Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Is white the new beige?

stoid

stoid

macrumors 601
Original poster
Feb 17, 2002
4,312
29
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
I work at a high school over the summer preparing computers for the new school year. It was a few years ago that we were finally beige free. All our computers had been upgraded to at least a Bondi Blue original iMac or better. Now, all the new computers we get are eMacs. Replacing a room of Ruby iMac DVs with eMacs almost brought a tear to my eye. With the release of the iMac, Apple had declared war on boring beige computers. Now it seems that with their current offering they are re-sterilizing the computer market with white computers. Here's one hope that Apple will bring color back into the computing world. I think that the iMac G5 would be a great place to start!
 
Yes I guess you could say white is the new beige, but I think aluminum is becoming the new white (apple wise).
 
It's funny you mention color, because that was always one of the things that turned me off to Apple (don't worry, I'm an Apple user now :)). I like things that integrate into the style / color scheme of my workspace. Beige isn't great, but I went with it (in my PC days) since it was "neutral" enough to work.

I think it's acceptable (and really good, actually) to have small colored items like the iPod Minis. When you're talking about something that may be the focal point of the room, however, I think it's generally better to keep it one solid, neutral color. You could add colored computers to the mix, but I think it would be expensive to stock / keep all different colors ... people will buy colored Minis, but they're less likely to buy colored computers.
 
I don't know if White is the new Beige. If you remember, it wasn't just Apple that was beige, it was everyone. And now not every computer is white. We see a much larger range of color. Giving credit to Apple for bringing about a *change* is what I think is important here. What they've shown is that you don't have to accept a single style and that will be the new *beige* of the future.

Personally, I'd love to see a black iMac :D

D
 
I am glad Apple is onto the white and aluminum thing. It looks much better. I have always thought the coloured clam shell laptops and imacs with the colours have looked extremely tacky and stupid.
 
Why?

But yeah, Apple seems to be a bit boring for many people. A more cluttered design actually breaks the blandness of pure white a bit. I don't know.....they could use colours in a less tacky way than they did with the original iMacs and get away with it.
 
7on said:
Though a lot of Dells are black...
Click to expand...

ibm and compaq, too...for the pc world, black is the new beige with silver a close second

it would be nice for apple to bring in the color again with the new imac...it will be an old 1998 strategy, but it still will be a breath of fresh air at this time in a world dominated by black and silver towers
 
Nspace said:
I have always thought the coloured clam shell laptops and imacs with the colours have looked extremely tacky and stupid.
Click to expand...

Gonna have to disagree. I think the colors of the old iMacs added a bit of personality to them rather than just a solid color. But that's just my opinion as well :D
 
I think apple should re-introduce colors. That is what set them apart when Steve came back, and turned on alot of people to Apple. I had friends that bought iMac's just because they came in all sorts of colors. The university I attend now has three or four Mac labs full of colored iMacs. Although Apple did take color a little far with Blue Dalmation and Flower Power. Sadly, the Mac lab I do most of my projects in consists of both of those colors. Hehe. As sexy as the aluminum is, I miss the days of graphite, indigo, ruby, sage, blueberry, strawberry, tangerine, lime, bondi, and of course only Apple could re-brand white as "Snow."
 
It wont become the new beige until every computer company copys it, which they havent. In regards to Apple, it may have become its new beige, but at least this time around they got it right!
 
someone had mentioned some kind of wood as a shell or frame- although old school and vintage (which is in) i think the obvious will make it never to happen (heat, cooling etc.), but if it had a pimp ass finish I think it could be a quite stellar trend. Although, right now, I hope the carbon color stays around for awhile. It breaks me when I see other companies emulating Apple. I am not saying they pioneered the color, but I think they perfected it.
 
vraxtus said:
In California, yellow is the new white :D :D
Click to expand...


i would say that is true of the greater bay area and sections of los angeles

but being asian american in monterey county made me feel all alone...i am 40 so i came in before the large immigration of people from china and the philippines...sometimes, at least in my head growing up, i felt like an alien...there were some japanese and chinese immigrants, but for the most part, that was also rare here...my fellow japanese americans grew up around the military base and i didn't so i never was involved with the community and the events...but today when i go into chinatown in san francisco, i just blend in and it feels so strange and surreal...people will speak chinese to me and i won't understand a word ;)

it's funny when i see an interview of pro surfer tad hamilton, with blond hair and blue eyes, who grew up in hawaii, and he was the one who looked different and he felt all alone...his recollections are similar to what i felt ;)

today, with a greater understanding of california history, i see the demographics of the state and i wish i had taken spanish in junior high school and high school as my main language...after college and a business degree in personnel management, i found i couldn't land the good jobs in the field because they all required me to speak spanish...then later in mba school i am being told that the spanish speaking market is the single fastest growing market and here i am really wishing i took spanish in high school...we were required to take one quarter of french, spanish, and german in 6th grade and after that choose one language for later grades...i chose german and i think i was pretty good at it except i never got to use it outside of class so i lost most of my skills
 
jefhatfield said:
i would say that is true of the greater bay area and sections of los angeles
Click to expand...


I guess I'm lucky to have grown up in SF!

That said however, I also grew up in private, 95% white, elitist schools. So I know how that alienation can feel. Thankfully my parents encouraged me to join other organizations that were highly asian populated in the city, such as my Boy Scout troop that was centered out of Japantown in SF. So things such as that really helped me keep in touch with the other side of the coin (however note that I am Chinese, and my troop had many chinese in it). I guess I was fortunate to have grown up in this environment :eek:
 
tech4all said:
Gonna have to disagree. I think the colors of the old iMacs added a bit of personality to them rather than just a solid color. But that's just my opinion as well :D
Click to expand...

I totally agree.. I used to cry to have a lila (cant remember the right name) iMac in '98...
 
jayscheuerle said:
A friend of mine once mentioned how stainless steel, in reference to ovens and refrigerators, etc., is the new avocado green.

Those of you who were sentient during the 70s know what he meant...
Click to expand...

Hee hee - our fridge was avocado green when I was growing up, as was some of our family room furniture.

What would be really cool is avocado green stainless steel. :D

I miss the multi-color iMacs. Everything in our office is black (PCs), white (eMacs), grey (G4 towers) or beige (G3s and some PCs). I like the G3 tower more than any of the G4 towers with regard to color. I think we're well past the days when computers needed to look "professional", and frankly I'd love to see Apple lead a design charge again for colors. It can't be that difficult to add color to aluminium, can it? I mean, my cat's tag is colored aluminum so why can't a new G5 have color too? :p
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back