Apple on Tuesday added a new product - a book - to its stable that nobody saw coming. It's not a new MacBook Pro, mind you (that came in September), but an actual, physical book that'll set you back at least $199.
The book, Designed by Apple in California, is a linen-bound, hardcover volume that chronicles 20 years of Apple's design expressed through 450 photographs illustrating the company's design process as well as its finished products. Photographs were captured by Andrew Zuckerman, perhaps best known for his style of capturing subjects against a white background.
Apple says the book is dedicated to the memory of co-founder Steve Jobs.
In the foreword for the book, Apple's Chief Design Officer writes:
While this is a design book, it is not about the design team, the creative process or product development. It is an objective representation of our work that, ironically, describes who we are. It describes how we work, our values, our preoccupations and our goals. We have always hoped to be defined by what we do rather than by what we say.
We strive, with varying degrees of success, to define objects that appear effortless. Objects that appear so simple, coherent and inevitable that there could be no rational alternative.
Designed by Apple in California, which Apple says was developed over an eight-year period, will be printed using specially milled, custom-dyed paper with gilded matte silver edges using eight color separations and low-ghost ink (if that means anything to you). Apple served as its own publisher on the project.
It'll be offered in two sizes - a small version measuring 10.20" x 12.75" priced at $199 and a large version measuring 13" x 16.25" that'll command $299 - and will go on sale November 16 (tomorrow) via Apple's website and at select Apple retail stores in the US. That's an awful lot of money (Apple tax) for a coffee table book but for the diehard Apple fan or those with enough disposable income, it may be worth the money.