Let's Get This Straight: Judging computers by their covers

So iMacs have fun new colors. What's so revolutionary about tinted plastic?

By Scott Rosenberg

Jan 8, 1999 | At this week's Macworld conference, Apple unveiled a host of new products and technologies. But the announcement that bedazzled the media was the simplest and lowest-tech: the popular iMac will, like Lifesavers, now come in five different colors.

Under the leadership of "interim CEO" (or, as he now jokingly calls himself, "iCEO") Steve Jobs, the newly revitalized Apple is smart enough, and self-confident enough, to poke ironic fun at the superficiality of its latest innovation. "Collect them all," quipped the company's marketing materials. "What's your favorite flavor?" "iCandy." "Yum."

On the Macworld floor, Apple had assembled phalanxes of the new rainbow iMacs along white platforms lined with fluorescent back-lighting that lent the translucent boxes a cool glow. Next to the computers stood plastic cups filled with jellybeans -- as if to break up the pristine atmosphere of the display with a wisecrack.

If Apple is keeping a tongue-in-cheek perspective on its new strategy, the press is going gaga. "PC style now as important as megahertz after iMacs," a Reuters story announced, and quoted Jobs: "Color is for most consumers more important than all the mumbo jumbo over megahertz and megabytes." Wired News was even giddier: "IMacs Spell Death to Beige Boxes," its headline declared. The story quoted industrial designers soberly intoning that Apple's styling was "a radical shift" and "a major step" that "breaks paradigms."

The iMac colors are fun, though they will no doubt provide enormous headaches to retailers and distributors trying to second-guess the demand for different hues ("Hey, Joe, I've got a warehouse full of strawberry and tangerine but everybody's ordering blueberry and grape! What's in stock at Paramus?"). But let's keep a little perspective here. By repackaging the iMac in multiple colors, Apple has pulled off a smart marketing trick, not changed the computing universe. Yet Jobs' notorious "reality distortion field" has apparently persuaded virtually the entire media that you can and should judge a computer by its cover.

More significant, certainly, is the new line of PowerMac G3s that Apple announced. They, too, have bright, bold new packages -- unorthodox, iMac-inspired casings with elaborately flared plastic handles on all four corners. More importantly, they've got a very intelligently designed side door that provides the easiest access to a computer motherboard that I've ever seen. Forget about "breaking paradigms"; at least you won't have to break your fingers to install a memory upgrade.

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