Feed your mind. Feast your eyes.
6 divisive Apple designs
You can’t please all of the people all of the time
— these products certainly didn’t (or don’t)
BY ADAM BANKS
6
iPhone X
At last, the screen was
the whole phone! Except
a weird bit at the top.
The notch was a glaring
compromise that... everyone
accepted and Apple’s rivals
copied. Go figure.4
Macintosh LC 520
A big–screen successor to the Color
Classic, this 40lb, 18–inch monstrosity looked
like a monitor stacked on a Mac stacked on
an aircon unit, except not as pretty. Having
created it, Apple’s industrial design group
tried to destroy it but, like Frankenstein’s
monster, it came back.5
iPhone 5c Case
Short–lived but well–
liked, the colorful 5c had
an equally colorful optional
rubber sleeve. With holes
in. That collected dirt. And
reminded people of Crocs.
Which are not cool. It also
cropped the “iPhone” decal
to “non”. Non indeed, Jony.2
Mac Pro (2013)
If you wanted a shiny top–end desktop
Mac that fitted in a rucksack, the “tin can”
design was brilliant. It turned out these were
less pressing requirements than upgrading
GPUs and installing expansion cards. Pfft.
1
Mac Pro (2019)
More parmesan, madam? All right, it’ll
probably grow on us. At least they’re not
charging $1,000 extra for the holes.
3
eMate 300
Before the Bondi Blue iMac (1998) won
hearts with its toy–like translucent plastic,
Apple freaked out minds with a sea–green HR
Giger xenomorph called eMate. The Newton–
based schools laptop lived less than a year,
but its spores may still be on the ship.
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