It may be old, but it is new...

Aug 11, 2006 09:55 GMT  ·  By

Much like after the launch of the MacBook Pro and the iMac, journalists have begun asking what is with the 'old' case. It seems that old equals bad, and new equals good to them.

Apple's transition to Intel was no minor thing, no matter how seamlessly the company pulled it off. Something on this scale has never before been attempted in the computer industry, and will probably never will again, unless it is Apple doing it. In the midst of this big change, Apple wants to send out a clear message to its customers, that Macs are still Macs, no matter what they might have on the insides. Why is this so hard to comprehend?

Much like the MacBook Pro and iMac case, the Mac Pro case, referred to as 'cheese grater,' is incredible both in terms of design and functionality. But of course, this is an issue that is easily skipped, after all, Apple is renowned for their design prowess so if they are not changing case designs, it is old, and Apple is 'cheap'. Of course, it does not register that while the case is almost identical on the outside, the inside is significantly different, and this is something that was probably harder to do than to simply use a totally different case design altogether.

The cause probably lies in the 'dull box' mentality, where manufacturers need to signal to customers that the contents are new by wrapping them up in another gray box with the shiny leds positioned in a slightly different location and a few additional bits of black plastic sticking out. If the Mac Pro case is the 'cheese grater' of cases, then all the dull boxes are cheesy.