Page 239 - The Apple Experience

cardboard could be transformed into more than a box. It could be used to
create a work of art.

As a result of this obsession with detail in packaging, videos of people

“unboxing” Apple products have become unlikely hits on YouTube. If you

have a lot of free time on your hands, you can spend countless hours

watching thousands of videos of people taking new Macbooks, iPods,

iPhones, and iPads out of their boxes. The psychology behind the unboxing

phenomenon is simple to understand. In a world of increased clutter, people
crave simplicity. When you open an Apple product, the first and only thing

you see is the actual device. No cords, manuals, or accessories clutter the first

impression. Customers unboxing their products on YouTube seem to enjoy

the bold graphics, textures, and the logical way each component is revealed as

the layers inside the box are exposed.

Many college students display the boxes proudly in their dorm rooms. It’s

almost as though people feel that there’s something wrong about throwing
them away. That’s the way Steve Jobs wanted it. He wanted Apple’s

products, including the packages, to resemble works of art. And art, in Jobs’s

opinion, could be beautiful on the outside and the inside. “In most people’s

vocabularies, design means veneer. It’s interior decorating. It’s the fabric of

the curtains, of the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the

meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made

creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product

or service,” said Jobs.
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Apple has an understanding others don’t. There’s an interface between people and the

packages that happens before you even reach the product. —Laura B.