Celebs flock to Apple's digital hype fest

Douglas Adams, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Donald Glaser visit Cupertino to make digital movies.

By Janelle Brown

Topics:Apple, Celebrity

Donald Glaser, Nobel Prize-winning physicist, is hunched over his iMac, puzzling over a film clip of waves breaking over a tranquil beach. Sitting at the iMac next to him is the hulking TV star Sinbad, equally absorbed in editing a video of basketball players. On the other side of Glaser sits astronaut Mae Jemison, the first African-American woman in space, manipulating pictures of African art. Across the room, sci-fi legend Douglas Adams breaks into a laugh so loud that it startles almost everyone in the hushed room. Even actress Jennifer Jason Leigh, engrossed in her work, looks up.

Apple, long the rock star of computer companies, has a long and loving relationship with celebrity — from Steve Jobs’ high-profile work with Pixar to that ubiquitous Think Different campaign to the appearance of stars like Gregory Hines and Jeff Goldblum in iMac advertisements. This week, as part of the two-and-a-half-year-old AppleMasters program, Apple invited a roomful of bona fide celebrities to visit its office and learn how to create a digital film.

“We don’t like to call them celebrities,” says Kanwal Sharma, the AppleMasters program manager. “More like ‘leaders in their fields.’”

The AppleMasters program was founded in 1997 with the aim of showcasing how great visionaries do their work with Apple technology. Or, as the AppleMasters Web site more grandly envisions it, “Astronauts. Photographers. Authors. Filmmakers. Physicists. Entrepreneurs. The AppleMasters Program recognizes a handful of extraordinary people who use Apple technology to help change the world.”

Nearly 75 of these visionaries have visited the Apple offices in the last two years to attend training classes. During the intensive two-day sessions, notables as wide-ranging as Bryan Adams, Muhammad Ali, British artist Damien Hirst, scientist Richard Dawkins, Tom Clancy, Tracy Ullman and musician and physicist Fiorella Terenzi — even dolphin researcher Louis Herman and his so-called “superdolphin” — have tackled geek tasks including digital photography, digital music and Web publishing.

This week, the topic was digital film: Each AppleMaster was given a Canon digital camera, an iMac and training on how to edit his or her material into a film. The results — which ranged from humorous interludes to serious short films to visual ruminations — were screened privately on Wednesday, and will be released on the Web later this week.

Besides the “leaders,” Apple also invited a group of nine local schoolchildren, ages 8 to 12, to participate in the program. In a much louder and more raucous room down the hall from that of the celebs, bright kids were making their own digital films, focusing on their bedrooms. “The whole idea is that these are young minds — show them how to do something and then stand aside and see what they do with it,” explains Sharma. “The magic is giving them the skills.”

The results? Masterpieces like “Nick’s Room,” by Nicholas Barbara, who queries his mother about her thoughts on his bedroom to a Metallica soundtrack. “It’s a pit,” says Mom. Ten-year-old Eve Wheatley composed a minute-long film about her doll collection — impressive stuff for a girl who hasn’t outgrown Barbie yet. “It’s easy to learn,” she shrugs.

When both the kids and adults are finished with their masterpieces, they’ll walk away with not just the knowledge of how to create a digital film, but the Canon video camera and the iMac to boot. While the kids will bring the equipment to their schools to train their classmates, the celebrity AppleMasters get to keep the bounty for themselves — despite the fact that many of them could afford roomfuls of iMacs. Of course, it’s money well spent for Apple if these celebrities will use the machines in a creative, high-profile way.

“I’ll use it for home; I’m sure the grandkids will love it,” smiled Glaser as he waited for his three-minute film to download. He paused and added, “I’ll also use it to create computational models of the human visual system, making simplified movies to be used for testing how signals move through the brain … This is perfect for me.”

That must be music to Apple’s ears.

: Janelle Brown is a contributing writer for Salon. More Janelle Brown

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Despite the hype over Apple's new iPad textbooks, there's little proof that gadgets do much to improve education

By David Sirota

(Credit: iStockphoto/Willsie)

Topics:Education, Apple

The release of Apple’s computer-based textbooks last month had the usual technology triumphalists buzzing. “Apple and the Coming Education Revolution,” blared the headline at Fast Company magazine. “Apple puts iPad at head of the class,” screamed Macworld. And Time magazine declared the announcement the “debut (of) the holy grail of textbooks.” It sounds exciting — a rise of the machines that promises educational utopia rather than “Terminator”-style cataclysm.

Or does it?

Though it may be too soon to definitively answer that question, it’s not too soon to ask it. Because despite the celebratory hype, there’s no guarantee that a hyper-technologized education system is synonymous with genuine progress.

Ponder, for starters, the much-discussed issue of financial efficiency. As the tech website Gizmodo noted in a post titled “You Can’t Afford Apple’s Education Revolution,” the new iPad-based books might “only cost $15 a pop,” but “instead of selling an updated textbook every 5-10 years for $100, (publishers will) update and sell every year for $15,” and “it’s not like you can hand down an iBook from year to year … you expressly can’t.” It’s the same story with so many other vaunted education-branded technologies: They seem to promise resource-strapped school districts a way to constructively reduce expenditures, but the dazzle of flashy gadgets and interactivity often means budget-busting costs over the long haul.

Those costs might be justifiable when a new device is a sure bet to improve education. But a school’s wager on computer technology as a pedagogic panacea is often just that: a blind gamble, and one that evidence shows is hardly safe.

Here in Colorado, for instance, the nonprofit I-News Network recently reported that students attending the state’s “full-time online education programs have typically lagged their peers on virtually every academic indicator, from state test scores to student growth measures to high school graduation rates.” Stanford University researchers found similar results in their separate study of online schools in Pennsylvania. And after its exhaustive national investigation of the trend, the New York Times concluded that “schools are spending billions on technology, even as they cut budgets and lay off teachers, with little proof that this approach is improving basic learning.”

In lieu of empirical data, why are schools rushing into this brave new world of technology?

For one thing, there’s the allure of a quick fix, as gadgets seem to hold out the possibility that school districts can sustain huge budget cuts without sacrificing quality tutelage. The idea is that teachers can be replaced by cheaper computers, at once saving schools money, preventing tax increases for school resources, and preserving educational services. Even if data prove that’s a pipe dream, the desire for a cure-all has convinced many desperate schools to chase the fantasy.

There’s also political pressure from high-tech companies that, according to Education Week, “are thriving in the K-12 market.” As the Investigative Fund’s Lee Fang recently documented, these firms use some of the loot they’re generating to finance state-based political front groups, hire lobbyists, and employ has-beens like Gov. Jeb Bush as their public representatives. The result is a powerful political infrastructure that pushes state legislatures and local school boards to divert money away from proven education tools (teaching staff, textbooks, etc.) and into risky technology procurement.

There’s little doubt, of course, that some technologies may end up bringing about genuine advancements in education. But that possibility is no reason to suddenly ignore Ronald Reagan’s notion of “trust, but verify.” After all, before it was the Gipper’s, that motto was the mantra of the most devoted science and technology geeks — just as it should be schools’ mantra now.

: David Sirota is a best-selling author of the new book "Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live In Now." He hosts the morning show on AM760 in Colorado. E-mail him at ds@davidsirota.com, follow him on Twitter @davidsirota or visit his website at www.davidsirota.com. More David Sirota

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The American middle class might not be making iPads and iPhones, but they sure are buying a lot of them

By Andrew Leonard

(Credit: AP/Lukas Barth)

Topics:Apple

Apple’s blowout quarter defies description. What can one do but gape at the news that the company had one of the very best quarters any company has ever had, primarily based on the sales of products — iPhones and iPads — that did not even exist five years ago? Not long ago, supposedly knowledgeable business insiders were declaring the iPhone dead in the water. But in 2011, Apple sold more iPhones than in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010, combined. Apple is also now sitting on nearly $100 billion in cash; the company has never been in better financial shape. (Disclaimer: I contributed.)

But what about the context? The earnings release came just two days after a terrific New York Times article, “How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work,” made it abundantly clear that what’s good for Apple isn’t necessarily good for the American worker. And it came just hours before a State of the Union speech at which Steve Jobs’ wife, Laurene, was a guest in Michelle Obama’s box, and in which the president called for the “insourcing” of American manufacturing. In short, the most successful, profitable company in the world right now is pursuing a manufacturing strategy that is the direct opposite of what the president is advocating.

So is just about everybody else, of course. You can pick your own villain to explain the shift of the global supply chain for consumer electronic manufacturing to China. Apple blames a lack of qualified workers in the U.S. Others point to China’s manipulation of exchange rates. Paul Krugman underlines the self-perpetuating power of “agglomeration” — once a modern supply chain becomes physically entrenched, it is extremely difficult to dislodge it or reinvent it elsewhere. The emergence of Foxconn — a manufacturer capable of mobilizing hundreds of thousands of workers on the highest-tech assembly lines in the world — is a product of a particular time and place. There is no Foxconn model for the U.S. and there never will be, again.

It’s unfair to blame Apple as solely responsible for this state of events. American electronics companies started outsourcing the production of radio parts to Taiwan as far back as the 1950s. Since then, the shift of supply chains to East Asia has been an increasingly inexorable global phenomenon. Apple has simply taken advantage of the new realities of globalization with more efficiency, at bigger scale, and with far better products than anyone else. (Ironically, back when Apple was manufacturing its computers in the United States, the company was seen as irrelevant to the future of the computing business — a has-been that made overpriced, underpowered devices for hipster elitists.)

And what about the product? There’s a question that is getting lost in all the focus on manufacturing strategy and earnings results: Does society benefit from the iPhone and the iPad? It’s not an exaggeration to say that the iPhone revolutionized the phone business; the iPad is similarly reshaping the computer business. We are moving into a the Golden Age of Wireless, a world where nearly everyone will have an Internet-connected computer in their pocket. Are we better off because of this? Are we doing things with these devices that compensate for the decline of manufacturing in the United States?

If we aren’t, we should be. Because the U.S. cannot compete with China or India on terms of cheap labor or industrial scale. But there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to compete with our brains. The software that’s inside the iPhone is one prominent example of that thesis. Using our smartphones to build a better world should be another.

: Andrew Leonard is a staff writer at Salon. On Twitter, @koxinga21. More Andrew Leonard

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No matter how much a company has contributed to design, it shouldn't be exempt from evaluation

By Steven Heller, Imprint

Topics:Imprint, Design, Apple

This article originally appeared on Imprint.

In the current issue of Print, Alexandra Lange wrote a very interesting essay titled “An Anatomy of Uncriticism,” proposing the concept that certain sacred cows are not simply impervious to design criticism, they are not critiqued at all. Apple is her primary example.

“In June, when Apple unveiled its donut-shaped, spaceship suggestive headquarters in Cupertino, California, I took to my Design Observer blog to critique what I saw as its retrograde suburbanism,” she writes. “… Commentators immediately wrote back, accusing me of East Coast snobbery and, worse, irrelevance.”

One commentator’s response triggered Lange’s ire:

“Apple can do whatever it wants to do. It is a company and they make good stuff and they try their best to do the best at whatever it may be. Not all companies do that … No one can complain or has the right [to].”

She was right to be annoyed. That last phrase is just plain silly. Criticism is as necessary in every part of the design realm as it is for art and culture. Opinion sparks discussion. Discussion educates. Education forms opinion. Opinion is essential for free speech, and so on. So, what’s that bunk about not having “the right” to be critical?

Lange takes her thesis further, questioning where, when and how criticism should be practiced, and what is worthy to be critiqued. (She does not, however, address who is worthy to be a critic.) In asking who, along with Apple, is “above criticism, and why” she lists three categories: “Living Legends” (and the power of excellence), “Those too good to be criticized” (owing to their good intentions) and “The Power of Happy” (bloggers who are “too helpful, too tasteful, and too relentlessly positive to be critiqued”). [Read Lange's essay for the significance of these distinctions.]

There are indeed designers and designs that get free-from-critique passes. There are also those that are totally ignored by critics for various reasons. The larger question is not who or what is scrutinized, but what deserves scrutiny. Critics must make critical choices. Saying nothing is often as telling as saying something — although sometimes it is just ignorance. Interpreting the reason for silence is itself part of the critical discussion.

Arguably, the Apple advocate is right in a wrong-headed way. Apple has definitely done much for industrial, graphic and all manner of design. By virtue of its virtues it has earned a place in the pantheon, but that does not mean blind acceptance. Apple has made mistakes that have impacted the consuming public.

When Steve Jobs died, the first request I received asking me to write about his legacy was to focus on the “flubs,” “misfires” and “failures.” Aside from the Newton and Lisa, I selected the eMac (above), the handsome, though bulky and bulbous desktop without any handle. That was a design flaw that still plagues me (I still have the machine on my studio floor, too heavy and much too difficult to carry downstairs).

So, Apple is not above design criticism. Nor should any company or company’s products that directly impact the populace. But does that hold true for individual designers? What about Massimo Vignelli, Chermayeff and Geismar, Milton Glaser and Seymour Chwast, who Lange singles out as “legends.” All are or are about to be in their 80s. Does a lifetime of work exempt their work from evaluation? If they are still producing after all these years, which all of these designers are, shouldn’t they get some kind of senior discount?

If the criterion for what warrants design criticism is based on a level of social, cultural or political impact, then a particular work is fair game regardless of the age or virtuosity of its maker. Since criticism is not meant to be a scold, but is rather a means of illuminating — delving below the surface — finding aspects of work that benefits by explanation and analysis, nothing and no one should be exempt. The “legends” deserve the attention, even if the work is “lesser” than their earlier accomplishments.

The critic must serve as an arbiter by choosing what is worth critiquing. Sacred cow or simple heifer, whatever the decision the critique must have merit — it must provide value to the end-user, who, in the end, after all, will be the final arbiter.

Copyright F+W Media Inc. 2011.

Salon is proud to feature content from Imprint, the fastest-growing design community on the web. Brought to you by Print magazine, America’s oldest and most trusted design voice, Imprint features some of the biggest names in the industry covering visual culture from every angle. Imprint advances and expands the design conversation, providing fresh daily content to the community (and now to salon.com!), sparking conversation, competition, criticism, and passion among its members.

: More Steven Heller

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Susan Kare -- designer of vintage Mac symbols and Facebook "gifts" -- shares stories of Steve Jobs and famous logos

SLIDE SHOW

By Emma Mustich

View the slide show

Topics:Art, Apple, Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs’ legendary product launches had an unmistakably theatrical air. For Apple fans, part of the thrill of seeing a new Mac instrument unveiled was the chance to admire its sleek design (take, for example, the moment in 2008 when Jobs liberated a razor-thin MacBook Air from its innocent-looking manila envelope).

While early Macs were boxier and more primitive than their hyper-evolved modern counterparts, good design — on-screen and off — has always been central to the Apple mystique. That’s where Susan Kare, the artist who invented many of Mac’s most enduring symbols, comes in. Kare is the architect of early Apple iconography — the designer who brought us, among so many other recognizable signs, the wristwatch waiting icon and the command key symbol (based on a symbol used on Swedish maps).

A new, self-published book (available online) shows off some of Kare’s most recognizable work (including more recent projects, like Facebook’s popular digital “gifts”) — and resurrects other designs that have been phased out of Apple computers’ virtual image lexicon. Over email, Kare answered some of our questions; the following slide show offers highlights from her portfolio (with captions adapted from her book).

How did you first get involved with Apple?

My friend from high school, Andy Hertzfeld, encouraged me to interview at Apple for a part-time job to design fonts (mainly) and other images for the Macintosh. I didn’t have any experience with computers, and couldn’t find research material about digital fonts per se, but figured I could work from traditional fonts displayed in books.

How unusual was it, at the time, for a computer company to hire a professional artist? Do you think this is something computer companies do a lot more often now?

I can’t really generalize, but I was the only graphic artist in the Mac software group (the title on my business card was “Macintosh Artist”). Of course, it seems more common for development teams to include artists now since so many user interfaces are graphical (and I’m always impressed with the art made by the Google Doodle team).

In the beginning, how long did the design process for a single icon take?

This varies, because for some of the icons (e.g., a pencil for “write”) there is one obvious solution where alternatives were probably mocked up within a day. Others (e.g., “fill”) took longer because multiple candidates were created and circulated, and leading contenders were shown in the software in progress.

What do you think the most effective and lasting computer icons accomplish? Has this changed over time, as design technology has improved?

A great icon clearly conveys a concept at a glance, is not ambiguous, and is memorable. I think that the basic design challenge remains unchanged, though certainly technology advances provide more potential avenues of expression (more color, more resolution, sound, animation, etc.).

Your early, heavily pixelated Mac icons are markedly different from some of your more recent, smoother designs (e.g., the Facebook gifts). Is this because of the way technology has progressed over the years, or simply because you’re trying for a different look?

In any job we do, we first consider the design or marketing goals along with any technical limitations or requirements.

For the Macintosh, most symbols were monochrome, needed to fit within a 16 x 16 or 32 x 32 square pixel grid, and were shorthand for computer functions.

For each Facebook gift, there was a 64 x 64 pixel canvas with virtually unlimited color. The challenge was to create images desirable enough or affecting enough or amusing enough to encourage potential gift givers to spend a dollar to enhance a message. The gifts functioned as small greeting cards, rather than digital road signs. Some gifts were more iconic and some more illustrative, but detail in this case did not impede understanding.

How closely did you get to work with Steve Jobs? What did you understand his aesthetic philosophy to be?

I was fortunate to work with Steve at Apple and at NeXT on a variety of projects. He checked in almost daily on the Macintosh graphics-in-progress. Later, at NeXT, we worked together on the identity and branding, and on a variety of publications and slide shows. He would constantly iterate on the content of his presentations, slide by slide. At that pre-PowerPoint era, there was a lot of handwork in making slides, and builds could require many exposures. He might revise a single slide 14 or 15 times. I learned a lot about the cumulative value of attention to detail from Steve, and about pushing the limits of a medium. I still think of his philosophy of not showing too much information all at once, and the value of simplicity in visual messaging.

View the slide show

: Emma Mustich is an assistant editor at Salon. Follow her on Twitter: @emustich. More Emma Mustich

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The new iPhone voice software appears silent about reproductive health -- but open-minded on Viagra and escorts

By Mary Elizabeth Williams

(Credit: Salon)

Topics:Apple, Siri, Reproductive choice

It happens in plenty of relationships. Everything starts out so wonderfully. You’re dazzled by how cool and life-changingly great he or she is. Then you notice a little Jesus fish on the car bumper. Or a Facebook “like” for “traditional marriage.” And you start to think, Oh, maybe this person’s not quite as progressive as I’d envisioned. Hey girl, have you met Siri?

When Apple introduced the voice-activated Siri last month, it seemed there was nothing she couldn’t do. “Your wish is its command,” Apple ambitiously promised. Indeed, iPhone 4S users quickly discovered she had “so much to tell you” — eagerly responding to requests to remind you about appointments, provide directions, even update your Facebook status. Tell Siri, “I kinda feel like Chinese tonight,” and she’ll say, “Let me think about it,” then suggest five restaurants. How many of us have ever had any human get our desires on that intuitive a level? But like your rad friend who one day says, “That Rick Santorum has some good ideas,” Siri, it turns out, is a vexingly complicated creature. She may cheerfully abet you in hiding a dead body, but as the Abortioneers points out this week, she is totally not having it if you need help getting an abortion or emergency contraception.

: Mary Elizabeth Williams is a staff writer for Salon and the author of "Gimme Shelter: My Three Years Searching for the American Dream." Follow her on Twitter: @embeedub. More Mary Elizabeth Williams