37 
Anyone who’s purchased anything from Apple in the last decade knows how beautiful an experience unboxing their products is. In fact, there’s a small team at Apple who take the subject very, very seriously.
Network World has been rooting through Adam Lashinsky’s upcoming book, Inside Apple, and found some wonderful insights into why its packaging is so good. In fact, hidden away at Apple’s HQ is a secretive packaging room only accessible to a select few. What goes on in there? According to Lashinsky:
“To fully grasp how seriously Apple executives sweat the small stuff, consider this: For months, a packaging designer was holed up in this room performing the most mundane of tasks – opening boxes.”
I guess to make a box that’s a joy to open, you have to open a lot of boxes. That’s why that same room is sometimes filled with hundreds — hundreds! — of prototype boxes, all made by Apple’s designers. Again, according to Lashinsky, Apple always wants to use the box that elicits the perfect emotional response on opening. I feel manipulated. Anyway, to get those boxes so emotive, a lot of work’s involved, explains Lashinsky:
“One after another, the designer created and tested an endless series of arrows, colors, and tapes for a tiny tab designed to show the consumer where to pull back the invisible, full-bleed sticker adhered to the top of the clear iPod box. Getting it just right was this particular designer’s obsession.
What’s more, it wasn’t just about one box. The tabs were placed so that when Apple’s factory packed multiple boxes for shipping to retail stores, there was a natural negative space between the boxes that protected and preserved the tab.”
I come away from this thinking two things. First, I’m glad that this happens. Rightly or wrongly, I still get excited whenever I open an Apple product. In fact, I get a little excited when anyone opens something from Apple. Second: I’m glad I’m not an Apple packaging designer. [Network World]
A Surfboard Bag for Dedicated Beach Bums
Report: Worker Abuse and Underage Employment at Six More Samsung Factories
UK Government Has "Very Serious Concerns" Over Employer Facebook Snooping
Assuming this is true, it’s stupid. Sure its a good idea to package your stuff protectively and attractively but to have someone test “hundreds” of box designs is incredibly anal. How many people will remember the “box opening experience” 30 seconds after opening it?
I’m sure a good part of this was exaggerated, but even if it wasn’t – I’d have to disagree with you on the stupid part.
Yes, the box opening experience can be incredibly short and trivial, but if you had to get through your iPad by cutting through cheap molded plastic with a pair of scissors that likely would have affected how you felt about the product. Apple’s packaging is smart too – allowing them to pack in a lot more products into a container while still keeping them protected for example.
So yes, testing 100 odd boxes might seem a bit anal, but considering how many different types of products they need to think about – an iPad is packaged differently to an iMac for example, 100 doesn’t seem like that many!
Oh I agree 100% that there are obvious things you don’t do when packaging you product and every company has a department that designs packaging to be attractive and strong whilst using minimal space and materials, but my understanding of the article was that Apple went far beyond this “One after another, the designer created and tested an endless series of arrows, colors, and tapes for a tiny tab designed to show the consumer where to pull back the invisible, full-bleed sticker adhered to the top of the clear iPod box. Getting it just right was this particular designer’s obsession”. Sure, if Apple want to pay this guy to be obsessive about 1 tiny arrow that’s up to them, but you’re paying for it.
Searching YouTube for “apple unboxing” 80,1000 results, god knows how many views – it’s a big deal to some! If people are filling YouTube with videos of your packaging, that probably validates your meticulous decision process
design*
Show me one of these unboxing video’s where they unbox the product, then throw it away and examine the packaging. Unboxings are popular because of the product, not the box. Actually don’t bother, there probably are video’s like that, but they won’t be the majority.
Box porn?
Unboxing Videos – Yes, that weird practice.
I preferred the old boxes. The joy of opening the first gen ipod nano I owned with a plethora of goodies (including a protective sleeve) is something I will never forget. I waited to get my first gen ipod touch till it had John Lennon on the front, and to this day still have that box. Slowly but surely apple boxes have been getting more and more minimalistic and though opening the box of the 4s was thrilling (It’s really hard to describe how smoothly that box slides, it’s something you have to do for yourself), the design of the boxes has severely degraded in my eyes.
Surely up to a point they don’t need to test any new packaging designs? I mean MacBooks, iMacs, iPhones and iPods (to an extent) are going to keep the same form factor and I doubt much needs to be changed now (the iMac packaging including all boxes and styrofoam is only 6 pieces).
This isn’t surprising at all for Apple. They’ve (well, Steve) always taken pride in the complete experience of opening the package and stuff. It’s like when the iPhone first came out in the UK and they were activating in store, the carphone warehouse instructions leaked online and one step was “once you open the box, allow the customer to hold the phone for a moment” or something.
It is INCREDIBLY anal, I mean after all it *is* just packaging, but at the same time they do it so well, because they spend so much money on special packaging rooms I guess..
I remember opening my iPhone and opening the little cardboard thing with the papers and seeing the SIM ejector tool in there and thinking “wow, thats really logical that they include something like that”, but I’m not exactly normal…
I’m not one of those people who go mad for Apple products, but their whole ethos is aimed at the experience.
This starts from when you walk into the store and buy your iPod, the store is clean cut, modern and filled to the brim with all the tech you want. There are people at hand to help. Always. Have you ever gone into an Apple store and not been asked if you want any help? You haven’t, because they always ask.
Once you’ve bought your iPod you take it home. If you’re one of those who wants to wait outside early in the morning for the first taste of the new products, they’ll even cheer you on the way out. You’re a prince, and you know it.
Next you get home and you unpack your iPod. Now, I bought my first iPod about five years ago, it was a £230 piece of equipment. Worth more than my car. When I bought it I’d ummm’d and ahhh’d about it for weeks, I was a student and that was a LOT of money. So when I got it home I didn’t want to have to wrestle with packaging, grab the scissors and hack. Luckily I didn’t have to, thanks to Johnny Boxes up there. The top of the box slid off with the perfect amount of suction revealing my iPod, gleaming and new in all it’s glory.
I keep all the Apple boxes I get, I have about four different iPhone boxes from different people. They’re good boxes. I keep whatever in them, nuts, bolts, usb sticks. They’re good boxes. Every time you open them they feel well made.
It’s weird to talk about a carboard box like that, but they are, and things that are well made are nice. Think of a swiss watch, ticking away with every tiny little piece working perfectly. I’m sorry if I’m weird, but that shit gets me hard.
Anyway, you then boot up your product for the first time and, well, everyone’s used an Apple product, they’re nice to use. The Apple logo comes up on the screen and you’re all like “Fuck yeah, I’m going to listen to the SHIT out of this bad boy.” Apple products aren’t necessarily the best. They’re not the fastest, most reliable, even the shiniest. They’re nice to use though.
It’s all about making nice things. If you’re going to do it do it right. Perhaps trying hundreds and hundreds of different tab designs is abit anal, and yes it doesn’t really add all that much to the advancement of the human race, but when you open that box for the first time…
Well, I can only hope the birth of my first born child can live up to it, because it’s got some serious competition.
Apple do right, they have an image to protect, as Apple products have a superior design, they wouldn’t want to package products in something of a lower standard. Apples reputation is key to its success. If you buy a Rolex watch, would you expect a nicely designed box? Its just the same and Apple users have come to expect this from Apple.
I think its brilliant. Paying one guy’s salary, or even a small team, is a drop in the ocean compared to their turnover
The last time I bought an Apple product was an Ipod nano about 4 years ago but as I think about it I can remember how nice lifting the lid off the box felt.
Its all about the post-purchase experience that staves off buyers remorse. Just little things like when you’ve paid for any expensive product, the salesman says ‘Good choice! you really cant go wrong with one of these!”