New Chips Are Nice, But How About Some New Cases, Apple?

The chip revisions are getting harder to keep up with at Apple town; the Mac mini uses a Core 2 Duo (or some such) as do the iMac and MacBook Pro. Meanwhile the Mac Pro is chugging away with Dual Xeons and will, most industry watchers say, show up with octocore configuration sooner rather than later. Surely, Otto Gunther Octavius is saving some cash up for just such a purchase.

Of course, remembering all the configurations and recalling the earlier Intel iterations is a bit mind numbing. The mini went from G4 to Core Solo, to Core Duo, to Core 2 Duo with nary a case polish. The PowerBook went from PowerBook G4, to MacBook Pro Core Duo to Core 2 Duo and kept the familiar aluminum clad form factor. The PowerMac went from the once super-hyped G5 (64 bit!) to the Dual Core Xeon while changing a solitary port on the front.

Life in Macland wasn’t always this way. In the era since Steve Jobs’ return, you could tell which processor family was powering the machine just by looking. Well, unless you were looking at an iBook, as that particular machine was upgraded to the G4 without major cosmetic changes. The iBook was the exception that proved the rule; all the other machines featured a major cosmetic change when the processor that powered the machine changed the number following the letter “G.”

To illustrate the former status quo: When the iMac went from G3 powered consumer computer to a G4 powered miracle of design, not only the processor changed, but the machine went flat panel for the monitor and Apple got the monitor to seemingly float in mid air. When the PowerMac went from G4 for professional use to the world’s fastest PC powered by the G5, the case transformed from an easily accessible plastic tower of reasonable size to a hand cutting aluminum tower that would have depleted entire mines if the machine had proved to be more popular.

With the transition to Intel, Apple rethought the practice of completely revamping case designs to announce processor newness and, apparently, decided a model name change would be enough to let the world know. So, instead of a shockingly cool carbon fiber shell, the PowerBooks retained the look and became the irritatingly named MacBook Pros. The name changes are familiar if one reflects for a moment, but the dissonant names are listed here for the sake of completeness: iBook begat MacBook, PowerMac begat MacPro, and, most dishearteningly, the PowerBook morphed to MacBook Pro. The Mac mini and the iMac emerged from the transition with new processors but managed to avoid clucky name changes (inside info: the Mac mini was almost renamed “Mac minisemipro”).

All of which is great for computing power (or will be when universal versions of apps like Photoshop and Office make the scene) but bad for satisfying that new case urge so many Mac fans secretly have. Sure, the case doesn’t affect the performance of the computer in day-to-day use, but Apple has always been very proud of the company’s aesthetic accomplishments. The way things are currently trending, Apple will have completely forgotten how to design a stunning case by the time the company gets around to trying again. One hopes that some Apple designer remembers the past, but not strongly enought to declare that “Beige is the new white!”

When was the last time Apple wowed us with a new case? The PowerMac G5? Possibly; the machine is a joy to work on inside, quiet enough that ninjas are jealous, and big enough that you can heat a couple of hot pockets up inside for lunch, but in the end it is just a tower, not really a revolution. The Mac mini seems to be a likely candidate. The tiny footprint of the machine left everyone gobsmacked when they first got an eyeful. PC hackers immediately tried to cram a PC into the same space and found they had to omit such incidentals as a CD drive. Still, the mini was obviously derivative of the cube, and as much as everyone likes to think miniaturization costs a bunch of money, in the long run smaller is cheaper, so it is easy to see the mini as more of a cost compromise than a radical rethinking. The first PowerBook would definitely qualify: metal in a sea of plastic, widescreen while every other notebook shared a mundane aspect ratio, unbelievably thin and with a backlit keyboard, truly a design to remember. But the original PowerBook debuted way back in 2001, which makes it contemporaneous with Diplodocus in computer terms.

In the end, you have to think Apple’s last big computer design home run was the G5 iMac. The basic form factor had been proposed by Jonathan Ives when the iMac was getting ready for the transition to the G4 but Steve Jobs shot the idea down, saying. “Why stand a computer on its side when it really wants to be horizontal…” A few years later the all-in-one design was revived by Apple’s designer and the world was treated to the G5 iMac. The design doesn’t look dated (like the G4 iMac) so it is easy to forget that the G5 iMac was introduced in 2004, quite a while ago in terms of computing years.

Which puts the faithful farther away from a delicious computer redesign than the Boston Red Sox are from their World Series Championship (only 85 years until the next one fellas), and that is disappointing. Come on Apple, give us something new, we’re waiting.