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I have to agree. Those two machines were the most bizarre lapse in Apple's usually (but not always) impeccable and elegant tastefulness in styling and design.
"What were they thinking?" I wrote back in February, 2001, noting that it was past midnight when I checked Apple's Web site for news of product introductions at MacWorld Expo Tokyo, and was jolted by the new iMac livery, commenting:
"At that time of night, out here in the boonies, silent except for the Northwest wind whistling around the eaves, a sense of the surreal tends to set in, so the fact that I was confronted with what looked like one Snow iMac that someone had stuck an applique of flower patterned MacTac over, and another that appeared to be suffering from some sort of dread skin disease, registered in the way such incongruities when in a dream state." Even at night, the Blue Dalmatian model struck me as especially ugly.
I went back to Apple's Web site the next morning to make sure it hadn't been a nightmare. Nope. There they were. I called a my wife to have a look. She loves floral patterns, so I thought that she would be a likely candidate to give a stamp of approval to at least the Flower Power machine, if anyone was. She didn't think it was horrible, but wasn't overly enthusiastic either, and with no coaching from me also came up with the analogy that looked like flowered MacTac. Actually, the patterns are embedded in the plastic, and did turn out look considerably better on the actual machines than they did in pictures, but I still thought that Flower Power looks like something that would be painted on a VW micro bus thirty years earlier, while the spotted jobbie the looks like it had a disease you wouldn't want to catch.
Macworld referred to the Flower Power as "Pokemon Vomit." MacMonkey's David Egger entitled his commentary on these units: "Honey did you puke on the iMac?" The MacMind's Dean Browell observed: "I swear to you when I saw the iMac collage of Graphite, Flower Power and Blue Dalmatian colors I thought it was a joke site. Damn these things look like a Swatch Watch threw up."
One distraught Mac Web writer colleague agonized:
"The new iMacs are horrible. It's a complete disaster. Apple is finished. I am not going to say anything for as long as I can, hopefully forever. Once I start saying what I really think about the new iMac colors, I'll never stop. The press tomorrow will be unmerciful, of course. Apple is finished. It's the end of an era. You can't even run OS X on the new machines without adding RAM yourself. What a joke. "
Well, it didn't turn out to be nearly that bad. Apple discontinued the Flower Power and Blue Dalmatian six months later after understandably poor sales, and the iPod intro was just eight months in the future, but there did seem to have been a lapse of sanity at Apple. The "earth tone" iMacs, introduced in July 2000, had been up to then the high water mark of good taste in iMac styling, The original Bondi Blue iMacs were subdued and reasonably attractive, but I didn't really care for teal. I didn't particularly like the fruit colored models introduced in January 1999 either; they always seemed bit frivolous and loud. On the other hand, I was very partial to the Snow and Sage models introduced in July 2000.
At least the popular Indigo, and Apple's signature Graphite colors were still available as a respectable alternatives to Hippie Dippy and Cruella de Ville, and outsold them handily.
What caused a lapse like this one is an enduring conundrum, and the cause of considerable befuddlement as to how the same styling Department could turn that something as understatedly elegant as the contemporaneous G4 Cube, and as overstatedly hideous as the "Flower Power" and "Blue Dalmatian" iMacs inside of a six month period. Apple's style sense has typically been the best in the industry over the years, and while Flower Power and Blue Dalmatian were a worst-case slip, it's not to say that Apple have not made other styling missteps from time to time.
Style is of course a tricky thing to critique, because it is always to some degree in matter of subjective taste, and there are few purposely styled objects that cannot claim a least a few aficionados, be it only the stylist and his or her mother.
However, I believe that there is such a thing as objectively good or bad taste, elitist as that may sound to some 21st century ears. For example, I would vigorously contend that Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is a much more tasteful work than Elvis Presley's "You Ain't Nothin' But A Hound Dog," both aesthetically and on the basis of its musical depth and complexity.
Taste must also be inappropriate to context. Beethoven's Ninth would not be, for example, a sensible choice for the playlist at a bachelor party or beer bash, while Hound Dog, or other popular ditties of the same genre would be entirely suitable.
In terms of style, and focusing in more closely on the central theme of this discussion, it would be bad taste to point, say, a Bentley Continental bright canary yellow, but that color suited a '68 Dodge Super Bee a friend of mine used to own to a tee. Context, as I said, is key.
And so it was with the Flower Power and Blue Dalmatian iMacs iMacs. Right now, by happenstance, I am looking at one of our family's towels, which has a flowered print motif not unlike that of the Flower Power iMac. It is a very attractive towel, one of my favorites, in fact, but I wouldn't want that print decorating my computer.
Historically, I would rate Apple Computer styling in four categories:
1. Attractive and/or elegant
2. Interesting, but not really pretty or elegant
3. Mediocre/boring - they can't really have been trying
4. Ugleee!
There have been too many Apple models over the past 21 years to do an exhaustive breakdown, but here are what I consider the most notable examples.
1. Attractive and/or elegant
The Cube (probably the best looking Mac ever)
The original compact Macs
The Titanium G4 PowerBook
The Aluminum PowerBooks
The MacBook Pro
The MacBook
The Aluminum Core 2 Duo iMac
The G4 iMac (gooseneck and hemisphere)
The "slim" LC III
The 12" iBook
The PowerBook 5300/190
The IIfx
The Centris/Quadra 610 -- Power Mac/Performa 61XX
Nearly all iPods
iPhone and iPod Touch
2. Interesting, but not really pretty or elegant
Color classic
The Mac mini
The Apple TV
The G3 IMac (except the Flower Power and Blue Dalmatian)
The iMac G5 and first generation Intel iMacs
500 series PowerBooks
Blue and white G3 - Power Mac G4 Tower
The Mac Pro
Wall Street, Lombard, Pismo PowerBooks
Clamshell iBook
The PowerBook 1400
The PowerBook 2400c
iPod nano 3rd generation
3. Mediocre/boring/ungainly - they can't really have been trying, or resized proportions just wrong
Mac II/ Centris-Quadra 650/PowerMac 7000 Series/Beige G3
The PowerMac 8000/9000 Series
PowerBook 3400c/3500c
14" iBook
LC/LC2
PowerBook 2400
Power Mac/Performa 6200 series
Performa/Power Mac 4000-6000 towers
Quadra towers
4. Ugleee!
iMac Flower Power and Blue Dalmatian
Original 100 series PowerBooks
500 series Macs and Performas
5000 series Macs and Performas
The 20th Anniversary Macs
Power Mac G3 AIO (AKA "The Molar")
I don't doubt that there will be plenty of readers who will disagree with my choices here, but that's the way I see it, according to my sense of style and taste. Not to say that the homlier ones were or are necessarily bad computers functionally. My awkward-looking Mac LC 520 served me well as a faithful workhorse.
If you're a regular reader, you know that I'm a consummate fan of the G3 Series PowerBooks, especially the Pismo, but I've never been especially smitten by their styling, with their charcoal-black color, Coke-bottle waisted cases, lozenge-shaped trackpad buttons, and rubbery-plastic appliqué on the outer contact surfaces, although I prefer the slimmer Lombard and Pismo to the hulking WallStreet. The latter did have the advantage of two PC Card slots and more versatile, dual expansion bays, however. The dual-USB iBooks, metal PowerBooks and MacBook Pros, and the MacBook are all much better-looking although not functionally superior with their slim to razor-thin cases.
Interestingly, proportion can have a lot to do with it. The PowerBook 5300/190 and the 12" iBook have roughly the same footprint and length-depth dimensions, and I've always found both of them extraordinarily pleasing to the eye. On the other hand, the PowerBook 3400c/3500c models used essentially the PowerBook 5300 styling and even some of the same plastics, but stretched the depth to accommodate a CD-ROM drive while adding a bulge to the lid to accommodate a "subwoofer" speaker. The 3400/3500 were excellent computers - vastly better than the 5300 - but they were ugly ducklings. Pretty much the same applied to the two sizes of dual-USB iBook.
The original 12" model was elegant and beautifully-proportioned. Stretching the same styling to accommodate a 14" display made it mediocre-looking at best. On the other hand, the aluminum PowerBook/ MacBook Pro design has proved to be quite successfully adaptable to resizing, and I think all four form factors (six if you separate the slightly deeper MacBook Pros from the PowerBooks) look elegant and attractive.
Sometimes materials and livery can make the difference. I always thought the G5 iMac/early Intel iMac was ungainly-looking in white plastic (and I usually like white computers) due to the disproportionate expanse of white "chin" area below the display, however, the new aluminum iMacs, which have pretty much the same basic styling but in an aluminum housing and with a glass cover over the display and other iPhone-esque styling cues looks positively fetching to my sense of aesthetics.
At least that's my taste. Yours may differ, and I'd be interested in hearing others' Apple product styling critiques in the Mailbag
Charles W. Moore
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