function.com ... strange...
(plese note, i'm not sure if this thread belongs here, but it is definitely hardware-related, and relates to another very important innovator in apple's industrial design, so it may have some effect on things to come...)
for those of you who don't know, function engineering (www.function.com) was the force responsible for just about every solid-state moving part in the past few years for apple's computer designs. among their innovations, they designed:
? the cube's pop-up handle
? the tibook's magnetic latch
? the imac's swing arm assembly
? the tilt-swivel stand for the old apple crt displays
and those are just the ones i remember seeing in their online portfolio... until now.
now EVERY SHRED of apple's hardware design's have been removed from their portfolio. apple is still listed in their client list, but there's not even a link to apple from it anymore. i find this particularly odd since they were so proudly displayed, and now they're just gone (you'll just have to trust me here, if you never visited their site before).
(quick edit: i just remembered that all of the portfolio materials for apple products disappeared after the introduction of the new imac... hmmm)
i wonder if apple doesn't want word leaking out that they aren't the ONLY people responsible for their Industrial Design. or have the folks at function been removed from R&D altogether? i used to have a friend there, but they left and have been out of the loop for a while now, so my contact had dried up.
anyway, i thought this might be an interesting thread to start, especially with macworld (and hopefully new hardware) coming up.
[ 12-27-2002: Message edited by: rok ]</p>
for those of you who don't know, function engineering (www.function.com) was the force responsible for just about every solid-state moving part in the past few years for apple's computer designs. among their innovations, they designed:
? the cube's pop-up handle
? the tibook's magnetic latch
? the imac's swing arm assembly
? the tilt-swivel stand for the old apple crt displays
and those are just the ones i remember seeing in their online portfolio... until now.
now EVERY SHRED of apple's hardware design's have been removed from their portfolio. apple is still listed in their client list, but there's not even a link to apple from it anymore. i find this particularly odd since they were so proudly displayed, and now they're just gone (you'll just have to trust me here, if you never visited their site before).
(quick edit: i just remembered that all of the portfolio materials for apple products disappeared after the introduction of the new imac... hmmm)
i wonder if apple doesn't want word leaking out that they aren't the ONLY people responsible for their Industrial Design. or have the folks at function been removed from R&D altogether? i used to have a friend there, but they left and have been out of the loop for a while now, so my contact had dried up.
anyway, i thought this might be an interesting thread to start, especially with macworld (and hopefully new hardware) coming up.
[ 12-27-2002: Message edited by: rok ]</p>
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