By Dan Moren
April 30, 2021 12:55 PM PT
The Back Page: Color me impressed
Colors have returned! The sleek new 24-inch iMac brings a design awash in six different colors, evoking the classic fruit flavors of the iMac G3.
For a company that has spent the last decade mainly focusing on sucking all the color out of its product line-up, from the Mac to the iPhone to even its classic six-color logo, it’s a welcome change. Honestly, for years I’ve been hearing financial analysts ask for more color on the quarterly results, and I figured it was just jargon, but what they were really asking for was more color.
So, thinking ahead, I’ve come up with a handful of other Apple products that I’d like to see get the same kind of vibrant hues as the iMac and the recent iPhone 12. Don’t hold back, Apple—the time is now. Color all the things!
More Macs: Don’t stop at the iMac, Apple. Every single machine in your longest running lineup deserves to be drenched in color. And don’t try to point to your gold or rose gold laptops—please. I wasn’t born yesterday. I want to see as many Mac shades as there are in the crayon color picker. A puce Mac mini. A burnt sienna MacBook Pro. A bubblegum Mac Pro. A Just don’t you dare add colors to the M1 MacBook Air because I just bought one, you jerks.
The HomePod mini: Why is the HomePod mini just gray or white? Blech. So dull. Clearly intended as the centerpiece of any fashionable room, the HomePod mini should be a statement piece, a glowing orb that not only draws the eye of any visitor, but also risks them losing their soul in the gaze of its lone, glowing eye. So, come on, Apple, make it, I dunno, orange or something.
The Apple TV 4K: Set-top boxes are booooooring. A black oblong hockey puck shoved onto a shelf? What, are you embarrassed?[^price] Have a little fun with it. Might I suggest a tasteful selection of plaids, sold in conjunction with a free season pass to Outlander? And, while we’re at it, the Siri Remote in silver is a throwback, I get it, but it lacks pizzazz. How about a nice turquoise? Then maybe I won’t lose it in my couch cushions.
AirTags: Yeah, you can put emoji on them, but they’re just silver and white! What, did you make them out of old, discarded Apple laptops? Let us spice up those emoji: What’s a unicorn without purple, a robot without steel blue, a bear without green? (What kind of bears are you dealing with?) Isn’t the whole point of these things to be findable?
Apple Park: Psst, Jony’s gone. Ditch the stainless steel and glass look for something a little more colorful. You’ve got that rainbow in the middle, which is a great start, but bring some of that energy into the building itself. Jazz up your executive offices with some stripes. Maybe a disco ball in the anechoic chamber. And, hey, a little birdie tells me that Tim Cook wouldn’t be opposed to a mustard yellow shag carpet.
[Dan Moren is the East Coast Bureau Chief of Six Colors. You can find him on Mastodon at @dmoren@zeppelin.flights or reach him by email at dan@sixcolors.com. His latest novel, the supernatural detective story All Souls Lost, is out now.]