GoKawiilThis story is part of 9to5Mac’s series celebrating Apple’s 50th anniversary.
Aluminum was once a cheap metal to consumers, primarily used in soda cans, kitchen foil, cookware, and window frames. It also lived a double life as an industrial material used in aerospace. It was simultaneously a disposable commodity in everyday products and an engineering marvel that helped get humans to the moon.
That is of course until Apple decided to make aluminum their signature material, in the blink of an eye aluminum became a consumer luxury the second Steve Jobs revealed the 12” and 17″ PowerBook G4s in 2003. What followed was 23 years of ultra premium aluminum devices that completely changed the way we live.
In 2001 Apple had seemingly landed on titanium as its new signature material to follow its multi-colored plastic era when Steve Jobs introduced the PowerBook G4 Titanium. But the material had shortcomings when the company attempted to build products out of it, namely its painted finish that chipped over time. No other products of that era got the titanium treatment. Only two years later, they’d move on entirely when Steve unveiled the 12” and 17” PowerBook G4 models. He said:
We built it out of a new material. After researching everything, the best material to build this out of was an aircraft grade aluminum alloy. It’s beautiful and it’s hard anodized and not painted.
Steve Jobs Introducing the first Aluminum PowerBook
That said it all. They could achieve the look they wanted, a satiny silver finish smooth to the touch without paint, without multiple layers of materials, that could hold up over time. It was lightweight and easy to work with, making a product like a 17” laptop even remotely feasible.
Titanium was central to the announcement of the first PowerBook G4 in 2001, but aluminum was only a brief slide in the updated models’ announcement. The irony being that aluminum ended up being far more important to Apple’s future, even if titanium would later rear its head again.
Apple would go on to use aluminum in iPods, displays, the iPhone, the iPad, and just about everything in between. In 2007 when they introduced the first all aluminum iMac, Steve said they “build our most professional products out of aluminum” and highlighted how durable and recyclable it was. By then it had largely taken over the whole product line. Towards the end of the year the iPod Classic would adopt aluminum too.
The White 2006 iMacs Next to the Aluminum 2007 iMacs
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