Turned on its side, the new G5 reminds me of a record player our family had in the early Sixties. The 6" mono speaker was mounted behind a full-width perforated grille on the front.
But I don't say that to be snide. When Steve Jobs unveiled the G5 on the rotating pedestal, I was silent like everyone else because my inability to distinguish the front from the back temporarily baffled me.
Yet on further reflection, what Wired called the "brutal austerity" of the G5 is an amazingly muscular design statement. It confidently asserts that "form follows function; performance speaks for itself; beauty is what beauty does; take it or leave it."
I'll take it.
As others pointed out, anodized aluminum is easily colored. (The color is embedded in the anodized oxide layer, so it's a metallic color, not an organic pigment.) Charcoal-colored grilles front and back would be a distinctive change to highlight the next revision. But blue is possible too!
Numerous perforation patterns are available as well (square holes, round holes, 60-degree staggered holes, 90-degree aligned holes, etc.) Changes in color and perforation provide plenty of scope for third-party customization or Apple's revisions, while retaining the basic form/function of the case.
Nothing's stopping our designer colleagues who feel the G5 needed a couple of more passes, from developing their own proposals. I would enjoy seeing their ideas posted here.
