Our Israeli bureau reports that the daily newspaper there has written a two page article about Apple's design, focusing on the upcoming consumer portable. We've provided thumbnails of the scanned article below (click for the larger version) and a very strict translation below. The translator warned that sometimes the Israeli newspapers just copy websites from the U.S. for info, so likely there will be no new info, and some incorrect info. The mockup prototypes in the article are worth looking at as a novelty.

Published in the "Yediot A'charonot" newspaper.
Title: Mac-sim (which in one word means in Hebrew - wonderful)
Author: Ilan Getanyo

The daring design of Apple's iMac computers made it transparent-colored a big commercial success. Buying a computer is no longer like buying a tool, but rather an emotional purchase, of a beautiful piece of furniture, adding character to the space surrounding it. In the first round Apple came out with a blue-green mac. Two months later Apple completed the color rainbow with a colorful series "fruit flavored". In the past several months it is working on a portable model, with the same design recipe using illuminated plastics, easy buttons, a strong processor, easy to use and very friendly.

The colorful computers are being snatched off store shelves. Only a few of them are bought for professional reasons: performance, ease of use, compatibility and the like. From that perspective you can get more efficient and much cheaper PCs. But the iMac radiates beauty, style, fashion. And it even fits the house furniture. It's hard to find a manufacturer in the PC market that gets this kind of support from its customers.

"People had it with the gray boxes they lay on the table or on the floor and don't fit their environment" says Steve Migels from the design firm "Insink", which helps design computer chassises for some manufacturers. According to him, "Apple proved this theory with the success of the iMac". Designers' biggest effort is now aimed at portable computers. Since Steve Jobs became acting CEO in May 1998, rumors began of a stylish portable computer, "that will turn everybody's head". After the first iMac came out, many expected corresponding portable model, but Apple's laptop line continued the previous design, of a gray chassis, albeit a bit more styled, but nothing reminiscent of the iMac.

Industrial designers from around the world, "the gray designers", as they are called in computer-speak, saw an intellectual challenge in this design idea. They began uploading on many internet sites more and more suggestions for new designs, to push Apple to do the obvious step, and ship a stylish portable computer. They suggested models for business people, top-brass executives, students, sales-people, and continued invading desktop machines with several amazing suggestions, some humoristical.

Particularly amazing were three industrial designers from Japan - Tetsutaro, Yunuska Aiwa and Isamu Sanada - that put in a lot of effort in an extremely detailed design of Apple's future computer lines. Apple was so thrilled, it put the suggested models on the company's internet site, without promising that any use will be made of them eventually. By the way, in the company's yearly expo, "Macworld", you can sometimes see designs of prototypes that will never reach the product line, and some that inspired other models.

The independent designers describe there work as an "intellectual exercise", but they hope someone will love it enough to make the suggestion reach production line.

In the mean time no suggestion is known to have been officially adopted. The rumor factory surrounding the portable's mac design, grew bigger last week, when Apple announced that in the next unveiling, to happen this month, there will also be a portable computer produced for Apple in complete secrecy in "Alpha Top" factory, in Taiwan. These computers are to be sold next month, in "Macworld" expo in New York.

Did the independent designers succeed in matching the house-designer, or will Apple surprise again with it's own futuristic model? Anyway, consumers will benefit, because Apple's investment and it's success is slowly reaching other computer manufacturers, in the PC world. Two companies, E-Machines from the U.S. and NEC from Japan, have already announced they will ship carefully designed models, that won't even remind the user of the current ugly ivory colored box, which is being used as a personal computer today. Other manufacturers are doing so secretly.

Written/Edited/Published by Doug B. Landry
Logo by Jon Iverson
Apple, Mac, Macintosh, Mac OS,The Apple Store, and Powerbook are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc.
©1998 Doug B. Landry. All rights reserved. All or part may not be reproduced or distributed without prior consent.
Coded on a Apple Macintosh Powerbook G3 Series from Baton Rouge, LA