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   Publication: The Age
   Publication date: 18-11-1998
   Edition: Late
   Page no: 46
   Section: Supplement
   Length: 700
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Byline: By Suelette Dreyfus

Apple's new G3 laptop is something else. By Suelette Dreyfus

Sex sells soap, so why not computers?

At first, I thought it was just my imagination. Running my fingers over
my new G3 laptop, I marvelled that those ingenious Apple engineers had
done it again. They had designed a new computer that was not just highly
functional; it was sleek, streamlined, elegant. It was the Jaguar of
new laptops. The subtle wave along the outer edge of the machine, the
silhouette of black on black design on the cover, the hourglass shape ...

Hourglass shape? Then it hit me. I was looking at a woman. The G3 is all
hips and waist. Her breasts disappear off the end of the laptop cover,
resting in an imaginary space just above the clasp to open the laptop
screen - a subliminal invitation to peek inside?

The simple outline on the laptop cover traces her midriff, down around
her ample sides, to the middle of her thighs. She is full and soft, but
well-proportioned in her curves, more Marilyn than Monica. And, there,
in the lower half of this post-modernist, minimalist icon of femininity
is - what else - an apple.

RMIT's industrial design program director David Lugton described the
G3 laptop as "gorgeous", "rounded"  the "most feminine notebook" he has
ever seen.  And, he added, "that is one very strategically placed apple".

No, your mind has not wandered into the gutter: the Apple Isle in the
middle of the G3 silhouette is indeed a map of Tassie. It's not just the
position - it's also the choice of fruit, the apple as sexually charged
icon. (Ok, maybe it is also the company's corporate logo. Then, again,
Adam and Eve did not fall from grace over a grapefruit.) And consider
this: there's a bite out of that apple.

Sex in advertising and product design isn't new. The ruins of Pompeii
revealed painted wall panels of a brothel depicting good Romans in
positions both various and compromising. The brothel owners were,
no doubt, drumming up interest in their product, just like any other
business; "I'll have one of those to go, please."

Modern business is no less forthright. Ever looked at a shampoo
bottle and wondered about its shape? You're not alone. Said Lugton:
"The cars of the 1950s were designed to look like they had thrusting
breasts." Industrial designers are often asked to bring out that sort
of thing in a product. Happens all the time.

Products don't have to look like women to sell, though it helps. The IBM
is very "masculine", with "hard, sharp, straight lines" - the antithesis
of the G3 - says Lugton, but it has also sold very well.

Still, there must have been some designers working overtime at Apple to
come up with such an inviting form, because they have reached a sort of
aesthetic G spot. The G3 Eve is not overtly sexual; she's a little coy,
very feminine and understated. Seeing computers through the eyes of
an industrial designer brings a whole new meaning to Apple's product
description for its new iMac: "designed to make you want to reach out
and touch it." There's a loss of innocence seeing the world this way.

Of course, not everyone sees this female form; in fact, the G3 Eve is
a hot debate among my geek set. Some deny her existence, others rally
to her cause with the religious fervor of an Elvis stamp collector. An
informal poll showed a gender division - the females saw the woman, the
males did not. Not surprising, says Lugton, since women tend to see a
"literalness in form more readily than men do".

One geek, a hard-core Linux programmer, lacked the imagination necessary
to even conjure up the G3 Eve: "Call me sexually repressed, but I just
don't see it." The Windows 95 user looked at it from several angles
and proclaimed: "Looks more like a mouse than a woman to me." The NT
consultant wanted to know if it came with a "free datadildo". The Apple
geek gave a long pause, then said with a little leer: "Mmm, biting the
apple." I felt the need to cover my laptop's nudity.

Some geeks even mocked the G3 Eve. One friend, who virtually lives on
an airplane shuttling between Sydney and Melbourne, mused sarcastically
on the potentially electrifying effect of unveiling the laptop's sexy
silhouette mid-air. He quipped: "Will the hosties tell you to put
your G3 woman away under the seat in front of you or in the overhead
locker, because she might interfere with the aircraft navigation
instruments?" Sigh.

I decided to call Apple for comment and heated denials. They were happy
to provide both. Richard Stonley, the Apple Computers market development
manager for consumer and small business in Australia, didn't quite know
how to answer my question. "We make a machine that is good-looking,
elegant, even sleek. It's a fashion statement," he said. But is it a
woman? "Er, no."

Maybe he was 7000 kilometres from the original Apple design team, but I
was hoping for a better outcome from this Rorschach Ink Blot Test. Did
he want to "reach out and touch it"? Stonley hedged on that one. "When
you see the PowerBook you do want to touch it, but definitely not in a
sexual manner. I mean it has a nice cover, nice edges ... but, you know,
I just don't want that sort of relationship with my PowerBook."

Too late. Most of us do have just that sort of relationship with our
computers these days. Our computers spend more time in our laps than our
real-life partners do. We can become just as titillated by the images
on our screens as by any reality, and as emotionally attached to people
we know online as those we know in person.

Still, fashionable - and perhaps feminine - design is the Next Big Thing
in computers. Chairman Andy Grove of Intel, a competitor of Apple's
chip manufacturer of choice, Motorola, looks to the iMac as the future
of computers. He said in a recent interview: "Sometimes what Apple is
doing may have an electrifying effect on the rest of us. It's nothing
we couldn't have done, but Apple went ahead and did it."

The final word on the feminine wiles of the G3 goes to Marissa,
the waitress at my corner cafe. Marissa serves the most orgasmic cup
of coffee in Melbourne; this is a woman who knows how to caress her
cappuccino machine. I put the G3 woman theory to her: she took one look
at the silhouette and said: "Ooh, that's very sensual.

If I had the money, I'd buy one."

Caption: Illustration by Gregory Baldwin