IMac: What's in a Design, Anyway?

Computers were becoming commodities, the designers explained, and increasingly, computer makers needed to find a way to make their machines stand out. Tinkering with the look of the computer, more than its speed or specific technical capabilities, was a good way to appeal to people.

The iMac would sound the death-knell for the drab get-up sported by old computers, they said. Machines of the future would come in different shapes, colors and sizes -- like cars and toasters and, indeed, people.

Called for comment this week on Apple's new iMac -- a redesigned, flat-screen, pivot-arm model -- several industrial designers offered a less consistent view of the new machine.

None of them hated it; industrial designers seem to always find Apple products at least interesting. In fact, most of the designers loved the new machine, saying once again that it heralded a new trend. But a few were less sure about the iMac, saying the effort might be a little clumsy, and the age of "differentiation by design" -- the age that was ushered in by the first iMac -- is actually now outdated.

In design circles, the first iMac is considered a classic. Mark Dziersk, chairman of the industrial design firm NetVista machine that can be equipped with a swinging arm, but, inconveniently, that arm must be anchored by a wall or a desk.

"The breakthrough here is giving what used to be a brick, the main CPU of the computer, a functional reason for being -- now it's the anchor of a movable screen," Dziersk said. "Computers used to be static. What (Jonathan Ive, Apple's chief designer) and Jobs have done is break through again. They've established a new paradigm."

Chuck Jones, the vice president of design at Whirlpool, said that he's been waiting for a new iMac for awhile now, because he feared that "Apple was resting a little too much on the laurels of the last iMac."

What he sees now, though, is worth the wait. "When we talk about the archetype that consumers would connect with a 'computer,' what Apple's done is try to push that archetype to form factors that are more familiar to consumers," Jones said. "You look at the rounded base and the arm and the flat screen, one could say that in many ways they're trying to draw a connection to a picture frame.

"Apple has been very clever about choosing non-threatening, friendly and familiar form factors," he added. "I think the rounded base was brilliant. It's not edgy, not so confrontational."

"Friendliness" might sound like an unlikely way to measure a computer, but that turns out to be an important feature of iMac design. Rotund, toy-colored, and a bit doltish, the first iMac was perhaps the most affable machine ever created, and Apple played up that angle.

The Architecture Now. "It's fashion-driven, and it might have become kind of banal to differentiate by design, like it was in the designer glory days of the late '90s."

Smith believes that desktop computers are fundamentally different kinds of products from cars or clothes, for which looks mean a lot. "Being out in the world forces us to buy clothes or cars, and the laptop has done that for computers -- the laptop is kind of a fashion accessory. But when it's sitting on your desk in your office, it's different," she said.

Smith thinks that people don't care much for radical design in objects that just sit around. That might explain why all TVs look essentially the same, and few people pay hundreds more to get one that looks radically different from a standard old tube.

"Some people will buy the iMac so when they have dinner parties, everyone can see it. If you have a think different.

"What we can't miss here is that Apple combines the different look with a different experience, or a configuration that matters to people -- in this case they're saying that this is the perfect 'digital hub.' The looks here signal that difference," he said.

"Very few people will buy it just because it looks cool. Many will want more, and I think it arguably offers that."