I’m reading Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company. While the book is generally outstanding, I just came across something that sounds like a conspiracy theory concerning the iPod music player:
Is this true? Do other companies choose chrome finishes to create “an unconscious, nurturing connection” when the customer removes smudges, or is this just Apple?
P.S. The book says later versions of the iPod did NOT use chrome.
I had never heard that anecdote and I can’t find any other mention of it after a quick Google search.
Even for someone like Jony Ive, it’s kind of a stretch to believe he thought people would get some thrill from polishing the back a device.
And if fingerprints on the back were part of a master plan, I’d think that Apple would have included a cleaning cloth in the box or sold a cleaning cloth as an accessory and I don’t think they did either at the time. I might be wrong though.
So I’d like to see some other evidence of that claim.
Even if he actually said that, I think it would be more likely to be excusing a design oversight (like, “oh, yeah, we totally did that on purpose! We don’t make mistakes.”)
In general I’d totally go with @Mangetout’s take. With a side order of “When was iPod released versus the tamagotchi craze?”
I just checked and tamagotchi hit the US in May 1997 and were still going strong when the original iPod was released in Nov 2001. So the iPod design era overlapped with the “everyone is fiddling with their tamagotchi” era.
The chrome case may or may not have been deliberate to encourage fiddling with, and “petting” your iPod. I agree w @zbuzz’s contention that if they really wanted you to pet it, they’d had included (or sold) a “petting blanket” labeled as such.
But Ivy’s explanation is totally in tune with the times. And / Or might be a subtle dig at lingering resentment over an internal disagreement between the design team and the Almighty Jobs. They totally wanted a petting blanket and the warm fuzzy vibes that go with it, and Jobs wanted sleek, slippery, and cold. Guess who won?
Not this
Definitely this
Any sort of smooth, polished finish will show fingerprints. It’s not something you have to specifically make happen, and it’s not something that it makes any sense to complain about.
I have an “original” or at least early iPod with chrome finish and have never felt the urge to stroke or polish it to remove fingerprints which I’ve never bothered to notice. Also never saw any Apple or aftermarket products designed to keep the device looking shiny and new (that particular iPod has toothmarks from the time Bessie the Labrador got hold of it long ago, but that just reminds me fondly of her).
Speaking of a “nurturing connection” to a product, Volvo encourages owners of its vehicles to create nicknames for them, something you can do through their app. Mrs. J. named hers “Ole” long before she started getting messages urging her to create a nickname.
Ole is a good boy, doesn’t complain.
The grumble about ‘stainless appliance fingerstains, who’switme?’ is pretty well established.
Macs come with a cleaning cloth in the box…
Those chrome backs also got scratched up mercilessly because they have no standoffs or other protection. You can’t polish that away. I’d chalk this up to Jony Ive fetishizing how his smooth shiny designs look in pristine product photos. That’s what sells, not the fingerprinted, scuffed, scratched, dented reality of it.
Same here, and mine is still functioning, I still use it on occasion when I want to hear some of those oldies.
So you’re not stroking it and calling it, “My precious”?
A $19 value!
True, but chrome is undoubtedly one of the worst in terms of showing fingerprints clearly in typical lighting.
While I am also skeptical about this material being deliberately chosen for this reason, I think it is plausible that it was noticed in testing that it smudged up but that this meant users frequently polished it and developed a bit more of an attachment. Of course plausible =/= therefore, that’s what happened.
I don’t know how much of a technical difference there is, but the backplate of the original iPod was made of stainless steel, not chrome.
My guess would be that so few people were allowed to handle a fully functional version of the original iPod with the finalized form factor that a scenario like that never even had a chance to come up.
Hmmm… I bought one of the first iPod with a colour screen (30GB disk, no video, scroll-wheel front). We bought a case for it immediately. I had to open it just now to see check that it does have a chrome back - clean except for the smudges from the case’s rubber grips, and some scraches in the small open areas around the belt clip. It still works, should we care to dig out phono jack headphones.
I never felt the urge to stroke it… 
But I do remember showing it to my brother-in-law and nephew, who were into stock market investing back in 2004. They asked if I thought Apple had any more good ideas up their sleeve, and I demonstrated the scroll wheel control and said they were obviously brilliant especially as interface designers, their products had a bright future. Never did ask if they bought stock.
And the cleaning cloth would be designed to not work with non-Apple products.
Kohler designed a faucet with a finish that scratched easily. The designers didn’t want customers to use any kind of harsh cleaners, much less any abrasive cleaning. The marketing team built a campaign around “a faucet so beautiful all it needs is water” to clean it, and included a cleaning cloth in the box.
Kohler now has its own line of faucet cleaner, a perfect example of turning a bug into a feature.
I didn’t claim a large number of people got their hands on a finalized version prior to release. There are very few products for which that is the case.
Right, so it’s probably not plausible that it was something that was noticed or even occurred at all in the first place.