đ¤ âJust a little detail that wouldnât sell anythingâ
Marcin Wichary in a post about a delightful little feature lost to time:
The green LED was replaced by a white one, but âpulsating light indicates that the computer is sleepingâ buried the nicest part of it â the animation was designed to mimic human breathing at 12 breaths per minute, and feel comforting and soothing:
I had a few Macs with a version of this sleep indicator, and I loved everything about it. It was functional, beautiful, thoughtful, and so incredibly polished. I remember how sad I was when I learned this little light wasn't going to be on my next Mac. It made me sadder than when I found out the Apple logo on the lid would no longer glow, or when they removed the external battery indicator LEDs that would show your approximate charge level at the press of a button without having to open your Mac.
The thing is, the sleep indicator light was so much more than just a sleep indicator light.
It was a bridge between these wonderful tools and the people who use them. So many designers fall into the trap of making their gadget mimic a human, to make it pretend to be something it's not. Doing so will almost always fail. The Mac, in contrast, employs useful analogies for concepts like sleep, but never tries to be something it's not. Macs don't breathe, but they (used to) glow, so why not glow in a soothing way? Macs are used by humans, and a soothing sleepy glow that mimics the timing of human breathing is an olive branch between the often-harsh digital world of hard edges, ones and zeros, on and off and the squishy analog experience of being alive.
It was tangible proof of the attention to detail brought to bear when designing and building these machines. It was a love letter from people who care about these things to other people who care about these things. "We're here," this little light said, "we see you, we know you're out there, we know this will make you smile, and we know that smile is worth the effort."
It was showing off and having fun. It's okay to show off and have fun sometimes! Especially in low-key, subtle ways like this that people may not notice for a while, or only notice if they're paying attention.
It was also, of course, not a sleep indicator light at all, because it served another purpose. Sometimes, it was a you-forgot-to-charge-and-your-computer-is-dead-hope-there's-a-power-outlet-nearby lack of light that worked as soon as you opened your backpack.