Inside Steve's Brain - Leander Kahney [29]
Unpacking Apple
Jobs lent his eye to every detail of the machine’s design, including the design of the packaging. In fact, he decided the first Macintosh’s packaging was going to be an integral part of introducing consumers to his “revolutionary” computer platform.
Back in 1984, no one outside of a few research labs had seen anything like the Macintosh. Personal computers were used by bespectacled engineers and hobbyists. Computers were bought in parts and soldered together on a workshop table. They performed math calculations and were controlled by arcane commands entered at a blinking cursor.
By contrast, Jobs and the Mac team had worked up a friendly machine with picturesque icons and menus in plain English, all controlled by an unfamiliar pointing and clicking device—the mouse.
To help consumers familiarize themselves with the mouse and the Mac’s other components, Jobs decided that the buyer should have to assemble the Mac themselves out of the box. The act of assembling the machine would introduce the user to all its components, and give them a feel for how they worked.
All the parts—the computer, keyboard, mouse, cords, disks, and manual—were packaged separately. Jobs helped design the minimalist box, which was decorated with a black-and-white picture of the Mac and a few labels in the Apple Garamond font. At the time, Jobs talked of “elegance” and “taste,” but his packaging ideas introduced to the technology industry the “unpacking routine,” a familiarization ritual that has been adopted by everyone from Dell to cell phone makers.
Apple still carefully designs its packaging with introductory lessons in mind.
In 1999, Jonathan Ive told Fast Company magazine that the packaging of the first iMac was carefully designed to introduce the machine to the new consumer. The iMac’s accessories, keyboard, and manual were all contained in a piece of packing foam that doubled as a table to hold them. When the consumer removed this first piece of foam packaging, they saw the handle at the top of the iMac—which clearly indicated to the consumer to lift the machine out of its box and set it on a table. “That’s the great thing about handles,” said Ive. “You know what they’re there for.”11
The consumer then naturally turned to the accessory box, which contained three cables: one for power, one for the Internet, and the other for the keyboard. Ive said the presentation of these things in that precise order—the iMac’s handle, then the cables to set up the computer—were carefully thought out so that they clearly told the consumer, who may have never bought a computer before, the steps they needed to take to get the machine up and running. “It sounds simple and obvious,” said Ive. “But often, getting to that level of simplicity requires enormous iteration in design. You have to spend considerable energy understanding the problems that exist and the issues people have—even when they find it difficult to articulate those issues and problems themselves.”12
This kind of attention to detail can sometimes seem maniacal; and sometimes it is. Shortly before the launch of the iPod, Jobs was disappointed that the headphone jack didn’t yield a satisfying click when plugging and unplugging the earphones. Dozens of sample iPods were to be given to reporters and VIPs at the product presentation. Jobs instructed an engineer to retrofit all the iPods with a new jack that would give a rewarding click.
Here’s another example: At one point Jobs wanted the original Mac’s motherboard redesigned for aesthetic reasons. Parts of the motherboard were “ugly,” in his opinion, and he wanted the motherboard to be reconfigured to make for a more pleasing arrangement of chips and circuits. Naturally, his engineers were appalled. Motherboards are extremely complex pieces of technology. Their layouts are carefully designed to ensure robust and reliable connections between components. They are carefully laid out to prevent chips from coming loose, and to prevent electrical charges arcing