GLOBADOM

Earlier this week, I bought a refurbished MacBook (right in time for Apple to update their offerings, so there you go).

Have you ever seen a photo of Apple’s product packaging? Of course you have. It’s so pretty nobody can resist.

Beautiful! Too bad I didn’t get to keep this one. You could almost use that box as a carrying case.

Even the inside of the box is pretty. You’ll have to trust me on this, but the MacBook (“MacBook Amateur”?) uses virtually the same packaging, in terms of quality and layout. Form-fitted styrofoam, nicely packaged accessories, a cute little well for the disc and documentation package.

So, what about a refurb–I’m sorry, Certified Reconditioned Product?

Very…brown. And gray.

So, the form-fitted foam inside?

Aaah! It burns! My eyes bleed!

I haven’t shown the cardboard insert that sits atop this foam for holding the accessories, but it was even worse: nothing sat in it properly, and the smaller accessories actually rattled around, hidden from view in the folds of the cardboard insert, when I first opened the box.

Now, why is Apple doing this? The obvious reason is that it’s a bit cheaper, and probably more universal for the short runs of refurb stuff. I think the rather generic cardboard box could hold almost any Mac from a Mini to a small iMac. And costs should matter: they offer a pretty generous discount on refurbs (more than their restocking fee, for example).

But I think this is also a marketing decision: buy the new product, get the nice box. Buy the refurb, get the crappy box. I suspect there’s lots of subtle little marketing pressures that are being put on people to say “hey, you can buy this product, but here’s lots of little almost-reasons not to.”

Cheap people like me get punished in all kinds of ways. Some are simple and cruel, like buying a $2 vernier caliper at Princess Auto and finding out it’s off by about 0.7mm. Some are complicated and funny, like my year-long quest for a power adapter after I bought a really nice bicycle headlight for $5. This Apple technique is fairly special: it’s obvious and harmless.

I’ll take it!