leopard. Earlier this year, "Think Different" began appearing on 21.5" and 27" iMac boxes. This week, Patently Apple reports that the US Patent & Trademark Office has published Apple's new trademark application for Think Different (it's application 77882684 if you were wondering). It could mean a revitalization of the campaign, but it's more likely that Apple just wants to keep it in their stable. Many consumers still think of Apple when hearing "think different." Like most iconic aspects of pop culture, there have been many parodies. Here's my favorite. [Via MacNN]
Stink Different with an Apple toilet
We've long heard jokes of the iCar, the iToilet, and other iCrap, but until now we'd never seen a real, working example of one of these things. Well, here's your iToilet, gang. It doesn't connect to the internet in less than three steps, but it does connect to a series of tubes. Tipster Mike Jones actually had this made for himself, but through Rival Toilets, makers of custom, printed potties. Yep, the owner of Rival, Fred, has figured out a way to get decals under a coat of specially-formulated finish (a trade secret), resulting in some glorious toilets you see in the gallery. They last, they are custom and they are really quite something to see. Rival's specialty? Sports team toilets with rival team logos in a "special" place on the bowl. I'm told the Apple version seen here has a similar "rival" logo in the bottom of the bowl. I'll leave the specifics to the reader's imagination. I don't think it's IBM, however. %Gallery-78192% Share
Apple's main ad man thinks different, steps down as Macs battle PCs like it's 1984
Apple's certainly seen plenty of shakeups in its ranks over the years and, while this one may not exactly come as a shock, it's still tough to overstate the influence of Lee Clow, who has announced that he's stepping down as chief creative officer of Apple's main ad agency, TBWA/Media Arts Lab. While he also made his mark with a range of other clients (including the Energizer Bunny and the Taco Bell Chihuahua), Clow was most closely identified with Apple, and founded the Media Arts Lab as part of TBWA in 2006 specifically to serve the company. Clow has been the man behind virtually every major Apple advertising campaign even before that, however, including the famous 1984 Superbowl ad, the "Think Different" series, the dancing iPod silhouettes and, of course, the Mac vs. PC ads. Not surprisingly, another Apple ad man, Duncan Milner, has been tapped to take his place, and Clow will be staying on as Chairman if he ever needs a little advice. Let's head on past the break for a brief trip down memory lane, shall we? [Via Macworld]
Diamond, the rich text editor that thinks different
Diamond is a free rich text editor with a difference. Lots of differences, actually, which combine to make it quite appealing. Developer Geoffrey Alexander has recently released Diamond 3, which makes this an excellent time for you to download and give it a try. How is Diamond different? Diamond windows look different. Sometimes they're hardly there. They may or may not have title bars. They may or may not hover above a background (flat color, or photographic, it's up to you) that in turn hovers over everything else on your desktop. Text inside Diamond documents flows in columns. Word and character counts float unobtrusively below the windows, as if hanging in space. If you want them to. Aspects of Diamond's differentness are yours to tweak in the prefs, of course, so you can de-weird things if you feel the need. But that takes all the fun out of it. If I'm not making much sense here, I encourage you to take a look at the Diamond gallery or download the app to try it for yourselves. As Geoffrey himself once said: "Diamond isn't for everyone, and may not even be for anyone." But I rather like it, if only because it takes the mundanity of editing text and adds a bit of life that you don't find in other rich text editors.
Adgadget: Apple - flattered and photocopied
We're pleased to introduce a new column today, Adgadget, a periodic editorial by Ariel Waldman about the advertising behind consumer technology: Functioning to flatter, Apple's marketing department continues to imitate their inspiration. While a bit lack-luster, Apple's recent commercial for the up and coming iPhone is a far cry from the originality of the product itself. As some may have seen, it was soon found that the iPhone commercial that had originally aired during the Oscars was a cut and dry ripoff of a film that had come out more than a decade earlier. While seemingly scandalous, this incident was no coincidence. Apple had approached the filmmaker earlier for permission to use the concept; no stranger to being turned down -- and similarly to the battle with Cisco over the very name of the product -- Apple went ahead and used it anyway. This time the muse happens to be experimental artist / musician Christian Marclay, who in 1995 produced Telephones, an abstract film of absurd and fragmented conversations cut up from phone scenes in movies. The film focused to comment on the relationship between sound and image by way of video; intrigued by the phone-movie mashup, Apple approached Marclay to use his work. Marclay, of course, refused Apple's advances, but Apple took advantage anyway. Since asking the source had short-circuited, Apple instead took to using extremely similar footage, making the iPhone commercial nothing short of a complete color copy of Telephones.Reminiscent of the earlier Intel chip commercial outcry that clearly ripped out scenes from Postal Service's "Such Great Heights" music video, content confiscation is nothing new to Apple. There was also the iPod incident in 2005, where blogs everywhere threw up screen grabs and expressed shock over the extreme similarity between the then recent Eminem iPod commercial and a Lugz commercial from 4 years before. But it wasn't always this way.
Apple Tattoo: Now that's a fan girl
In my time I've been accused of being an Apple fanboy, but this girl takes it to the next level. On celebritytattoos.org we find this lovely collection of the 32 geekiest tattoos, with our favorite company logo clearly taking pride of place. I can't say I approve, but you've got to respect the Apple devotion! You just have wonder how she's going to feel about it in a few years.[Via Digg]
10 years of thinking different
When Apple's Think Different television campaign first aired in September of 1997, the company was in dire straights (or, as we call it, "The Sculley Years"). To make a long and well-known story short, Steve came back, the company launched the enormously popular "Think Different" campaign with Chiat/Day, and that, true believers, was how Apple got its groove back.LowEndMac takes a very interesting look at the development of that campaign, from the initial concept to the first broadcast commercial in '97. Some interesting facts include that Chiat/Day was given just 17 days to complete the project, and that Steve himself courted some of the people whose images were used.Well done, Apple and Chiat/Day. We still love those ads.
TUAW Desktop of the Week for 3/04 - 3/10/07
Our TUAW Desktop of the Week didn't make the cut because of some wild assortment of applications or montage of interestingness. No, this week we decided to keep it simple and old school with think different from Flickr user 1000things (though the roaming ladybug is a nice, yet weird, touch). The old-school Apple logo is keeping it real front and center, while the 'think different' writing actually belongs to 1000things herself. Don't adjust your ColorSync settings, however - the black appearance of the menubar and iTunes are courtesy of Unsanity's Shapeshifter, an app that can skin Mac OS X with new colors, icons and styles. If you'd like to see your unique, functional or otherwise interesting desktop featured in our TUAW Desktops of the Week series, check out past featured desktops as well as the original post for the rules and to get an idea of what we're looking for. Then, upload your desktop screenshot to our TUAW Desktops Flickr group. We'll feature one or more desktops each weekend, giving credit to the desktop owner, wallpaper creator and any apps featured in the screenshot (if available). Keep those desktops rolling in!
macTV posts unaired Think Different ad
Now this is pretty cool. macTV has posted an unaired ad from Apple's Think Different campaign featuring the great Muhammad Ali. I've seen this footage many times before, but I never knew it had (nearly) been used in a Think Different ad. That was a great campaign.Many years ago, I worked for a school. Midway through my first year, I learned that a stack of "Think Different" posters had been tossed just before I arrived. Ugh.
