The clip is pretty interesting, even if you're not normally enamored with Apple. Ive is the most prominent tech designer of the last two decades, and I like his philosophy on "getting design out of the way." Hopefully the clip motivates you guys to go see the full movie, which is great, even if it doesn't reach the heights of Hustwit's previous effort Helvetica.

1. iMacs Get Next-Gen Processors
The most important upgrade to iMacs is that they'll now support Intel Core i5 and i7 processors for prices starting at $2000. You can buy a Core 2 Duo model for $800 less, but...I mean...really?

2. The iMac Is a Cheap Monitor, By Apple's Standards
A 30-inch Cinema Display will still run you $1,800 while a new 27-inch iMac starts at $1700. Oh, and now the iMac can work simply as a monitor through its mini DisplayPort, too.

3. Apple Sees the Mac Mini as a Server, Not an HTPC
Apple may have given the Mac Mini a slight spec boost and the option to load Leopard Server, but it still missing the critical feature it needs to be a competitive home theater PC—the HDMI port.

4. New Metal Remote Looks Like an iPod Design Reject
For those who couldn't stand the humiliation of using a white, plastic remote with their black-and-silver iMac, there's a remote for that.

5. Replaceable Batteries Are Dead in Apple's Entire Laptop Line
The trusty old white MacBook was holding out, battling designers' attempts to replace its swappable battery with a longer-life non-swappable version you see in every other modern Apple laptop. Today, it lost that battle.

6. Apple Still Hates Buttons, Nubs, Etc
The multitouch Magic Mouse has risen over the Mighty Mouse's corpse, and as Jesus points out, the whole no-button design is déjà vu.

7. Jobs' Polycarbonate MacBook Must Have Slipped Off His Lap
Not only is Apple keeping the white MacBook around, they've added a non-slip rubber bottom in what may be the most aggressive design change since May 16, 2006, when the model original launched.

8. Time Capsules Should Be 60% Less Frustrating
Anyone who's grown tired of the ridiculously slow experience of interfacing with the Time Capsule, know that Time Capsules have seen a tacit spec boost promising to make systems "60 percent faster than before."

9. Jonathan Ive Could Still Sell a Ketchup Popsicle to a Fanboy in White Gloves
Also of note, sales on Hanes midnight blue tees are going through the roof, and big muscles don't make you look dumb so long as you speak with an Essex-region English accent.

10. No, the Nook Is Not an Apple Product
But it's about a bajillion times closer than the Kindle.

Actually, well, I guess that does still pretty much explain everything. Maybe it's just the way he says "aluminum." [Dell]

And that's exactly the point. Like Helvetica, director Gary Hustwit's previous documentary triumph about the most prevalent typeface on earth, Objectified sings the praises of those very people who, while not necessarily under-appreciated, definitely operate in the background—they design your stuff. It's a secret little world, and through Objectified, we get to live in it.

Take this lamp I bought at a flea market last weekend. I Googled the only thing on the bottom that would identify it ("WINDSOR L-10") and got zero relevant results. It's old, pre-internet for sure, so I wasn't surprised. But who designed it? It's so tiny and Wall-e like (essentially a hybrid of Wall-e himself and the task lamp Pixar uses in their logo)—I want to know more! Someone designed this, and I love imagining the moment of its conception.

My lamp only cost $15, so odds are it wasn't designed by any of the überheavyweights featured in Objectified: There's Apple's Jonathan Ive, Smart Design (of Flip Video fame) founders Davin Stowell and Dan Formosa, the legendary Dieter Rams of Braun, the folks at IDEO (who designed the first laptop, among many other things), Naoto Fukusawa (father of the Infobar), Chris Bangle, the infamous (and former) chief designer of BMW, and many others. It's a star-studded group. Also featured prominently is Rob Walker, who writes my favorite New York Times column "Consumed" in the magazine every Sunday—he is a joy in every scene he is in, including where he dreams of an ad campaign encouraging people to got out and use and be satisfied with the stuff they already own.

But what's great (and where Helvetica also ruled) is that Hustwit is a master interviewer. He gets his subjects to speak about what can be a jargon and marketing-voodoo laden industry with total clarity and comfort that folks that didn't go to design school can comprehend freely. Ive, holding up the single aluminum block from which a unibody MacBook is hewn while trying to control his massive biceps, speaks about how designers are ultimately obsessive, borderline neurotic people. He can't look at an object anywhere without seeing the multiple layers of intent involved-who designed it, who it's designed for, what it does well. To Ive, it's an illness.

To others, it's desire. Marc Newson, who designs everything but is famous especially for aviation-related like the EADS spaceplane, puts it this way: "I want to have things that don't exist yet," which I think we can all relate to here.

One place where Objectified gets somewhat tripped up is in its hesitance to boldly define the inherent conflict of the designer, especially now: good design should last and improve with time, which is often directly opposed to the interests of a commercial designer's clients who want people to keep buying things. This theme does come up in the film, but where Helvetica had the postmodernism vs. modernism conflict-in-a-bubble at its heart, which served as the perfect organizational structure to not only be entertaining, but to also school everyone in design theory, Objectified lacks a similar conflict by which everything can be defined.

I was disappointed to not see more of the good design vs. capitalism conflict mainly because it's going to be the most important concept in gadget design over the next few decades—not only for the environmental concerns, but because software is more than ever the representation of a gadget's heart and soul. This is not a new concept: when fondling the Grid Compass (the world's first laptop computer he helped design), Bill Moggridge of IDEO says it only took a few seconds for the user experience to be completely about the software interface on its 320x200 screen, with the hardware dropping away almost completely. And he designed it! As an interesting contrast, Naoto Fukasawa explains that in Japan, interactions with a tangible object are much more important, culturally, to the Japanese. Which makes sense when you see the horrid software being run by such a beautiful phone as the Infobar.

This concept also fits snugly in with a designer's environmental concerns—since software doesn't fill up a landfill, having hardware that can be re-upped to latest and greatest status over the web makes the earth happy too.

This choice to not hang the whole film on this idea was of course a conscious one, and it probably ensured a broader, more appealing film in the end. I just missed the elegance of everything fitting together into nice ideological halves in Helvetica.

But when judged alone, Objectified gets the job done beautifully and does for industrial designers what Helvetica did for graphic designers: lets us step into their frame of reference and greater appreciate, or at the very least notice, their omnipresent work.

Trailer:

More info: objectifiedfilm.com

Do you notice how incredibly clean this place is? I imagine aside from its rows upon beautiful rows of design stations and exotic prototyping tools, it must smell amazing in there. I don't know why but I'm picturing the greatest huffable atmosphere of new-gadget smell. Unfortunately, Objectified is not being released in Smell-O-Vision, but I can't wait to see the man leading Apple's design team in his element, which is a glimpse not many get to take; what other secrets lie within? We'll have to wait and see.

We brought you an exclusive look at the Objectified trailer earlier this month, and the premiere is now officially set for March at SXSW, with screenings in other major cities to follow. Check out more at: [Objectified]

In an otherwise surprise-free keynote today, one without booms or "one more thing"s, one bit of news stood out: White made a quiet return to the iPod family in the premium 16GB iPhone 3G. Sure, it never fully left Apple—remaining the default color for earbuds, plugs, power bricks, AirPort products and the cheapest MacBooks—but we were finally getting used to a world without white iPods. Does this mean after nine short months put out to the pastures, white is already retro-cool again?

This time around, white won't be for everybody. Once the staple color of the iPod revolution, white will be a statement for those bold enough to sport a phone that bright. It's incredible; when Jobs dropped a little black on the masses, we thought that was radical, but eventually accepted it as the norm. When most Apple products went brushed-aluminum, we were again stunned, but now we think nothing of it. Today white, the color that we accepted from the beginning, is back, this time on an iPhone, and it looks like the most far-out Apple product yet.

Will the return of white in the iPhone set a pattern for the iPod touch, classic, and others? Will white be the new, well, white, taking back the reins as the most popular color? Will the color make its way back to Apple's high-style MacBook Air? Can Jobs, Jonathan Ive and the Cupertino crew keep us on our toes forever by recycling the same three finishes? Most importantly, are you a person that's bold enough to rock this flamboyant new phone? I, for one, am not. [Apple]

We have a very clear focus that all the development teams at Apple share, a focus around trying to make really great products. That can sound ridiculously simplistic, almost naive, but it's very unique for the product to be what consumes you completely.

I'm not driven by making a cultural impact. That's just a consequence of taking a remarkably powerful technology and making it relevant. My goal is simply to try to make products that really are meaningful to people.

Wall-E director Andrew Stanton said he wanted the design to be high-end, but also "seamless and for the technology to be sort of hidden and subcutaneous." Stanton called this philosophy straight out of the Apple playbook and called up El Jobso in 2005. Steve sent over Johnny Ive for the day.

But oddly enough, Ive was as tight lipped as ever, despite being commissioned by Jobs for the task. So while the Pixar designers were running design ideas by Ive for Eve, all he would do is nod his head yes or no, as to whether or not he agreed. "Apple is so proprietary and so secretive that he couldn't even really allude to where the future of technology was going," said Stanton. And Pixar is a company which Jobs owns a stake in. Kinda creepy if you ask me. [Fortune]

For example, did you know Ive went to a candy factory to study jelly bean making in order to learn how not to make a plastic shell look cheap on a computer. Lots of other interesting details are to be found in this piece, giving you an intimate look of what made the man who makes the products the way you like them—shiny and usable. – Jason Chen

Who Is Jonathan Ive? [BusinessWeek]