By Eolake Stobblehouse, August 99

The iBook is a pretty computer, and a powerful one. These things naturally means a lot when one decides to buy a computer, as the iMac has already proven so emphatically.

But one thing will mean perhaps even more to many users, even if it is not so obvious a feature: The simple and rugged exterior of the iBook.

I’ll not get an iBook myself in the near future, due to the fact that I am already the happy owner of a G3 Powerbook 400 MHz, which is superior in almost every aspect. (At over twice the price, it bloody well better be!) But there’s one thing about that machine, as with every other portable on the market save the iBook: It has to be babied.

For example, one day I took the powerbook by the back edge and put it on my bed. As I slipped my hand out underneath it, I almost pulled off the port-cover from the machine. And I am not the only one who has trouble with these flimsy things. (They are almost impossible not to make flimsy if the machine has to be light and compact, which we all cry for.)

I could give more examples, but the short version is that I have a slight underlying feeling of being afraid of hurting the machine when I handle it.

The iBook is different. It has been designed to be handled roughly, by young people. And even though I’m sure many people would say that mature individuals should be able to handle a sophisticated machine without damaging it, I am positive that the mere idea that one has to be careful is psychologically responsible for the user more or less retreating from the machine. This means that it will be to that degree less useful, because you are less able to handle tools that you are afraid to handle. Can you be a good ball player if you are afraid of the ball? If you are afraid of a person, can you have a good relationship with that person?

In contrast, the iBook feels safe to handle. It feels good to handle, and it looks good too. Even I, being more computer savvy than 95% of the population, would feel it that way, and for iBook’s intended audience, most of whom are really intimidated by technology, the effect will be strong.

Many people don’t know this, but the main reason Apple Chief Designer Jonathan Ive and his excellent team build in a handle in the iMac is not that it will make it a lot easier to lift the machine. The reason is that the handle makes the machine seem like it is meant to BE HANDLED. You will notice that they have build in handles in the professional Macintosh also, and now in the iBook. It is a master stroke in design. It makes the machine say: I am yours. Take me, handle me, use me. And the rugged, simple, no-latches and no-flaps exterior of the iBook says it even louder.

iBook: the machine you can handle. The machine you can use.

- Stobblehouse