Mobile Computing magazine is featuring “Mobile Innovators of 2001 in their September” issue. And the Titanium PowerBook G4 is mentioned as the “Coolest Notebook In the World” under the Best Notebook category.
“The Titanium PowerBook G4 pushes the view of the notebook to new proportions — namely, a wide-screen landscape,” Mobile Computing says in the introduction to the awards list. “Thin and cleanly designed, the PowerBook G4 whispers the promising look of the future without having to wait for it.”
In discussing the TiPB, Mobile Computing said that Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ directive to the design team was to make “the best notebook in the world.”
“This really freed our minds,” Greg Jozwiak, senior director of marketing for the mobile products group, told Mobile Computing. “We were starting with a blank sheet of paper.”
The awards praise the notebook’s look, performance and innovation (such as its wide-aspect-ratio LCD screen and the super-thin DVD drive). According to Mobile Computing, Jozwiak gives credit for the design of the Titanium to a large number of Apple employees, with particular attention to three groups: the industrial-design group led by Jonathan Ive; the product-design organization, which takes the industrial concept and figures out how to mass-produce it; and the electrical engineering division, whose job is to determine how to connect everything electrically so the product is not just a “nice design” but something that also performs well.
What’s more, Apple goes its own way by obtaining feedback on its designs, Mobile Computing reports.
“I don’t believe in focus groups,” Jozwiak said in the awards announcement. “If you rely on waiting for focus groups, you’re going to be behind the curve.” Instead, Apple prefers to rely on its customer knowledge. (Thanks to MacCentral reader Gary Urban for the heads-up on this one.)