I was thinking about this today, and I'm fairly sure it's a part psychology, par marketing.
I remember when the MacBook Pro came out - being an aluminium Powerbook owner I'd been dreading it. I couldn't afford a new Mac, and the PowerBook was (is!) my pride and joy.
When the MBPs turned out to be physically almost identical, it softened the blow. I didn't feel like I'd been cut adrift from the world of Macintosh like I thought it would. I still feel like a Mac user, not an "old Mac" user.
You can bet the millions that had just bought iMacs G5s - and now Power Macs - felt similar when the Intel versions of their machines were released.
By having them look like PPC Macs, there is a very clear message being sent out that these Intel machines are still Macs - Apple hasn't sold its soul to Intel, they're not a PC manufacturer, they're just using their processors. The Mac is still a Mac.
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I was thinking about this today, and I'm fairly sure it's a part psychology, par marketing.
I remember when the MacBook Pro came out - being an aluminium Powerbook owner I'd been dreading it. I couldn't afford a new Mac, and the PowerBook was (is!) my pride and joy.
When the MBPs turned out to be physically almost identical, it softened the blow. I didn't feel like I'd been cut adrift from the world of Macintosh like I thought it would. I still feel like a Mac user, not an "old Mac" user.
You can bet the millions that had just bought iMacs G5s - and now Power Macs - felt similar when the Intel versions of their machines were released.
By having them look like PPC Macs, there is a very clear message being sent out that these Intel machines are still Macs - Apple hasn't sold its soul to Intel, they're not a PC manufacturer, they're just using their processors. The Mac is still a Mac.