Free Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products by Leander Kahney Page B

and third levels.”
    Eventually, Brunner figured that to get any traction, he would personally have to become the machine’s product manager. “It didn’t come out of one of the product groups, and it wasn’t going anywhere,” said Brunner. “There was this process at Apple, where they decided if something was going to get on the product road map. There was a presentation that you needed to put together and a group you needed to present to. I acted like a product marketing guy and presented this idea and got it off the ground.”
    As Spartacus was finalized for market, it was discovered that the integrated speakers presented a major problem: When the volume was cranked up, the internal CD-ROM skipped. The skipping vexed the team for several months until an engineer from Bose suggested a solution. Herecommended the use of a much smaller pair of speakers on the desktop and adding a subwoofer on the floor, which could also accommodate the machine’s power brick. The fix worked, and the machine could deliver room-filling audio with only forty watts of power.
    Making the changes meant a new working prototype wasn’t ready until December 1995. Then it was decided to add a newer, updated circuit board, and a larger liquid crystal display (LCD) screen. In June 1996, Prototype Two finally emerged.
    To Jony and the rest of the design team, who had lived with various prototypes for more than three years, the dark gray enclosure with mahogany trim had begun to look old. They had other doubts too. “Some of us felt the color was too strong,” Jony recalled. “But we had all looked at the concept so much, we couldn’t decide what color it should be.” 31
    An outside color consultancy was hired. They came up with the brilliant suggestion that the designers shouldn’t focus on the color of the computer; they should look at the color of the environments it would be put in. To find the right color, the consultants put together several palettes of cloth, wood, leather and carpeting, representing the colors found in a typical home. Several prototypes were painted and compared to each palette under different lighting conditions. A dozen options became three and, finally, just one, a metallic green/gold. Thanks to the metallic sheen, the bronze color had a chameleon-like effect that reflected the colors around it, helping it blend into any room. The mahogany accents were switched to black leather, which would likely wear better than wood.
    Initially, the design department loved the final result. They thought it was a great all-purpose computer with good entertainment options in a high-end, high-quality proposition. This latest model included a TV/FM tuner, which allowed it to transform from computer to stereo to TV. Tim Parsey summarized the effects and qualities of the machine: “It’s reallycomplicated geometrically. But it doesn’t look complicated. From the front, the design is quite simple. Yet it embraces the user in a powerful way. It’s incredibly thin, yet the back tells you that it’s strong enough to support itself with ease. And every curve and detail has a purpose.”
    Jony saw a deeper virtue, observing that “it challenges our perceptions in a fundamental way.”
    In August 1996, the third working prototype finally rolled off an actual production line, proving the machine could be made in quantity. In September, tooling was completed and the final design was finished in December 1996. It was more than four years since Brunner had written his conceptual brief.
    With the much-anticipated twentieth anniversary of the Macintosh approaching, the decision was made to designate Spartacus as a special edition. Officially named the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh, the new product was limited to a run of just twenty thousnd units. Apple unveiled it at Macworld in January 1997 and the first two units were given to Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, who had just returned to the company as advisers.
    To make it more memorable, the