Apple has won eight design awards for original products at this year’s CeBIT conference held in Hanover, Germany, with many of its most popular devices such as the iPod shuffle, iPod nano, iPhone and iMac winning some of the most coveted design awards yet again.
With seven of its products getting gold awards, Apple tied its own record from last year, and also picked up a smaller eighth award along the way. Steve Jobs couldn’t be happier or, many would say, more deserving. Apple’s highly appreciated commitment to product design and user friendliness have given the world some of its most cherished electronic gewgaws, so bring on the laurels, we say! Jobs’ return to Apple has seen vast leaps and bounds in innovative designs and functionality, and its popularity has multiplied because Apple products can be used with most Windows operating systems. Don’t have a Mac yet? No problem! Just download iTunes, plug in your iPod to your PC’s USB port, and you’re good to go!
Apple entered nine products in different categories in the design awards, and eight of them won awards. Judges gushed about the sleekness and beauty of the designs, and especially on the charms of Apple’s near intuitive product models that every Apple user would wholeheartedly agree are a joy to use. Apple enthusiasts are probably bemoaning the loss of two potential gold awards there. Only seven golds? And how can an Apple design win no award at all? Those judges have no blistering clue what they’re doing. Bleh. Who needs awards anyway?
Apple has been lauded by user loyalty in at least two different aspects of its wonderfully innovative technology. Firstly, its minimalist designs are not only a joy to behold as well as show off, but they also make functionality much more enhanced than it was ever before. The tiny iPod shuffle, for example, is a music lover’s dream come true with its unbeatably crystal clear playback and its user friendliness with Mac as well as Windows operating systems. Apple seems to have identified exactly what users hate about their electronic devices—cumbersome menus, protruding buttons, small screens that are enough to give anyone prolonged headaches—and has ensured that these small nuisances are now history.
Perhaps more importantly, however, Apple products have raised the standards that users expect from electronic gadgets as well as marketing forums. Music sales over the internet have long since become standardized and universally accepted. Apple’s competitors have quickly released sleeker, more user friendly designs and products to keep in the running, making electronic gadgets more sophisticated by the day. But Apple users would probably agree that there’s nothing quite as satisfying as that icon of an apple with a bite taken out of it on your music player, computer or phone.
Mostly, however, Apple is sweet. Apple has made it cool to be a geek. Apple has raised personal entertainment and connectivity channels into status symbols that do not differentiate between ages and classes and races. Apple is new generation. Apple is timeless. Apple is, in a word, cool.
