"A Blue by Any Other Name,
Would Still Look Gray to Me...oh,
sorry, Graphite..."
Not Tonight, I Have
A Head-AICC
by Steven Salemi
"At our last executive briefing, Compaq spent a lot of time asking us about color combos," said David Gruver, technical director of desktop services at SBC Communications Inc. "I personally felt it was a waste of time. My issues are price and performance, image stability, form factor. Not aesthetics."
Unbeknownst to the general public, Apple Computer has created a Monster.
Like many of the company’s egregious crimes against natural technology, its latest Frankenstienian feat has been accomplished in the total absence of protest from the masses. Indeed, the offense has been answered by a groundswell of praise and accolades from the Macintosh faithful.
In the fine tradition of other horrors spawned in Cupertino -- the Macintosh Portable, OS 7, Macs without floppy drives, Macs without hard drives, Macs without CD-ROM drives, Apple A/V Monitors, The Macintosh II, and Macintosh Clones -- Apple has introduced into the already overstuffed dictionary of computing acronyms a frightening new entry: "AICC" (Apple-Induced Color Chaos).
AICC is pronounced exactly like the word “ache,” a word with which it shares some physical correspondences…especially when you consider what AICC does to your head.
Call me contrary, but as the world applauds Apple’s introduction of yummy fun colors to the drab black and white world of personal computing, I’ve stopped applauding in the midst of the standing ovation. In fact, I’ve left the packed-to-capacity auditorium by a side door. And I’ve returned home to take a cold, hard look at the assemblage of bright, shiny new colorful computing machinery on my desktop.And frankly, I’m appalled.
Oh, sure, my spiffy new Graphite Special Edition iBook is a nice-looking machine, with a cool gray appearance that matches my new Graphite Starbucks Cappuccino Maker and sinfully expensive new Oliver Peoples Graphite Sunglasses.
The problem here (well, one of them, anyhow) is that my efforts at achieving Maximum Cool seem to be hindered by my inability to concoct a realistic scenario wherein I can use all three of the graphite gadgets simultaneously (not to mention pose for publicity photographs while signing autographs).
That is, I can wear the sunglasses outside while using the iBook, but it seems silly to wear the sunglasses inside while using either of the other devices. Nor does it seem realistic or convincing to drag the Cappuccino machine outdoors just so I can use it while wearing the sunglasses and operating the iBook.
I may just have to throw that big outdoor party I’ve been planning since the 1980s, but in the meanwhile, please bear with me while I devise a cunning plan enabling me to use all three Graphite gadgets at once -- without resembling one of those street musicians who plays an accordion with his hands while pumping a top-hat cymbal with his foot and blowing into a torso-mounted harmonica.
If I pull this off, the Eternal Cosmic Master Wizards of Time, Space, and Cool might just beam me up from this ridiculous planet and let me cavort with Goddesses up there in the pleasure palaces on Mt. Olympus for eons at a time.
But enough of my dreaming -- forget the sunglasses, forget the cappuccino machines, and (sigh) forget the Goddesses: the problem I’m discussing lies entirely within the realm of personal computing machinery.
Allow me to make my case by introducing still more gadgetry into the equation.
Exhibit A: Epson Stylus Color 740I printer, the color of cool Italian Ice. Exhibit B: Agfa Sharpscan 1212 scanner, the color of the Mediterranean. Exhibit C: Entrega hub7U, a dull, muddy blue-gray USB hub, the color my iBook might have been had Apple gotten it wrong. Exhibit D: Iomega Zip 250 drive, a pleasant purple-blue that’s fairly close to the scanner but very far indeed from the Printer.
And, to better look at this unholy mess, a matching (ha-ha) Global Upholstery Company office swivel chair (Exhibit E), done in a kind of “hip sky blue” that’s utterly pleasing yet totally different than anything I’ve mentioned so far (especially the computer itself, around which all this stuff is supposed to orbit).
Now I am no color expert. Indeed, color blindness runs in my family, although my father and brother seem to be the most seriously affected. We first noticed this family defect (one of many, I assure you) in childhood, when my brother would use my bathroom cup instead of his, and fights would ensue.
His cup was blue, you see; mine was green, and he had trouble telling the difference. Our parents thought we were just being childish. I thought my brother was being obnoxious and stupid, but it was really “color-blindness,” his inability to distinguish blue from green.
Luckily I have no such disorder. And so I say unto you, verily: none of this blue gadgetry matches! It’s all different shades of blue! What’s to be done?
To me, this is kind of like dressing up in an expensive suit, going to a fancy restaurant or night club or something, and having a huge food stain in the center of your tie. Or walking around these kinds of places with your fly wide open. Or trying to impress some woman by speaking with faultless elocution and seamless erudition, while pausing frequently to pick your nose or belch or scratch your belly or something!
What I mean is, the whole color thing is supposed to be making some kind of statement, like, “Aren’t bright fun blues better than dull beiges and grays?” Well, sure, but aren’t matching dull beiges and grays cooler, in a sense, than a hodge-podge of definitively mismatched blues and purples and grays?
Isn’t the whole thing glaringly representative of corporate America’s frantic efforts to keep up with trendy Apple and achieve the impossible by becoming “hip” overnight?
I realize that Apple is pioneering in this color area, as it has pioneered with no small success in the past, and I suppose I should cut them some slack. It’s not even their fault, really; it’s the fault of the third-party peripheral manufacturers, who need to send their engineers back to Injection Molding College (or maybe just ask them to clean their eyeglasses once in awhile).
Of course, with the introduction of Graphite iMacs and iBooks and G3s and G4s and G5s and Cubes and all the rest of it, there are now more colors than ever to keep up with - two members of the blue family, alongside the usual plums and limes and tangerines and the rest of the Carmen Miranda headdress.
It’s hard enough supporting various hardware and software configurations in a technical sense; now companies will have to add color support as well!
But Apple started all this with the iMac, so it seems fair to let the AICC acronym stick. I think Apple needs to develop strict engineering standards for its new colors, and license these colors to third parties.
It’s the only possible cure for AICC.
In true Apple style, the company can begin by setting exorbitant licensing fees for these color licenses, and sue the pants off any company that attempts to steal their colors. Playing hardball in this manner will alienate the industry and force manufacturers to reverse-engineer and clone the colors.In a year or two, Apple will finally back off, having sold just three licenses to the only three companies in the industry large and prosperous enough to afford them (Microsoft will buy one but never use it). After Apple “opens up the color architecture” to third parties, a few courageous but obscure Pacific Rim companies will step in, snap up the color licenses, and start churning out fully compatible, Apple-certified and licensed colored peripherals.
But then Steve Jobs will have a change of heart, yank all the color licenses, close down the color cloners, bring all Apple color manufacturing back in-house, declare himself the Interim Graphite iCEO…
…excuse me, but I have to go now. I feel a massive, splitting head-AICC coming on.
THE END
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