Ben Lovejoy of 9to5Mac:
It is just me, or do you have to work for Apple to think that the fourth color added to the iPhone 6s/Plus is rose gold? To anyone else, the color is, like the Apple Watch Sport version, surely very obviously pink?
Show anyone a pi- sorry, rose gold iPhone 6s and ask them what color it is and they are, unless they have been reading Apple’s marketing materials, going to tell you it’s pink. Because it is.
It seems odd that Apple, with all its famed attention to detail, its special alloys and all the other great things Jony Ive talks about in those signature videos, couldn’t come up with a rose gold color that looks … well, something like rose gold. Stylized or not. Something that isn’t, in fact, quite clearly pink.
Just yesterday my sister texted me regarding this very issue:
I’ve never been interested in any of Apple’s “Gold”-colored offerings, so the semantics of Rose Gold vs. pink are lost on me.
What Lovejoy had to say about Space Gray—that’s what interests me.
I’ve mentioned it before: Apple’s “Space Gray” color option isn’t always the same color. In fact, it differs greatly across Apple’s product line.
Here’s a picture Rene Ritchie posted to Instagram, showing the discrepancy:
Lovejoy on Space Gray:
But when you pick a gray, and even give a special name to that particular shade, shouldn’t the name actually describe the shade you chose?
Apple doesn’t seem to know what it means by Space Gray. Compare the iPhone 5s and iPhone 6.
They are not remotely the same color. The difference between iPhone 6 and Apple Watch Sport is less marked, but they are still not the same color. Why go to the trouble of giving a name to a particular shade of gray when it doesn’t, in fact, describe a particular shade of gray?
Exactly. This is Apple—the world’s most valuable company. The same company whose CEO’s remarkable comeback story is inextricably linked to the company’s own comeback story. They who brought us the original Macintosh, the iMac, the iPod, iTunes, the iPhone, iPad, and most recently, Apple Watch.
Impressive.
And yet: why can’t they just use a single color for Space Gray?
“The Emperor’s New Clothes” couldn’t be more appropriate. The phrase is literally an idiom for situations in which, even in the absence of any logical proof, everyone simply goes along with the what has been told to them for fear that to do otherwise would seem ignorant.