Yes. And that was the last such concept piece coming out of Cupertino, certainly since Steve Jobs returned to the company in 1997. Why hasnt Apple, the most innovative and visionary company in computing, produced a single concept product or vision in over a decade? Because, to paraphrase Jobs, real artists ship.
Whats wrong with Apple?
Why would a commercial entity like Apple produce a concept product? Apple is likely generating more concept products and visions than any other technology company for internal use. When Apple wanted to get into retail stores, for example, Jobs had Ron Johson build a fully-functioning, real-size prototype and tore it down at the last minute to rebuild a new one. Why didnt Apple release the concept store to the then-deeply-skeptical press in order to demonstrate visionary leadership? In a similar situation Microsoft likely would have.
Product design, above all, is a bet. Apple understands this better than any other company. In iPhone: The bet Steve Jobs didn’t decline, I explained just what a huge bet the iPhone project was to Apple in 2005. It was a bet-the-company kind of bet. One that Nokia, which has sold hundreds of millions of phones over many years, never took. Neither did Microsoft. They would just as well release annual concept products to the public in order not to go through the pain of taking a bet.
Apple bet the company to single handedly change the industrial design of mobile devices, how we interact with them, the balance between carriers and manufacturers, mobile application vending, etc. Indeed, it simply redefined what a mobile device is to become. Apple did this not with a concept product, but by betting its own billions on a shipping product. This, of course, is nothing new to the company that also gave us Apple II, Macintosh, iMac and iPodall without concept products.
Doesnt Apple get it? Arent concept products the ultimate sign of getting and shaping the future?
Real artists ship, dabblers create concept products
Pretenders dont quite understand that design is born of constraints. Real-life constraints, be they tangible or cognitive: Battery-life impacts every other aspect of the iPhone design — hardware and software alike. Screen resolution affects font, icon and UI design. The thickness of a fingertip limits direct, gestural manipulation of on-screen objects. Lack of a physical keyboard and WIMP controls create an unfamiliar mental map of the device. The iPhone design is a bet that solutions to constraints like these can be seamlessly molded into a unified product that will sell. Not a concept. Not a vision. A product that sells.
It turns out that when capable designers are given real constraints for real products they can end up creating great results. In Apples case, groundbreaking products like the iMac, the iPod and the iPhone. Constraints have a wonderful way of focusing the mind on the fundamentals, whereas concept products can often have the opposite affect.
Concept products are like essays, musings in 3D. They are incomplete promises. Shipping products, by contrast, are brutally honest deliveries. You get whats delivered. They live and die by their own design constraints. To the extent they are successful, they do advance the art and science of design and manufacturing by exposing the balance between fantasy and capability.
But, concept products never killed anybody
Perhaps. But they can sure lead designers astray. Concept products grant designers a break from constraints, economics and, ultimately, reality.

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Coincidentally, that very same day, Pat Murphy, then publisher of the Arizona Republic, was also in Washington to meet with the delegation. He and his wife had lunch plans with McCain, and as Murphy recalls, they went to the hearing room where Mofford was testifying, to meet up with him. Murphy had written glowingly of McCain and considered him a personal friend.
As Murphy recounted in an e-mail recently (he left the Republic many years ago, and now lives in Idaho), the incident crushed him. He says it was the beginning of the end of his respect for and friendship with McCain.
...."During lunch, McCain said, almost with mischievous glee, that he had slipped some highly technical questions to [James McClure] to ask Mofford questions she wouldn't be prepared to answer or expected to answer.
"Flabbergasted, I asked McCain why would he want to sabotage Mofford's testimony, when in fact the CAP was the nonpartisan pet of Republicans and Democrats such as far-left Udall and far-right Goldwater since its inception.
"His reply, as near as I remember, was, 'I'll embarrass a Democrat any time I get the chance.'
"The lunch continued in strained chit-chat. We then walked back to McCain's office, where a few reporters, all of them from Arizona papers, as I recall, were waiting. One said there was a rumor McCain had tried to sabotage Mofford's testimony, to which he said something like, 'I'd never do anything like that.

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Black and Blue
This a piece I did about the cops just outside our nation capitol, in Prince George's County, a few years back. I wanted to offer a counter to the dumb, conventional wisdom that if you paint your police force black, you could eradicate police brutality. In fact, Prince George's--one of the richest, blackest counties in the country--also had one of the most brutal police force's in the country.

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Today I went into work in the morning to finish up editing the website copy so I could talk to Ryan about it. I suggested to him that we add the library to the list of links because the library so I ended up having to write a short summary for Park Library and Clarke Historical Library.
I also completed one concept for the Centralight ad and created a second. I sent both to Dan for him to review. One ad focuses on the how being a Gold member saves you money, and the other focuses on how good it makes you feel to support your alma mater.
I sent Dan the website copy for him and Mark to do final edits before it goes to IT.
I also read up a little bit more on the man that I will be writing a story about for the Friends of Libraries luncheon.
Since I had finished up my end of the project, I headed home at 11:30 a.m. I dont usually work Mondays and I have an BIO 101 exam today, so there was no sense sitting around with nothing to do.
Lesson of the Day: Dont settle for the first concept. Always generate as many as ideas as possible before developing the good ones. If I hadnt brainstormed so much, I would have settled on my first concept. It seemed OK at the time but it was much better when I had many ideas and sorted the strong from the weak.

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he's very good. I've tried doing this, and lack the patience and skill to pull off some of these shots. The positioning is more subtle than I realized at first.

There ARE many of these shots, so I guess practice makes perfect?
Thanks, though, I will go through these more when I out of work.

I have a feeling there's real gems in that sea of pix.