Press the delete button

As is common with most design agencies, we all use Apple Mac's (though we do also have the one lonely PC) and are therefore generally iFans. We own ipods, computers at home and no doubt someone will own an iPhone by the end of the year. Being one of the 23 million people who own an ipod, I have been fascinated with how the designers have tinkered with the product to improve the user Brand experience – through deletion.

With the earlier iPod models, Apple redesigned the user interface in their quest for the most efficient way of controlling all those 20,000 tunes we optimistically own. In essence it is a single button that ingeniously incorporates all the different functions we require, from the standard play/stop to a back button, menu and of course the scrolling selection mechanism. Well, actually there is no stop, just a pause button. Apple think you don't need both, which is true. The controls on the first model in 2001 satisfyingly clicked when pressed, a physical sensation that helped us overcome our fears of no longer being able to open our music player and fiddle about with a pen.

They moved to a touch sensitive set of five(?) controls for the third generation but unsurprisingly moved back to one(!) button, the 'click wheel' for more recent models. The next stage in Apple's user interface development is with the iPhone - there are no traditional number buttons, or any button at all, just a touch sensitive panel that adapts according to the selection.

This drive for simplicity, in just the process of playing a song, is crucial to Apple's success - they eschew any elements that they deem unecessary (hey, they even got rid of the computer in the iMac and put it in the monitor). This emphasis on consumer useability, innovation and of course great looking products has put Apple at 39 in the world's top 100 Brands. Microsoft recognise this is Apple's strength (and their weakness), and even went so far as to create a brilliant video parodying Microsoft's inability to leave well alone with an Ipod box. The video can be seen here. In Apple's case, Less really is More. And we are buying More and More...