a *original* new powermac idea

Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
Everybody has different tastes when it comes to what color etc. they want their apple enclosure to be. It's beyond me why apple hasnt solved this problem when the solution is so obvious. Apple could make the shells of all their products detachable (they allready basically are but it is difficult for your average consumer) Thus you could go online to the apple store and buy the shell you want for a fair price (I think 50-80$ would be worth it.) <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" /> Apple could use their "state of the art" technology to inject pictures or designs into their plastic shells much liek they did with the blue dalmation and flower power imacs.. Give me your thoughts!



[ 08-06-2002: Message edited by: MrBojanglez50 ]</p>
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 37
    i guess that could be a good idea, but then the computers wouldnt match with the cinema displays..... but i dont think that would be a problem since were not all stinking rich and cant all offord the matching displays anyway.



    sounds like a good idea. it would stop that "all white" thing we seem to be heading in.
  • Reply 2 of 37
    jpfjpf Posts: 167member
    Your original idea?



    <a href="http://www.appleskinz.com/"; target="_blank">http://www.appleskinz.com/</a>;
  • Reply 3 of 37
    Yea, i own a shell from appleskinz.com (dark burl wood) and i can tell you one thing. THEY SUCK! That's why i didn't mention it in this thread. They try and say as little as possible at their site that these shells stick on with stickies, they cover with original enclosure, they arent detachable and they don't replace it. Hmmm, that sounds difficult to begin with. But when you take into consideration that the shells arent even cut correctly (a very sloppy job) it's not nearly worth anyone money cus it looks like complete crap.



    [ 08-06-2002: Message edited by: MrBojanglez50 ]</p>
  • Reply 4 of 37
    progmacprogmac Posts: 1,850member
    From the site:



    Will the MacSkinz accelerate my computer?



    No. but it will look much faster!





    [ 08-06-2002: Message edited by: progmac ]</p>
  • Reply 5 of 37
    Cecil, who says everyone who buys a mac gets a studio display? And im sure it couldnt be hard to make a detachable shell for a studio display.
  • Reply 6 of 37
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    I like this idea. PC user go nutz over customizing their computers. Apple could foster this mentality in us as well plus let's be honest At $35-50 for a kit that would be LOADS of margin for what basically is simple formed plastic.
  • Reply 7 of 37
    mattbrmattbr Posts: 27member
    [quote]Originally posted by MrBojanglez50:

    <strong> But when you take into consideration that the shells arent even cut correctly (a very sloppy job) it's not nearly worth anyone money cus it looks like complete crap.



    [ 08-06-2002: Message edited by: MrBojanglez50 ]</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Well, given what you've just said, i wouldn't be surprised if a beautiful new powermac suddenly looked like it had been covered with wood-imitation linoleum... <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" /> Not that there's anything wrong with wood-imitation linoleum, mind you, but i don't quite see where that fits into apple's current philosophy...

    one of the things about aqua is that you _cant_ customise the interface, plus i doubt a company that sells you a 20$ upgrade CD (production cost maybe 20c, plus s&h) would ever come up with mass-customisation of huge chunks of plastic... then again, i might be wrong, since there seems to be a market both for flower-power and wood-imitation print, but i believe it's still a minor part of the market share.

    by all accounts, and for the vast majority of both users and the trade press, as you may have noticed by the number of design awards recent macs have recieved, ives has been designing beautiful pieces of kit over the past few years... this may sound a bit fascist, but i'd rather not see apple screwing up its image by letting people change their casings... if you don't like the way it looks, please... do apple a favour... put it under your desk... and don't wrap flooring around it...
  • Reply 8 of 37
    xypexype Posts: 672member
    I saw someone painting his white iBook blue and another one orange - couldn't basically the same be done with a PowerMac? Does anyone have an idea of how hard it would be to take the plastic "shell" off it and color it?
  • Reply 9 of 37
    splodesplode Posts: 13member
    [quote]Originally posted by xype:

    <strong>I saw someone painting his white iBook blue and another one orange - couldn't basically the same be done with a PowerMac? Does anyone have an idea of how hard it would be to take the plastic "shell" off it and color it?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Hey.



    It's fairly easy. Basically you take the shell off, strip the paint that's on the inside, and do what ya will with the clear shell. And there's tons of pages on how to do it. Check the Macnn Modification board. Carl Norum, a regular poster there, has a page about doing both the external paint and (more impressively) the internal overclocking.



    splode

    waiting for the iBook warranty to expire...
  • Reply 10 of 37
    [quote]Originally posted by splode:

    <strong>Carl Norum, a regular poster there, has a page about doing both the external paint and (more impressively) the internal overclocking.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    carl_norum rocks! huge fan of his work .. even had the please of meeting him at WWDC this year.



    <a href="http://homepage.usask.ca/~cjn339/index.html"; target="_blank">http://homepage.usask.ca/~cjn339/index.html</a>;
  • Reply 11 of 37
    vikingviking Posts: 127member
    The reason why a Porsche 911 is so distinctive is because the original design was awesome. The design is a classic and thats why it hasn't changed. That shape represents Porsche. It can't be mistaken for anything else. Apple is the same. You will never mistake an Apple computer for a PC. Thats why they have someone like Jonathon Ives working at Apple. Could you imagine walking into a Porsche dealership and asking to customize the body. We all know what that looks like. Classics don't need customizing. The designers have already done their job well enough. I understand that you want Apple to do the customizing, but to me, thats like saying "I don't want the design to be any better, I just want my computer to be different." Thats probably what product designers don't want to hear.
  • Reply 12 of 37
    cindercinder Posts: 381member
    This is me barfing.



    *barf*



    Bad idea.

    A waste of time and engineering.
  • Reply 13 of 37
    xypexype Posts: 672member
    [quote]Originally posted by splode:

    <strong>

    Carl Norum, a regular poster there, has a page about doing both the external paint and (more impressively) the internal overclocking.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    cool, thanks for the info! how bout other Apple kit, powermacs or imacs? anyone having any links on those?
  • Reply 14 of 37
    I don't know why everybody is shooting down this idea. You all sound like a bunch of conformists (all powermacs should looks the same, yadda, yadda, yadda, it's a great design so why change it) I thought everybody customized their cars to look different than stock so they would be unique, yes people even customize their porsche 911's to not look like everybody elses. What makes computers different? True, the mac has a great design, but the color scheme may not go with whatever place it has been put in. I have alot of wood in my room so I bought the appleskinz.com burl wood shell and was dissapointed.
  • Reply 15 of 37
    [quote]Originally posted by MrBojanglez50:

    I don't know why everybody is shooting down this idea. You all sound like a bunch of conformists (all powermacs should looks the same, yadda, yadda, yadda, it's a great design so why change it) I thought everybody customized their cars to look different than stock so they would be unique, yes people even customize their porsche 911's to not look like everybody elses. What makes computers different? True, the mac has a great design, but the color scheme may not go with whatever place it has been put in. I have alot of wood in my room so I bought the appleskinz.com burl wood shell and was dissapointed.<hr></blockquote>



    I generally tend to agree with you, but I'm not sure Apple does. Apple is trying to sell an image as well as a product. When you see an Apple product in a movie, for example, it's easily recognizable by its shape and color. I would tend to think that Apple doesn't want to dilute this recognition.



    Of course, that doesn't mean we don't want to make our machine unique. I've been contemplating fur on my iBook to match with 10.2 when it's released, for example. To each his own.
  • Reply 16 of 37
    mattbrmattbr Posts: 27member
    [quote]Originally posted by MrBojanglez50:

    <strong>I don't know why everybody is shooting down this idea. You all sound like a bunch of conformists (all powermacs should looks the same, yadda, yadda, yadda, it's a great design so why change it) I thought everybody customized their cars to look different than stock so they would be unique, yes people even customize their porsche 911's to not look like everybody elses. What makes computers different? True, the mac has a great design, but the color scheme may not go with whatever place it has been put in. I have alot of wood in my room so I bought the appleskinz.com burl wood shell and was dissapointed.</strong><hr></blockquote>





    yup, when something ain't broke, there's no reason to fix it.

    the customisation of cars, although a huge market, has a somewhat different aim, and it might make for an interesting paralel.

    you don't drive your customized Targa in circles in your living room.

    the "expensive car", much more often than a TiBook, is a status symbol before being a tool.

    In the eyes of its owner, it symbolizes various things, mostly related to power.

    you don't buy a Porsche to use it to its limit, you buy it to compensate that little feeling you lack an inch or a few IQ points somewhere. (of course, some Porsche drivers just enjoy sitting in unconfortable noisy cars and feel compelled to pay a premium to do so).

    People who customize cars like those do it because they feel like they aren't getting enough attention (much in the same way people spend multiples of the cars worth to customize japanese imports to make them look more powerful and generally visually noisy.)



    A desktop computer, however, is different.



    Unless you're going to lug it around to go to a lan party, the only people you'll be "impressing" with it are people you bring home.

    And at that point, given that there still isn't as much glamour and machismo associated to being a kernel hacker or a Quake master as there is to being, say, a jet pilot or a race-car driver, you'll most likely end up looking either laughable or pathetically linked to a device whose primary use is seen as being anti-social.



    Of course, laptops don't fill this category.

    Therefore, a color choice might be a good idea there.



    as to the general color scheme of the mac line, it's designed to look elegant to a majority of people (hint:including... CHICKS) no matter where you put it. If you feel compelled to improve what takes a few college graduates working with focus groups for months to do, by all means, do so.

    you're probably way smarter and have a better design sense than they do, anyway...
  • Reply 17 of 37
    jmoneyjmoney Posts: 133member
    &lt;sarcastic rant&gt;



    Wow, this was singlehandedly the worst idea that I have ever heard. Besides not being original, it doesn't even provoke a slight stimulation of the brain. I believe everyone in the forum is dumber for having just read that. May God have mercy on your soul, you stupid, stupid man.



    &lt;/sarcastic rant&gt;
  • Reply 18 of 37
    I would like some genuine simulated walnut side panels for my Powermac please, and also a genuine naugahide front fascia.



    Thanks.
  • Reply 19 of 37
    This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. Not only that, but comparing Apple to geeks who deck out their cheesy "gaming" pc's is just subordinate. This thread should be locked, it's not even future hardware, it belongs in general discussion. <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[No]" />



    -CFPC
  • Reply 20 of 37
    Wait wait, hold up.. Your saying apple people ARENT geeks?
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