Apple and Google as Creative Archetypes

“The Google model relies on rapid experimentation and data. The company constantly refines its search, advertising marketplace, e-mail and other services, depending on how people use its online offerings. It takes a bottom-up approach: customers are participants, essentially becoming partners in product design.

The Apple model is more edited, intuitive and top-down. When asked what market research went into the company’s elegant product designs, Steve P. Jobs had a standard answer: none. “It’s not the consumers’ job to know what they want,” he added.” nytimes.com

I’ve always felt that Google was only successful (at first) with this way of working only because it “designed” by simply avoiding it almost entirely. If your interface is nothing, nobody can dislike it. At the same time, it had great engineering behind that nothingness. 

No Title Required by Robert Ryman - Google like results? Nobody can hate it. What is the it?

Apple, to its own detriment, sometimes messes around too much in the interface area then stalls and ignores problems. But the combined consistency of interface and hardware is the key. By its very nature, Windows could never match the hardware on various levels. Design being, an important one.

Boby Trolley by Joe Colombo - a clear idea, functional results, likely zero customer feedback in its design.

All three approaches are certainly valid for doing business. But I would not call Google’s approach a “creative archetype”. There is little creative in it.