I did fail to add to my comment – for *me*, for what I’m doing *right now* (sitting in the living room, watching the kids play), an iPad is perfect for me.

In fact, if I think about a lot of what I do, it is perfect. If there is a VNC app for it (not sure if there is, but I bet there is – just checked – there are many…), then I can control my Linux server in the furnace room, for instance…

Darn it. I was just about to buy an iPhone too!
Brett Legree´s latest blog… the terminal man.

This is the future: small hardware and agile, web-based apps.

~Graham

I agree. I think even if you’re the 800 lb. gorilla (not the 20-foot inflatable gorilla!), you should stay hungry. Because there’s one thing about gorillas, eventually they all grow up and are 800 lbs., and they all grow old and grey. So… stay hungry.

I figure the iPad – being 1st generation – is somewhat conservative by design. I bet gen 2 or gen 3 will be as different from this one as the iPod Touch is from the original iPod.

In any case, if one fell (gently) off the back of a truck in front of my house, I’d sleep with it under my pillow!
Brett Legree´s latest blog… the terminal man.

To me, VW was ripping off (or expanding on) their own ads from the late 60s. That sort of plagiarism is called branding, not lack of creativity, and so exempted from the rules—but yes, I’ve often thought Apple’s extreme minimalism looks a lot like VW’s. You know they would never admit to being inspired by any other company’s promotions, though.

They (Apple) own minimalism/ white space in advertising now… in part by holding to the premise more tightly than VW did? Not exactly out-thinking…

Side note: The iPad is cute, but this time I feel like Steve & co. didn’t go out far enough on a limb.

Brett,

So true. And should we ever get so big that no one *can* outspend us, why on Earth would we not continue to out-think, so that we can save 4/5 of our budgets—or bring in 5X the customers?

Sometimes common sense seems so hard to come by. (Not if George is talking, though. Love that dude.)

Regards,

Kelly

So you’ve got to out think them.
Brett Legree´s latest blog… the terminal man.

Is there no such thing as plagiarism in the advertising world?

That being said, there are some exceptions (there are always some exceptions…) Apple, for example — their product close-ups/weird angles/brightly lit shots with the totally white background were lifted directly from the Volkswagen Bug ads of the late 90s. Perhaps the difference was the fact that they were for two completely different products.

(Of course, those Bug commercials probably have their roots somewhere else too…)

Anyway, still love it — the concept doesn’t seem to get old. Perhaps we’ll see more of the same later today with Apple’s Big Announcement…

~Graham