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My Turn is Low End Mac's column for reader-submitted
articles. It's your turn to share your thoughts on all things
Mac (or iPhone, iPod, etc.) and write for the Mac web. Email your
submission to Dan Knight
.
From Steve Job's return to Apple in 1997 and the introduction of
the first iMac to the latest
G4 LCD iMac, Apple has provided
consumers with a uniquely designed alternative-computing
platform.
Apple ignited the idea of "colorful" electronics with the first
iMac. While it was not the first colorful piece of technology, the
iMac certainly caught the public's attention. Today, you can go into
a store and see Palms, mice, keyboards, monitors, radios, and even
hairdryers in blue, orange, raspberry, or some other translucent
color.
About the only place you won't see any bright colors these days
are in Apple's Store. That's right, the company that ignited the
"colorful technology" trend has gone back to white, and although the
white is not the boring beige of PCs and older computers, it is far
from colorful.
With the G4 tower and Titanium
PowerBooks, Apple began slowly moving to a color scheme of silver
or white. The G4 iMac, introduced in January 2002, was also the end
of the colorful "fruit flavored" computers that saved Apple from its
near demise in 1997.
There are reasons behind these "changing colors" at Apple, and I'd
like to give my own 2 cents here.
First, Apple makes expensive computers, and if people are going to
shell out that much money, they want something that looks elegant on
their desks, not something that looks like it belongs in Toys 'R' Us.
Second, a company has to change its image or it will not be able to
attract new customers (think the new "brawny man" campaign), which
Apple has succeeded in doing with the introduction of the iMac, the
"solid color" Apple logo, and now, more subtlety, with the white
computers.
These design and marketing ideas can lead to problems. At first,
Apple sold to a more professional market and to schools. By
introducing the iMac, a cheap computer that looked cool, they were
able to attract the average consumer to their product line. By
removing color and offering more expensive products (remember the
$799 iMac, we all knew that wouldn't last) such as Xserve
and dual G4 towers, Apple is going back into the professional and
upscale market, a move which can be good and bad.
Apple continues to cater to the average consumer's desires with
the eMac and iBook,
but both these are white. The
"average" consumer who wants a white computer will get a PC. Many
people bought Macs because they wanted something that stood out and
made a statement. While I think that the eMac and iBook are well
designed and elegant, they are not the reason that Apple sold
millions of blue iMacs.
I'm just going to sit back at my Indigo iMac (I wouldn't mind a G4
iMac) and wait for black.
Share your perspective on the Mac by emailing with "My Turn" as your subject.
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colorful.
With the 
The
"average" consumer who wants a white computer will get a PC. Many
people bought Macs because they wanted something that stood out and
made a statement. While I think that the eMac and iBook are well
designed and elegant, they are not the reason that Apple sold
millions of blue iMacs.
