What I want to know is, why is it being called Office 12?  What happened to numbering by year?  First it was Office 4.X, then 98, then 2001 and 2004, now we’re going back to 12.  At least it’ll be the same on the Windows and Mac, even if the products themselves differ a good deal…

For that matter, Adobe needs to figure out its version numbering, too.  “CS” and “CS2” may be the way they’re going now, but it’s inconsistent with their past products and it’ll be inconsistent in the future if they decide to change it again.

I still think software should be versioned by year, like cars are.  And computers should, too, for that matter.  Like, i have an iMac G5 2004 running Adobe Photoshop 2001.  Now, you may not know that that’s actually Photoshop 7, but if they were all numbered like that you would, wouldn’t you?

“..which supplants the mess of toolbars and panels in current versions of Office..”

Nick, the mess you talk about is there only if you want it to be.

Walk into a toy store and you will want to play with everything.

Walk into an IKEA store and you will probably want to break anything.

My point?  Its better to have more than you need than not enough (though I do remember someone posting a screenshot of a Microsoft application with every toolbars and panels imaginable, which nobody works like that).

On topic, what makes a product good is when it meets expectations.  What makes it great is when it exceeds it.

The value of implementation certainly does count towards building great products.  For years, key features and upgrades have been implemented into the Microsoft/Adobe/software evolution as well as hardware and peripherals. 

User applications like desktop publishing, gaming and multimedia has pushed for further and faster implementation for the most up to date technology and features.

Without this push, I don’t think we would be seeing so many advancing notebooks, tablets, PDAs and multimedia devices today.  Companies like Sony, Samsung or Asus would not have advanced so much if it wasn’t for the constant need for technological implementation (you can thank Samsung for providing only Apple the amazingly small HD storage ).

“Good implementation often means forgoing some features while attempting to create a better overall experience, and what features are in the product are not just tacked on.”

Your argument (and many others) has always been about “forgoing extra/useful features to create a better overall experience”.  This point of view will always be a matter of opinion. 

Take for example, car seats.  They have evolved from the basic couch-like legless chairs to becoming electrically controlled massage chairs.  At first its hard to see the point, when all that gizmo adds weigh, is prone to failure if the power cuts and is very expensive.  Yet this has become a standard feature in luxury cars like Mercedes, BMW and Lexus (even my old 1992 300zx had electric seats).  Apparently these companies believe in the “tacked on features” because they work. 

So do other companies like Sony Ericsson, Nokia, O2 XDA, Palm.  The list goes on.

I can’t wait for the perfect wireless headphone to be built (current technology uses IR or radio which is subpar compared to cables).  Technological implementation will fix that.

I also can’t wait for the perfect PDA that can store 100gb of data, hook up to a wireless network for additional resources and storage, play games, act as a multimedia and communicative device.

The days of carrying 10kg notebooks, screen limited computers and brick sized music players with limited features are nearly over. 

Technology is exciting and will remain so as long as its progressing faster than we would expect it.

Made in USA

I remember Word Perfect 6 having a huge feature set, yet it ran on very simple hardware.  I think we should move back to the developing techniques of the time instead of having very sloppy/bloated implimentation.

Nick,

What are you really trying to get at?  I see no problem with Office at all. 

I think more should be said about Linux, which for years has been promising so much with its potentials but has never really stepped up to claim them.

Office 12 is just the codename. It’ll probably be named Office Vista (following the trend with Office XP).

Nick, something is indeed good when the whole is greater than the sum of its parts...when everything works well together and nothing unnecessary is there at the same time.  But something is often unnecessary in today’s gadgets---the logos.  Count them on your products.  Count them on your clothes.  Count the wasted space, fabric, and design creativity that all went to an extra logo.  Apple is one of the least guilty but not nearly innocent.  They even had the nerve to integrate their infrared remote sensor into the iMac G5’s front Apple logo so you can’t use a sticker over the corporate branding.  There’s a cool website where you can download a picture of the American flag with the Apple logo and others taking up the stars...that’s what our culture is like.  It strongly influences my taste and decision-making when an imperfect brand puts its face on perfect square or circle, breaking the pattern.  That’s why I am debranding my Mac Cube, which I gave $0 directly to Apple for, and only using Linux inside and out on it (YellowDog Linux has stickers).  If I’m going to have a logo, it’ll be of my choice.  Good article.  I really agree about the iMac being a good machine otherwise.  I saw them today at the Roosevelt Field store and everyone was doing Photo Booth, not to mention being wowed by the simplicity of Front Row.  Just one more thing---the video iPod has too many damn menu options.  How about a Front Row interface for it?

Holy crap, Bryan, are you actually that anti-advertisement, corporate, or whatever?  You honestly can’t expect to go through life with no logos, no branding, no anything, for very long, can you?  Everything has logos and branding, it’s how you know who made the product, who is responsible for its good or bad design and working.

If nothing had branding, you wouldn’t know who to go to for a replacement or for tech support.  If your VCR didn’t say Sony, you wouldn’t know who to call to gripe that it’s starting to fail.  If your shirt didn’t say Armani, you wouldn’t know where to go to get another one because it’s so comfortable.  And so on.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m against advertising as much as the next person, maybe more.  Where it’s blatant and annoying is on TV, the radio, increasingly on websites, on billboards on the highway, on Nascar cars, etc.  But simple logo identifications are not blatant advertising like what you seem to think they are, they are a way for the company to make sure you know who made their product, and they make the product unique.  Besides, logos are everywhere; people tune them out because they’re so used to seeing them, or they notice them because they want something just like *it*, whatever it is, and the logo lets them know who to buy it from.

I mean a Mac Cube 2001-ish.  The computer is used.

Yes, we know what you meant… there’s only one period that Apple made it.

What I’m saying is math is a pure experience.  Visual art should be just as beautiful, simple, and unhindered by labeling.  Then again, I do like the idea behind calling the number, chi, the “golden ratio.” Numbers need labels just as machines do, but ideally they are optional and you can have a pure experience of just numbers or just labels.  I am proud when I buy a good brand but not of the overwhelming size of the labels.  Some labels make me feel secure, like the SSH logo, and there’s nothing wrong with that.  I’d just prefer a switch that turns them down and converts them into a different world of graphic and visual art like happy faces kinda

Yes and it’s also a 2001 because you said you should use version years to describe your products.

What else do I have to respond to?  Yes, tech support and repeat purchases.  The former is something you want to avoid, ideally, and the latter is something you want to promote.  How come we recognize famous art without knowing much about it?  There should be a few things to make de-branded products or products with tiny signatures by their creators, more possible.  We need a visual search engine like Google Images but with an image upload field that could use the iMac’s built-in iSight to generate the search “image” We need a musuem for people to shop in.

Why not take valuable logo space and use it to write “music player” “toaster” or whatever in many languages with an invisible RFID tag to do the identifying.  All food iwll be that way someday so products will follow or lead.  You hold up your iPod to a scanner and it says “Plays music” and you hold a CD up and it shows a CDDB track list.  And my favorite, you hold up a vegan bbq tofu in a can and it says “stomach ache”

To be honest, the vegan tofu bbq I had today was really great (fyi, Fairway supermarket’s vegetarian section).  But the label was nonexistent which was bad.  We need to see the label on a TV size/wall display.

As far as being anti-advertisement...yes.  I think the best way of selling is word of mouth.  That being said, I always believed I’d end up in the marketing/advertising fields.  I want to consult for them and promote “products that sell themselves but need a little push”

Sorry for the comment flooding/spam and going so far off-topic!  I’m a little rusty on the computer after my bout with mono.

The new iMac is really easy to use as compared to other products I’ve used before.  However, I don’t think that the creators of iMac thought about their other products as much as they did for this.