"If everyone is busy making everything, how can anyone perfect anything? We start to confuse convenience with joy. Abundance with choice. Designing something requires focus. The first thing we ask is: What do we want people to feel? Delight. Surprise. Love. Connection. Then we begin to craft around our intention. It takes time. There are a thousand no's for every yes. We simplify, we perfect, we start over, until everything we touch enhances each life it touches. Only then do we sign our work: Designed by Apple in California."
Those were the words that appeared in a video shown at the opening of Apple's Worldwide Developers' Conference last month.
The message was simple: Apple doesn't design noise, it aims to design substance, a point Apple may have felt pressure to emphasize considering that the Googles and Samsungs of the world continue to be championed as the new kings of design and innovation.
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The heart of Apple is its power to create products everyone wants to have, including its competitors, said Bruce "Tog" Tognazzini, a human-computer interaction specialist at Nielsen Norman Group, who was also one of Steve Jobs early hires. This is why its competitors have continually cloned the company's products, he said.